Abstract
Pandian’s book is an ethnography of anthropology that folds its own techniques in on themselves and seeks to develop an empirically-based re-imagination of anthropology itself. Although that seems a touch meta, the book is satisfying to read. Early on, Pandian acknowledges anthropology’s checkered, abusive history is one that cannot be ignored but that anthropology also contributes ‘contrary ways of imagining and inhabiting the contemporary world’ (p. 8). By demonstrating this through consideration of anthropology, by finding new possibilities within the artefacts and practices of ethnography and anthropology, the book performs its central conceit: that anthropology is both the object of study and the method through which possibility can be created. Although he says modestly ‘This is a small book of essays on problems of method in anthropology’ (p. 8), it is an ambitious book that works best as a provocation to anthropologists and raises important questions for qualitative researchers more generally.
The book is predominantly composed of three essays that, more or less, deal with the past, the present and, finally, the future possibilities of anthropology. The first essay counterpoises the canonical Bronislaw Malinowski and the apparently underappreciated novelist and anthropologist-folklorist, Zora Neale Hurston. While the balance of the chapter is tipped towards the grumpiness of the pioneer ethnographer, Malinowski, Hurston’s methodological insight to ‘tarry’ and ‘squat down awhile’ liberates the reader to ponder and tarry with the text themselves. This essay deals with methodological problems of moving in and out of contexts, how to conceive of generalisability and the relations between empirical data and abstract thought.
The second essay states ‘it has long been a dictum of anthropology that methods cannot be taught, only undergone’ (p. 72). Pandian focuses on four elements (to borrow a term from hip hop) of anthropology: reading, writing, teaching and fieldwork. Tarrying among contemporary anthropologists Pandian establishes that these elements are united by a particular thread. His main suggestion is that method be conceived broadly as experience. Pandian recounts Levi-Strass’ ‘armchair’ travels in his library, his techniques for reading and his use of background music to create unexpected combinations and new experiences. Pandian asks, ‘Doesn’t it sound oddly like fieldwork, this practice of reading?’ (p. 51) Echoing Karen Barad (2007), he goes further to say that anthropological methods and its objects of study are inseparable, raising the important ethical question of how methods produce their objects.
The third chapter, featuring an eclectic cast, is temporally much more expansive and revisits the question of empiricism raised in the first essay. To create his anthropology, Pandian turns to artists and writers who identifies as fellow travellers in his journey to reimagine contemporary humanity. Through the science fiction of Ursula K. Le Guin, he shows how writing about far away worlds (like Malinowski) can help people reinterpret their present and find new ways to be in the world. Through scavenger-art, he shows it is possible to take things from the here-and-now and recast them from a different temporal perspective. Both of these approaches, he argues, can draw out empathy for the aliens we may meet and also for our own cultures.
I imagine that the descriptive details, particular encounters between the ethnographer and his informants, and the introduction of certain non-academic writers and artists, offer plenty to audiences already well acquainted with anthropology. For audiences familiar with science and technology studies (STS), the idea of possibility and that the world ‘could be otherwise’ is almost a motto. Pandian is more normative than STS tends to be, though, advocating for more than an identification of alternatives. Most importantly for readers of this journal, the discussions will be of interest to any of those who seek to identify and ‘amplify’ other ways to be in the world.
The book is clearly written by someone both interested and skilled in the craft of writing and the details of production. There are several in-text reproductions of photographs and artworks; even the cover picture is discussed. Pandian’s attention to words, to the ‘protean force of good description’ (p. 7), is evident throughout. This is particularly striking in the earlier sections where there are notable turns of phrase that conjure literary fiction as much as descriptive analysis. On page 7, he says, ‘Occult powers of metamorphosis pulse through these realms, let loose in the form of vivid stories, images, and sounds’ and ‘let us acknowledge that the plane of the real can tilt far more wildly and profoundly with any good story’. In other words, the methodological experiences of writing and reading can be as transformative as fieldwork, if not more so.
There are some quibbles with the book. At times there’s a note of pomposity, which might indicate an attempt to mask insecurity. There are some notable imbalances, too: the first substantive essay has many more references to its male protagonist than its female saviour and, throughout, there is arguably some nepotism in the choice of subjects. There are academic kin (Zora Neale Hurston was Franz Boas’ student) and familial kin (Ursula K. Le Guin was Alfred Kroeber’s daughter; the initial ‘K’ is for Kroeber). This is mostly an ethnography of elites with little to say of contemporary inequality. Overall, this results in a lack of diversity in this possible anthropology.
Pandian brings anthropology’s past affiliations with colonialism and militarism into the argument as brief fables; the book is not meant to discuss these in detail. But, one crucial idea that could be more fully explored is precisely that this questionable history makes for an ideal set of methods in the present. In fact, anthropology emerges as a possible Robin Hood hero rather than a colonial conspirator: a mythical discipline with the capacity to ‘reach across daunting gulfs of physical and mental being, to rob the proud of their surety and amplify voices otherwise inaudible’ (p. 7). It does make one stop and wonder if this possible anthropology has learned its lessons or if hubris, as much as self-doubt, is somehow woven into the methods of experience themselves.
After all, though, this is a short book. Perhaps, depth is a cost of brevity and elegance. As a provocation rather than a full-blown analysis this book is, for me, an inspirational joy and a read I recommend.
