What Responsibilities Do Ethnographers Have On The World

What responsibilities do ethnographers have to interpret the world and to change the world? The content, structure and function of ethnography are widely debated throughout anthropology. Very broadly, Ethnography can be defined as â€Å"an account resulting from having done fieldwork† (Marcus Cushman, 1982: p26) but what is perhaps more interesting is how they define Ethnographic Realism: â€Å"a mode of writing that seeks to represent the reality of a whole world or form of life† (Marcus Cushman, 1982: p26). What is intriguing about this method is it suggests an ethnographer’s role is one of an observer and reporter, not that of an activist. In the first part of this essay I intend to explore the obligations and duties Ethnographers have when interpreting the people that they study. I will then go on to explore the implications that this has in their capacity to change the world. I shall be exploring this topic from the perspective that ethnographers have a co mmitment to portraying the societies they study accurately, without attempting to alter their values. The first question I would like to address is: do Ethnographers have a responsibility to interpret the communities that they study? One could argue that Ethnographers have no responsibility to interpret the world of others or that they do not need to interpret what they have found truthfully. No matter how objective they attempt to be, we are always seeing the ethnographer’s interpretation of a society not witnessing itShow MoreRelatedEssay on The Pros and Cons of Ethnographic Reflexivity849 Words   |  4 Pagesrecognizes that texts do not simply and transparently report an independent order of reality. Rather, the texts themselves are implicated in the work of reality-construction (Emerson et. al., 1995:213). According to Robert M. 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