| The post-modern attitude towards ethnography can be summarized by anthropologist James Clifford's words: "the historical predicament of ethnography, [is] the fact that it is always caught up in the invention of, not the representation, of cultures" (Clifford & Marcus 2). This conclusion about ethnography is well taken and not in question. However, a close examination of the way in which Clifford reaches this conclusion, reveals a problematic method. This thesis explains that the way he arrives at the conclusion potentially undermines the conclusion. While not disagreeing with Clifford's use of narratology as a means of examining ethnography, this thesis shows how he uses a reading of the narrative structures of Conrad's Heart of Darkness tautologically to fashion an argument to save the reputation of Bronislaw Malinowski as the father of modern anthropology. It shows that the ultimate implication of Clifford's choice of Conrad and his work as a means for saving Malinowski, is an advocacy for an older notion of anthropology intimately connected with the maintenance of colonial conditions. Such a formulation of ethnographic practices does not fall in line with Clifford's general revisionary stance in relation to ethnography. The thesis then explores other readings of novelistic narrative structures, to offer alternative means for reaching Clifford's conclusion about ethnography that maintain the method of using the study of narrative, and to reaffirm the importance of literary analysis for examining ethnography. |
