The Theory And Practice Of Writing Ethnography With Literature Forms

Under the influence of postmodernism, a current of reflection swept through the whole western academic circles in 60s of 20th century. Anthropology also was inevitable suffered query from research subjects to expression modes by postmodernist anthropology. In 80s of last century, the debate of "writing culture" concerned with the creation of ethnographic texts and rhetorical, which is greatly weakened the authority of the traditional mode of ethnography, and anthropologists try to change their work from theoretical framework of the society as a whole to exploration of egoistic sentiments and individual ideas. However, the traditional anthropological monotonic doctrinal demonstration has been unable to achieve representation on intuition and inspiration, the theoretical and expressional methods of literature could become a supplement on objective descriptions. Domestic literary anthropologist Pan NianYing has applying literary expression methods through his all anthropological works. His creations adopted diverse literary forms and an elegant style gave a realistic account on history and current situation of the development of Southeast Guizhou. At the same time, his works also successfully conveyed concern on the disappearing of traditional cultures and his concepts about cultural protection and development.This paper in three parts discussed the theory and practice of writing ethnography with literature forms, and researched into the objectivity and viability of the way expressing anthropology ideas with literature forms by analyzing Pan NianYing's creations. The first part related history context in which literary representation of anthropology thoughts occurred, and introduced the development of domestic literary anthropology and practice situation of writing ethnography with literature forms. The second part interpreted Pan NianYing's series anthropology works written with literary forms in detail. Notes of Aiding the Poor is the earliest works of literary anthropology by Pan NianYing, which narrated Pan NianYing's experience of poverty alleviation in a year by an elegant style and a deep thought in culture. Series of Anthropology Notes described the growth and fall of a minority and marginal culture, elegiac sentimentalism occupied in works conveyed his worried thought of the vanish of traditional culture by the impact of modernization. Series of Fieldwork Notes truthfully recorded Pan NianYing's investigation experience in the Southeast of Guizhou with documentary words and visual images. And the conclusion demonstrates the feasibility of writing ethnography with literature forms, and put forward that the representation of anthropology thought could not limit in professional academic treatise, but take different writing styles according to different research requirements.