Clifford Response

Matt Altstiel
10/28/05
GLOS: Ilona

Cliff Notes On Clifford

Reading J. Clifford’s piece, “Travel and Transportation in the Late 20^th century,” critically examined the fieldwork practice on Anthropology and advocated several new techniques to improve the reliability of fieldwork. I found the piece refreshing given what I have learned thus far in Global Studies, Sociology and Anthropology. The commonly held perception of the white wo/man with the pith helmet studying “natives” from his/her village hut is slowly changing. Clifford mentions several critiques of this time honored method of cultural analysis from several perspectives.

Clifford expands on an argument put forward by Appudurai asserting that immersive field work can generalize an entire population. Thus, after studying a certain group in a country such as India, the anthropologist assumes then that all Indian society is subject to the caste system and social hierarchy. Another important critique I noticed was challenging the validity of the anthropologists’ fieldwork itself. Who can gauge for certain whether the indigenous people behave as they would behave without the constant watching of the anthropologist? Another important question Clifford articulates is: how does an Anthropologists differing levels of language fluency detract from their study and research fieldwork? Also related is the issue of translation and the question of what is lost when an oral history in a native language is translated and written down in English. The exclusive focus on the village as the center of all community life threatens to obscure certain realities that are crucial in understanding any society. The village as often assumed is a self contained unit and non-affected by outside events and changes. This frequently held misconception falls under the weight of truth, that is that human societies on every part of the planet have been interacting with one another for thousands of years. Likewise, the anthropologists distances him/herself from the outside world and discounts the reality that they are still relying on the outside world for flows of information and that their methodology of study encompasses university academic standards. Clifford makes a coherent argument that provides a corrective framework both for field anthropologists and for interpreting that fieldwork as well.