The Predicament of Culture: Twentieth-century Ethnography, Literature, and Art"The Predicament of Culture" is a critical ethnography of the West in its changing relations with other societies. Analyzing cultural practices such as anthropology, travel writing, collecting, and museum displays of tribal art, Clifford shows authoritative accounts of other ways of life to be contingent fictions, now actively contested in postcolonial contexts. His critique raises questions of global significance: Who has the authority to speak for any group's identity and authenticity? What are the essential elements and boundaries of a culture? How do self and "the other" clash in the encounters of ethnography, travel, and modern interethnic relations? In discussions of ethnography, surrealism, museums, and emergent tribal arts, Clifford probes the late-twentieth century predicament of living simultaneously within, between, and after culture. |
Contents
The Pure Products Go Crazy | 1 |
On Ethnographic Authority | 21 |
Marcel Griaules | 55 |
Copyright | |
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aesthetic African anthropology Argonauts artifacts artistic authentic authority become Campisi century Césaire collection colonial complex conception Conrad constructed context critical cultural Depestre dialogical Diary discourse display distinct diversity Documents Dogon emerged encounter essay ethno ethnographic example exotic experience fact fiction field fieldwork Foucault French Griaule Griaule's Heart of Darkness human identity individual institutions interpretation invention knowledge land language Leiris Lévi-Strauss living Malinowski Marcel Marcel Griaule Marcel Mauss Mashpee Mashpee's Mauss Michel Leiris Mission Dakar-Djibouti modern modernist MOMA Musée de l'Homme Museum narrative Native American negritude non-Western objects Orientalism Orientalist Paris participant participant observation Peters Picasso plaintiffs political portrayed question reality René Leys representation ritual Russell Peters Said's scientific Segalen sense social society specific status story structure surrealism surrealist texts textual tion tradition tribal tribe Trobriand Trocadéro truth Wampanoag Western writing York