Page 115 - Prathima Volume 12

A Review of Postcolonial Scholarship: Conducting Research on Culture and Society
Much of the anthropological work of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries
have been focused on issues of domination and inequality. In effect, the
anthropological enterprise has shifted from documenting “Culture” to examining
relationships between the Global North and Global South as well as the dynamics of
knowledge, truth, and power. What is culture? How has it been conceptualized in the
past? During the ninetieth century, the writing of texts was still a problem linked to
methods. White scholars, for example, have shown how historical writings of this
same period took an ironic turn. Even though the twentieth century attempts to escape
the ironic mode, the authors observe that it is still strong during this period. The
authors seem to agree that the ethnographic method with a new interpretive discourse
(Geertz 1973) brought some innovations in anthropological writing. Even though the
ethnographic method offers a new discourse which permits the interpretation of social
reality, I believe that there is still a lot to be done in anthropology in order to transcend
this crisis of representation considering the strength of the discipline residing in many
old frameworks. Furthermore, anthropologists too have started using postmodern
literature in their writings and research. Why is it so important for postmodern
literature to be included in anthropological works? The next section will discuss the
postmodern moment in anthropology.

4.3. “Postmodern Moment” in Anthropology

Revising old frameworks in research has become a new trend in anthropology. In
particular, “postmodern moment” (Marcus & Fisher, 1999) has affected all the fields
in humanities and behavioral sciences. In anthropological research, ethnographers can
provide the “jewelers-eye view” of the world needed in the postmodern moment by
stepping back from “broad encompassing frameworks of theory”, and instead,
“explore innovative ways of describing at the microscopic level the process of change
itself” (Marcus & Fisher, 1999, p.15). Anthropology's major contribution is the
ethnographic method, “bracketed by its two justifications:” “the capturing of cultural
diversity” and “cultural critique of ourselves” (Marcus & Fisher, 1999, p. 20). Thus,
postmodernism has influenced anthropological writings, which has paved way to
discovering “new types of experimental ethnographic writing that anthropology can
best expose the global systems of power relations that are embedded in traditional
representations of other societies.” (Mascia-Lees, et.al., 1989, p. 9).

In addition, as globalization has become a powerful force, social life around the world
has become homogenized. Marcus and Fischer (1999) see this shift as a move away
from anthropologists' “traditional media” of public rituals and other structures. In
order to counter this, anthropologists must focus their attention on “the person, self,
and emotions.” (Marcus & Fischer, 1999, p.45) The current experiments within
ethnography moves to a “firmer grasp of how all these forms of understanding are

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