Critique of Postmodernism and James Clifford’s “Partial Truths”

      Following its emergence in other disciplines such as literary analysis and philosophy, the assimilation of postmodernism into the body of theoretical approaches within anthropology brought to light a new emphasis on discourses of power and ethnographic representation.  Building on the work of symbolic and interpretive anthropologists such as Victor Turner and Clifford Geertz, the postmodernist trend in anthropology underscored the textual, and therefore inherently biased, nature of ethnography.  With this new-found consideration of the flaw in supposing an ethnographic text to be an unquestionable, view from Mount Olympus, account of the culture in study, “Deconstruction became a new watchword for anthropologists” (HAT 151).  The implications of the gendered, socio-economic trend of the white, European male anthropologist, as well as situating the discipline as a whole within a global and historical context, began to take shape.  To briefly reiterate the three major tenets of postmodernism which were discussed in class, there is no unbiased knowledge, or objective ethnography; power is implicit in knowledge; and culture should be read as a text or performance.  The last of the three tenets recalls the convergence of postmodernism with symbolic anthropology, while the first two tenets reflect on how power shapes knowledge, both through what has been written and who is writing.

      James Clifford’s introduction “Partial Truths” explores the implications of the postmodernist critique of ethnographies as “a genre of literature, and thus a form of art,” as well how this perpetuates historical and contextual power relationships (423).  Clifford’s move to distinguish between the dual connotations of fiction is not only a strength of his article, but a distinction which makes postmodernism more approachable.  That is, in delineating between fiction as falsehood and “something made or fashioned,” Clifford does not condemn ethnographies as not having a purpose in light of this theory, nor does he offer a bleak future for ethnographic study.  Rather, in saying that “Ethnographic writings can properly be called fictions in the sense of ‘something made or fashioned,’” Clifford explodes the area of study and questioning which can be applied to anthropology (426).  This idea does not discount the ethnographic work, but rather calls for attention to be paid to factors outside of the content of the ethnography, such as: Who conducted the research?  Why did they choose this narrative structure?  What does their choice of episodes to include say about their own culture background and perspective?  In English literature studies, a postmodernist critique of a text merely deconstructs the textual inconsistencies present.  In Beginning Theory: An Introduction to Literary and Cultural Theory, Peter Barry describes that for a postmodernist, “fragmentation is an exhilarating, liberating phenomenon, symptomatic of our escape from the claustrophobic embrace of fixed systems of belief.” (Barry 81) Postmodernist study in literature, then, in no way disregards a work as unfit for study, or invalidates its position in academic research.  It merely looks at it with a more critically nuanced eye, identifying the questions that have been neglected and, even if slightly uncomfortable, pushing ahead into those new areas. 

      Clifford also states that “Even the best ethnographic texts – serious, true fiction- are systems, or economies of truth.  Power and history work through them, in ways their authors cannot fully control.  Ethnographic truths are thus inherently partial- committed and incomplete.” (427) The role of postmodernism is to take these inconsistencies and to foreground them, thereby making the embedded power tensions in the work accessible and then working to tease them out of the study.  Since postmodernism states that there is no “true” representation of a culture, sifting through these ingrained power discrepancies will not ultimately produce a pristine work.  Rather, postmodernism provides us with the toolkit to be able to formulate a better understanding, despite our own (as ethnographers) subconscious thoughts and biases.  Even though “The authority of a scientific discipline, in this kind of historical account, will always be mediated by the claims of rhetoric and power,” Clifford acknowledges that, through postmodernism’s lens, “Noncelebratory histories are becoming common.” (429) Postmodernism’s unconventional consideration of the ethnography as having the same qualities as a literary text allows it to be studied using similar tools of analysis.  Referring back to the “noncelebratory histories,” it also allows for the literary phenomena of counter-memories and literary archaeologies to gain a foothold in anthropology.  This parallel to counter-memory, that which runs against the normally accepted version of a story (the dominant perspective), and literary archaeology, the act of excavating perspectives that might have been lost due to these unequal discourses of power, can only help to bolster the depth and breadth of anthropology’s study.  Although postmodernism does provide a daunting self-reflective critical task, it is a powerful tool for expanding the opportunities and focuses of anthropological research.

Barry, Peter. Beginning Theory: An Introduction to Literary and Cultural Theory. 3^rd ed. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2009. Print.