Critical Review #3

Clifford’s “On Ethnographic Authority” attempts to differentiate between several forms of authority namely “experiential, interpretive, dialogical, and polyphonic” (54). He begins, however, by examining the distinction between anthropology and ethnography tracing back to 1900-1960, when field research became an established ideal in American anthropology. The transition period that involved the so-called “intermediate generation of ethnographers” was characterized by an almost lab-based approach of maintaining an etic perspective on the culture being studied. By 1920, a new theory arose, a more emic approach, one that established the notion of participant observation as a key feature of ethnography. Despite the apparent transition from an etic to an emic approach, Clifford stresses the synergy of both perspectives, “on one hand grasping the sense of specific occurences and gestures empathetically, on the other stepping back to situate these meanings in wider contexts” (34). Similar to the collaborative effect of emic and etic perspectives, Clifford tries to discover a link between experiential (sense or feel of a particular culture or place), interpretive (finding clarity and meaning), dialogical (interacting with informants), and polyphonic (obtaining different “voices” or perspectives) authority, but ends up finding that each one seems to counteract the process of the other.

Roland Barthes is quoted as saying, “a text’s unity lies not in its origin but in its destination” (52). Does this same concept apply to the model of dialogue? Does this ultimately detract from authority in that the more people read it, the less control the researcher has over interpretation?