Ethnography as Commentary: Writing from the Virtual Archive

152 Pages·2008·2.52 MB·English

by  Johannes Fabian

Ethnography as Commentary

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Writing from the Virtual Archive
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Contents u
vii Preface
1 Introduction
Closing House—A Late Ethnography
21 Chapter One
An Event: Closing the House
39 Chapter Two
A Text: Made, Not Found
55 Chapter Three
Kahenga’s Work
73 Chapter Four
Kahenga’s World
Contents
91 Chapter Five
Kahenga’s Thought
111 Chapter Six
Endings and Ends
125 Notes
133 Works Cited
vi 137 Index
Preface u
This book neither looks nor sounds like a textbook and
yet, if an excuse were needed for its having been written,
it would be that this book can serve as an example, an il-
lustration of, as well as a model for, writing ethnography
‘‘in the presence of texts.’’ That notion will be explored at
length; in essence it is the idea that the possibility to de-
posit our documents in a virtual archive on the Internet
changes the conditions and constraints of presenting
knowledge: The anthropologist can now write and his
or her readers can read around materials that are no longer
limited to short excerpts and quotations. The only limits
to making and keeping ‘‘ethnographic documents’’ directly
accessible are those of the time and energy it takes to set
up, maintain, and consult virtual archives.
Preface
The approach I take is retrospective: reflecting on times passed and times
past, calling up memories, and thinking about the role of memory in the
work of ethnography. While such preoccupations may seem to be the
privilege, or affliction, of senior practitioners, this study is not offered as a
memoir. On the contrary, it is an experiment that looks to the future. It is
meant to encourage students who are introduced to anthropology, who
prepare themselves for field research, or face the daunting task of earning
their professional credentials with a dissertation.
Beyond that, I hope to make a contribution to debates about the nature
viii of ethnography in these postcolonial and ‘‘global’’ times. We seem to have
overcome anxieties that brought us close to rejecting ethnography as an
inherently imperial form of inquiry. Ironically, while we were busy worrying,
almost everybody else became enamored of the concept of ethnography and
the practices associated with it. Between critical despondency and naive
enthusiasm there is a space where ethnography can survive and thrive as the
core of anthropology—if the researcher is competent, prepared to work
hard, relentless in questioning the legitimacy of his or her claims to knowl-
edge, and, in my experience, plain lucky.
As an experiment in ethnographic writing, Ethnography as Commentary
could be called an exercise in form. However, the approach I have been
advocating in my work has always emphasized substance, the content of
experience and communicative interaction. I see our task as (re)presenta-
tion and interpretation of historically situated events and practices, based
on objectivations, the ‘‘documents’’ we produce or find. In this case I focus
on a conversation that followed the performance of a ritual and was re-
corded before many readers of this book (I hope) were born. The event took
place in Lubumbashi, a large town in the Democratic Republic of the
Congo, a world with which they are not likely to be familiar. Because the
point of my experiment is to explore an alternative to the monograph with
its encyclopedic rubrics, I keep general information about time and place to
a minimum. This does not mean that I consider such information unim-
portant. But, much like the ethnographic text that will be the object of this
study, abundant knowledge of its social and cultural context is present and
easily accessible on the Internet. For matters that require specific knowledge
Preface
beyond what the text itself contains, I provide conventional references to
the literature.
By the time one gets around to writing what might be called a ‘‘late
ethnography’’ it becomes impossible properly to acknowledge debts to per-
sons and institutions. Therefore I want to mention only those to whom I
owe most: Kahenga Mukonkwa Michel was my interlocutor in the conver-
sation that is at the core of this book. All attempts to contact him and
involve him in my project proved futile. This makes me sad; it also strength-
ened my resolve to publish this work.
ix
Next I must acknowledge the work of my colleague at the University of
Amsterdam, Vincent de Rooij. As the webmaster, editor, and co-founder of
Language and Popular Culture in Africa he assures the presence of docu-
ments such as the conversation with Kahenga. Our website exists because
of time and energy he puts into it above and beyond his regular obligations.
Field work in Lubumbashi (1972–74) was made possible by support from
the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Rockefeller Founda-
tion program of aid to the National University of Zaire (records of which
are by now probably forgotten or buried in their archives).
Finally, I am grateful for a stay at the Stanford Humanities Center (2005–
6) and for the intellectual conviviality I enjoyed with my fellow Fellows. All
of them participated in my travails as sympathetic and critical listeners to
daily progress reports at lunch time. Their own projects widened my hori-
zon; Arnold Zwicki, to name just one of them, was an inexhaustible source
of information and guidance in linguistic matters. Conversations with Hay-
den White allowed us to renew a friendship that goes back almost as far as
my meeting with Kahenga, and I would like to take this occasion to join the
well-wishers when he celebrates his eightieth birthday.
Xanten, April 2007