When Ghosts Can Talk: Informant Reality and Ethnographic Policy
This paper argues that researchers doing ethnography can fail in their commitment to take what their informants say seriously. This often occurs, despite ethnographers’ best intentions, when informant statements depart radically from Western distinctions between what is real and what is imaginary. W...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Sciendo
2015-06-01
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| Series: | Journal of Ethnology and Folkloristics |
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| Online Access: | https://www.jef.ee/index.php/journal/article/view/187 |
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| author | James M Nyce Sanna Talja Sidney Dekker |
| author_facet | James M Nyce Sanna Talja Sidney Dekker |
| author_sort | James M Nyce |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | This paper argues that researchers doing ethnography can fail in their commitment to take what their informants say seriously. This often occurs, despite ethnographers’ best intentions, when informant statements depart radically from Western distinctions between what is real and what is imaginary. When informants talk about things like ghosts, witches and magic, there is a tendency to apply analytic strategies which translate these informant statements about the world so they conform to Western understandings about what is possible in the world and what is not. This article describes for example some commonly applied interpretive moves used in dealing with informant statements about other-than-human persons. The analytic models and categories we use in these cases are equivalent to often tacit and taken-for-granted Western strategies for dealing with ‘non-existent things’ and these make it impossible to take native statements at face value. We could turn the situation around in ethnographic analyses if we put under the microscope our own Western taken-for-granted assumptions and did so by taking definitions of reality, community, and the person radically different from our own seriously. |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-b70171950ef94daf8b48dde838f5645f |
| institution | Kabale University |
| issn | 1736-6518 2228-0987 |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2015-06-01 |
| publisher | Sciendo |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Journal of Ethnology and Folkloristics |
| spelling | doaj-art-b70171950ef94daf8b48dde838f5645f2025-02-02T17:40:39ZengSciendoJournal of Ethnology and Folkloristics1736-65182228-09872015-06-01918197127When Ghosts Can Talk: Informant Reality and Ethnographic PolicyJames M Nyce0Sanna Talja1Sidney Dekker2Ball State University, Lund UniversityUniversity of TampereGriffith UniversityThis paper argues that researchers doing ethnography can fail in their commitment to take what their informants say seriously. This often occurs, despite ethnographers’ best intentions, when informant statements depart radically from Western distinctions between what is real and what is imaginary. When informants talk about things like ghosts, witches and magic, there is a tendency to apply analytic strategies which translate these informant statements about the world so they conform to Western understandings about what is possible in the world and what is not. This article describes for example some commonly applied interpretive moves used in dealing with informant statements about other-than-human persons. The analytic models and categories we use in these cases are equivalent to often tacit and taken-for-granted Western strategies for dealing with ‘non-existent things’ and these make it impossible to take native statements at face value. We could turn the situation around in ethnographic analyses if we put under the microscope our own Western taken-for-granted assumptions and did so by taking definitions of reality, community, and the person radically different from our own seriously.https://www.jef.ee/index.php/journal/article/view/187Ghostsnon-human personsinterpretationontologyepistemology |
| spellingShingle | James M Nyce Sanna Talja Sidney Dekker When Ghosts Can Talk: Informant Reality and Ethnographic Policy Journal of Ethnology and Folkloristics Ghosts non-human persons interpretation ontology epistemology |
| title | When Ghosts Can Talk: Informant Reality and Ethnographic Policy |
| title_full | When Ghosts Can Talk: Informant Reality and Ethnographic Policy |
| title_fullStr | When Ghosts Can Talk: Informant Reality and Ethnographic Policy |
| title_full_unstemmed | When Ghosts Can Talk: Informant Reality and Ethnographic Policy |
| title_short | When Ghosts Can Talk: Informant Reality and Ethnographic Policy |
| title_sort | when ghosts can talk informant reality and ethnographic policy |
| topic | Ghosts non-human persons interpretation ontology epistemology |
| url | https://www.jef.ee/index.php/journal/article/view/187 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT jamesmnyce whenghostscantalkinformantrealityandethnographicpolicy AT sannatalja whenghostscantalkinformantrealityandethnographicpolicy AT sidneydekker whenghostscantalkinformantrealityandethnographicpolicy |