THE POETICS AND POLITICS OF REPRESENTATION

The “Crisis of Representation”

Critical Theory & Crisis of Representation The anthropology of gender and feminist theory Marxist & Post-Structuralist concerns with power & differentiated society Postmodernism as incredulity (challenge) toward metanarratives of “modernity” –self-other –universality of development

Some Features of Postmodernism Focus on language and textuality Postmodernism as incredulity (challenging) toward metanarratives of modernity – a systematic skepticism Postmodernists are suspicious of authoritative definitions and singular narratives of any trajectory of events celebrates the multiple, incompatible, heterogeneous, fragmented, contradictory nature of postmodern society No linguistic normality — we can only produce pastiche (heteroglossia), partial truths

Hasan: The Culture of Postmodernism Modernism Postmodernism Purposeplay Designchance Hierarchyanarchy art object, finished workprocess, performance, creation, totalizationdecreation, deconstruction Presenceabsence Centeringdispersal genre, boundarytext, intertext Semanticsrhetoric lisible (readerly)scriptible (writerly) Narrativeanti-narrative grande histoirepetite histoire master codeidiolect origin, causedifference-difference, trace Determinacyindeterminacy Transcendenceimmanence

Marxism, Post-Structuralism concern with power/differentiated societies disagreed with the existentialists' claim that each man is what he makes himself individual is shaped by sociological, psychological and linguistic structures over which he/she has no control development of knowledge was intertwined with the mechanisms of (political) power could be uncovered by using particular methods of investigation –deconstruction – archaeology & the order of things Writing culture as configuration of knowledge/power

Anthropology of Gender & Feminist Anthropology Filling in the gaps ethnographic data concerning women -- the reports of male informants transmitted through male ethnographers explore the importance of female activities grounded studies that place gender at the center of analysis gender is an important analytical concept –used to refer to both the male and the female, the cultural construction of these categories, and the relationship between them

The “Solution”: Textual Activism the breaking down of inherited genre distinctions Decenter “ethnographic authority” “Partial truths” & holism Avoid “essentialism” REFLEXIVITY POLYPHONY Historicize the ethnographic present – people without history Undo bounded group – fluidity & permeability Translation is not transparent Attention to power

The “problems of representation” Reflexivity & intersubjective knowledge –Made Invisible – solution: make visible The hegemony of the text/representation –identify aesthetic elements, narrative structures, epistemology of self-other –“ethnographic authority & the text The “political” –Made invisible – solution: make visible –Limited scope on the culture/society