I hope I am not the only one in our class that enjoyed reading this article by Paul Stoller that beautifully blends the ideas of “Ethnography/Memoir/Imagination/Story.”  I think that most Americans have this preconceived notion that storytelling is for children and that in becoming adults we must settle for getting our information from less enjoyable sources.  I love storytelling and think that it is an incredibly effective means of communication.  Stories can tell of events and happenings as seen through a filter of human emotion.  For example, I can watch a documentary about a historical event like the dust bowl.  From that documentary I can understand all of the facts and details of the event.  Knowing all of this still doesn’t tell me what it was like to actually be there.  Reading the accounts of people who lived the dust bowl completes the picture and lets me into their lives. Or as Stoller writes, “I felt like I was there. I felt the pulse of the sun and the itch of dust in my eyes”(Stoller 3).

Coming from a literature background has given me high expectations for a piece of storytelling.  As literature students we learn that a great author can write an incredible ammount of detail and emotion onto the page.  Like our earlier reading, I think that good creative writing is yet one more tool to add to the ethnographers tool box.  Good storytelling is able to show a study of what it is to be human.  I know I would rather read a good study that has storytelling interwoven into the text rather than a dry, unemotional, objective ethnography.