Newsgroups: bit.listserv.qualrs-l
Date:         Sun, 26 Jul 1992 14:39:00 CDT
              <QUALRS-L@UGA.BITNET>
From:         "tk0jut1@mvs.cso.niu.edu jim thomas" <TK0JUT1@NIU.BITNET>
Subject:      Re: What is critique?

    >Two small bones:  (1)  "the danger is that we write fiction when
    >we believe we're writing science." My question:  Aren't we then
    >writing science fiction?

I agree that there's nothing wrong with writing "science fiction" (or
any fiction) as a way of knowing/understanding social existence.  You
seem (correctly, in my view) to challenge the "arrogance of science"
as the "most authentic" way to know the world. Here, you seem to be
drawing especially from deconstruction. Perhaps you could elaborate on
what you see as the value of translating social behavior into a "text"
and inverting the "authority of the author?" Despite many valid
criticisms against postmodernist/deconstructionist approaches, its
value is in poking fun at arrogance by reminding us of what we *don't*
know (or bring to consciousness).  It's a perspective that is rarely
taught in social science, and when it is it's usually done in a way
that trivializes and dismisses it. Perhaps we should do a quick
summary for those not familiar with the perspective or with it's
relevance to ethnography and other qualitative (or quantitative)
research.

That said, my concern is that we do *not* write fiction when we think
we're writing science and vice-versa. Knowledge claims of normal
science (that following the canons of "scientific method," that
includes rules of logic, replication, rules of generalizability and
the like) are not those on which fictional discourse depends.
Switching or mixing genres is fine as long as the narrator is aware
that the genres are not isomorphic.  Good ethnography can be "science"
(empirical research) or fiction (some of the best ethnographic
understandings I've obtained have been from culturally-oriented
novels). At stake, I think, is simply that we recognize the limits of
each and take care not to substitute one for purposes for which it may
be inapplicable.

    >(2)  "Critical interpretation is inherently emancipatory. . . .
    >What counts as critique and what does it matter whether something
    >(is or is not) critical?" The issue of emancipation is, at least
    >for me, always bordering and sometimes crossing over into the
    >land of elitism.

This is a crucial issue. Critical thinkers recognize that some forms
of social domination and control are necessary and inherent in any
society (e.g., language, some basic normative social order for
reproduction and maintenance).  Most critical thinkers (including
ethnographers) proceed from basic Enlightenment principles that we can
establish some basic criteria of "good," that progress (or human
betterment) is possible through human intervention, and that
accumulation of knowledge is helpful toward these ends. Thus, we can
identify some conditions of unnecessary social domination and
repression.  It don't find it elitist to argue that it's uncool for
some groups to be more vulnerable to death by homicide than others,
that people in some socio-economic strata are excluded from full
participation in social benefits and resources, or that some people
are demonstrably screwed over. I don't think it's elitist to say that
sexism and racism are something to be opposed. Even if it is, however,
I'm not sure it's relevant.  Charges of elitism are usually considered
negative, but I'm not sure what's to be gained by worrying about the
label in this context. Ethnographers obtain their understandings from
their subjects, and it's the subjects who provide the evidence and
concepts for various forms of inequality or disempowernment.  When
white say "racism is nasty," i don't consider them elitist.  There is
demonstrable evidence that it's not something to be valued, and a
cogent logic that provides the frame for making this claim. Critical
ethnography, as an example, speaks *on behalf* of their subjects,
giving them voice, and while it may not always be easy to discern
which voices are speaking, it is not elitism to go "to the things
themselves." "Bad" ethnography tells us more about the researcher than
those who are the research subjects, and from them we get an
ethnocentric view of a preferred social order that reinforces, rather
than challenges, existing power relations.

This is a bit simplistic, and it raises other questions. Sadly,
bandwidth doesn't allow full elaboration in a single post.  Maybe some
of those who have been lurking could chip in their two cents.

jt
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