Somewhere between what is and what if: Fictionalisation and ethnographic inquiry (2011) (original) (raw)
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Exploring fictionality: Afterword
Exploring fictionality: Conceptions, test cases, discussions, ed. Cindie Aaen Maagaard, Daniel Schäbler, and Marianne Wolff Lundholt. University of Southern Denmark Studies in Literature, 69, 2020
The essays in this volume do a great job of exploring the relation between fictionality and factuality from multiple perspectives, engaging (explicitly and implicitly) in a stimulating dialogue between those two terms, between theory and example, and between different approaches to the issues and concepts involved. I value especially the range of the particular cases studied: the variety of discourses encompassed in the volume includes political speeches, generic fiction, biography and autobiography, historiography, advertising, journalism, and the municipal design vision statement; the media embraced, beyond language in various print media, include oral discourse, blogs, comics, television, and photography. This is an abundance of riches, and the detail of the individual case studies rewards close engagement. Every example is of interest not only for the sake of the argument in hand, but as an opportunity to test, clarify and refine the conceptual framework that informs the volume as a whole. I found myself caught up in the detail of every essay, but it is clearly not feasible for me to engage with each one on that level here; nor would doing so be the most likely route to a coherent retrospect upon the volume. Yet the examples here are of primary importance, precisely because the theoretical and methodological orientation that informs the essays is currently underspecified, and raises some fundamental questions.
In-Between Fiction and Non-Fiction: Reflections on the Poetics of Ethnography in Literature and Film
2018
This volume invites the reader to join in with the recent focus on subjectivity and self-reflection, as the means of understanding and engaging with the social and historical changes in the world through storytelling. It examines the symbiosis between anthropology and fiction, on the one hand, by looking at various ways in which the two fields co-emerge in a fruitful manner, and, on the other, by re-examining their political, aesthetic, and social relevance to world history. Following the intellectual crisis of the 1970s, anthropology has been criticized for losing its ethnographic authority and vocation. However, as a consequence of this, ethnographic scope has opened towards more subjective and self-reflexive forms of knowledge and representations, such as the crossing of the boundaries between autobiography and ethnography. The collection of essays re-introduces the importance of authorship in relationship to readership, making a ground-breaking move towards the study of fictiona...
Cambridge Scholars, 2018
The volume invites the reader to join in the debate regarding subjectivity and self-reflection, as the means of understanding and engaging through story telling with the social and historical changes that currently take place in the world. It examines the symbiosis between anthropology and fiction. On the one hand, by looking at various ways in which the two field co-emerge in a fruitful manner, and, on the other, by re-examining their political, aesthetic, and social relevance to world history. Following the intellectual crisis of the 1970s, anthropology lost its ethnographic authority and vocation. However, because of this, the ethnographic scope has opened up, towards more subjective and self-reflexive forms of knowledge and representations, such as the crossing of the boundaries between autobiography and ethnographic writing. In addition to this, the volume returns to authorship, discussed in direct relation to readership and spectatorship, making a ground-breaking move towards the study of fictional texts and images as cultural, sociological, and political reflections of the time and place in which they were produced. In this way, the authors of the volume contribute to the widening of the ethnographic scope of contemporary anthropology. A number of the chapters were presented as papers in two conferences organised by the Association of Social Anthropologists of the UK and Commonwealth at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, entitled "Arts and aesthetics in a globalising world" (2012), and at the University of Exeter, entitled "Symbiotic Anthropologies" (2015). Each chapter offers a unique method of working in the grey area between and beyond the categories of fiction and non-fiction, while creatively reflecting upon current methodological, ethical, and theoretical issues, in anthropology and cultural studies. This is an important book for undergraduate and post-graduate students of anthropology, cultural and media studies, art theory, and creative writing, as well as academic researchers in these fields. TABLE OF CONTENTS Introductory Note ...................................................................................................1 Towards an Anthropology of Fiction Michelangelo Paganopoulos Part I: Literature Chapter One...........................................................................................................20 Kant’s Lectures on Anthropology and the Rise of World Society Michelangelo Paganopoulos Chapter Two ..........................................................................................................47 A Bottle of Manchester United Chardonnay Keith Hart Chapter Three........................................................................................................73 Parallel Perspectives in Ethnography and Literature: Reflections from Assamese Literature Prarthana Saikia Chapter Four..........................................................................................................73 Beyond Ethnographic Surealism: Hauntology and Ethnography Carrie B. Clanton Chapter Five ..........................................................................................................97 The Working Day John Hutnyk Chapter Six ..........................................................................................................120 Multinational Banking Culture in India: Facts in Fiction Geetika Ranjan Chapter Seven .....................................................................................................130 Mario Lodi’s Educational Approach: Is this Relevant for Anthropology in the Twenty-First Century? Melania Calestani Part II: Film Chapter Eight.......................................................................................................146 Forest of Bliss: Un poème réaliste—On the Aesthetic Structure of a Poetical Documentarism Norbert M. Schmitz Chapter Nine........................................................................................................161 Notes from a Film: The Places from which We are Absent Marta Kucza Chapter Ten .........................................................................................................176 Sensorial Resonance as a Key Reading Tool into Migrants’ Experiences Monica Heintz Chapter Eleven....................................................................................................187 The Post-Socialist Aesthetics of Jia Zhang-ke and the DV Revolution Ishita Tiwary Chapter Twelve...................................................................................................196 Mapping the Rrise of Subversive Slave Consciousness in Tomás Gutiérrez Alea’s The Last Supper Ira Sahasrabudhe Chapter Thirteen .................................................................................................210 The “Other” Within: Constructions of Disability in Popular Hindi Cinema Shubhangi Vaidya
Fictionality as Rhetoric: A Distinctive Research Paradigm
The rhetorical account of fictionality has drawn considerable attention in narratological circles, but the extent to which it is fundamentally at odds with other approaches, despite their diversity, has not been recognised. This essay aims to elucidate the significant departure from all previous contributions to the theory of fiction, achieved by conceiving of fictionality as a resource integral to direct communication, not the quality marking fiction's detachment from its framing communicative context.
Narrative, 2017
In this essay we respond to Mari Hatavara's and Jarmila Mildorf 's critical engagement with our "Ten Theses about Fictionality. " We explain why we find our rhetorical approach to fictionality more persuasive than their approach; more specifically, we explain why we disagree with their claims that fictionality entails narrative and that the presence in a text of techniques conventionally associated with fiction gives that text a hybrid or fictional status. We also explain why we find the large discursive territory covered by our notion of fictionality to be a theoretical advantage rather than disadvantage.
Ethnography and Fiction. What is the Difference?
Etnografia e Ricerca Qualitativa, 2024
It has been said that ethnography is «suspended between fact and fiction». If so, can one infer that the proprium of the ethnographic operation lies precisely in such a «suspended» state? Some considerations are advanced here concerning the relation that exists between ethnography and fiction with respect to their basic epistemological operation. Specifically, it is suggested that whereas ethnography is premised on the requirements of «being there», fiction ignites a different dynamic, here defined as «decoming that» (the neologism is explained in the piece).
True life, real lives: Revisiting the boundaries between ethnography and fiction
American Ethnologist, 2014
Ethnography and fiction have long been in dialogue in their common endeavor to understand human life and through their shared foundation on writing. Recently, anthropologists and sociologists have expressed concern that the worlds they study might be depicted more compellingly, accurately, and profoundly by novelists or filmmakers than by social scientists. Discussing my work on the embodiment of history in South Africa and on urban policing in France in light of, respectively, J. M. Coetzee's novel The Life & Times of Michael K and David Simon's television series The Wire, I analyze their commonalities and singularities. Using Marcel Proust's meditation on life and suggesting the heuristic value of distinguishing true life from real lives, I propose, first, to differentiate horizontal and vertical approaches to lives and, second, to complicate the dichotomy associating ethnography with the former and fiction with the latter. This reflection, which borrows from Georges Perec's rumination on the puzzle-maker, can be read as a defense of ethnography against a certain prevailing pessimism. [ethnography, fiction, writing, life, imagination]
Fictionality As Rhetoric A Response to Paul Dawson
Narrative, vol 23,1 January 2015, 2015
We thank Paul Dawson for his well-informed, thoughtful, and collegial response to our "Ten Theses about Fictionality. " We would like to respond in kind, especially because doing so gives us an opportunity to expand on and clarify key points of our essay. We shall proceed by making a few global points about the relationship between his Ten Theses and our Ten Theses and then turning to specific comments on his Ten.