Wittgenstein on Religious Belief

Hey everyone, hope you all have had a pleasant week. Thought I would post this video as a way to further our reflection on ethnographic methodology and the various mediums through which such methodology is predicated - in this instance particularly, the use of language and the way in which it may complicate/mystify/distort what is represented. How does ethnography move pass the possibility of language and linguistic/semantic/grammatical representation to be inarticulate?

Digital Ethnography/Vidding

As many of you may know, vidding is a way of editing various media in order to portray a particular theme/storyline/encourage a particular character trajectory. I think this video is a great example of how we may almost conduct an ethnographic project by looking through a particular source very closely (in this case, Gone with the Wind)....The portrayal of O'Hara we are left with certainly strikes a chord! Of course this may not have anything immediate to do with our course, but I find this inspirational as an example of methodology....:)

Trust in Ethnography

It seems as though when you set you to do an ethnographic study their are unspoken rules and boundaries that you must adhere too, but that there is also a sense of freedom. In Anand Pandian's essay recounting the travels and research of Louis Dumont this observation holds true. Pandian recounts Dumont's visit to the area of Tamil Nadu through the voices of the people who live there. We discussed in class the importance of gaining the trust of the group of whom you are studying so that you can observe them without the fear that they would purposely misrepresent themselves.    Dumont's arrival to the region came shortly after India's independence from Great Britain and in the beginning people thought "that the foreign visitor had something to do with the moment of India’s freedom from Britain." However they were pleased to discover that he was truly there to "...see the country." This newfound reasoning for why Dumont was visiting Tamil Nadu provided him with a better entrance into the lives of the people that lived there. One resident described their relationship as almost familial in nature. Having the level of trust that Dumont incurred most definitely affected his ability to conduct ethnographic research in the region. His research wouldn't be limited to the surface observation of the groups that is seen quite often in ethnographic study, but rather he could sink deeper into the culture and customs of the region by almost immersing himself in them. Dumont seemed to be able to maintain a balance between foreigner and native which allowed to him to affect people's lives even after his visit concluded and past the point at which he died. The passing around of his book amongst the people of the region, and how his house still held the association that he lived there is indicative of his influence on Tamil Nadu, and goes of show that a good anthropologist is one who can maintain that delicate balance between outsider and insider so as to glean the most ethnographic information about the people's that they are studying. 

Ciara Williams 

A Science with Participant Observation?

Each time I take an anthropology class and we go into ethnography one critical questions comes up. Is Ethnography a science? And if so what type of science? There always seems to be such a great divide between the social and natural sciences and Anthropology tries to straddle the two, which inevitably leads to skepticism. From the readings, what I am interested in is how the notion of participant observation plays into this question. Participant observation involves the ethnographer actively taking in role in the environment they are studying. On the other hand non-participant observation is when the ethnographer purely studies the new environment (although that in a way will affect the environment). Can an ethnographer remain objective when participating. This isn't a chemistry lab. The subjects here are human and beyond that the ethnographer is a human with previous rules and traditions affecting how they view the world. For example in Atkinson and Hammersley's text they write about how feminists believe works written are them are skewed by the masculine view the observers inherently have. But how do you get around a problem like this? Can you truly wipe the slate of a human clean of previous experiences so they can objectively observe a new population of people?

As far as I can tell, through readings and classes, there are attempts to further objectify anthropological work. This includes going into the qualitative side and taking counts and surveys. Still the "Human" aspect is one of the defining aspects of anthropology. Bottom line this subject must continue to balance and straddle the lines between purely scientific and social humanity domains of study. To do so will probably require set standards and rules as a basis for ethnographers to work with and then apply their own twist depending on the situations they encounter on the field.

Objectivity of Ethnography

In The Image of Objectivity, Datson et al posed a question: "Is scientific knowledge objective?"(Datson et al, 2008) This is a question that had not occurred to me before this reading- that scientific knowledge, the basis of proof for most/all things deemed enlightening, could be considered subjective. Knowing how much scientific knowledge had been used to explain phenomena, how people have made careers out of the search of said knowledge and others have been awarded highly for their scientific discoveries, it is quite difficult to think of all these are influenced by personal desires or "morally corrupted" as Datson et al puts it.

On the other hand, I believe complete objectivity in scientific research and knowledge is not feasible. I think it would quite difficult to make pure observations, be it in a research lab or in nature, without having one's own perceptions influence his/her actions. Datson el all mentioned photography and audio recordings are good instruments of objectivity since they are indifferent to any pre-conceived notion. Hence, the gathering of information by both the audio recorder and the camera are purely objective but that does not prevent the observer from looking or listening to the information with pre-conceived assumptions.

I do believe that pure objectivity would create the best of scientific knowledge but as humans, we are almost constantly perspectives, influenced by our different backgrounds, to make judgments thus, it would be rare to see a pure objective observation especially in ethnography when the all of the culture of a community and its history cannot be fully explained only by a snapshot of an action.

Subjective/Objective Dichotomy an Over-simplification?

The three readings draw a similar argumentative position (particularly Daston): that is, they point to the dubious veracity of representation (e.g characterization and idealization) of objects, cutlures, people. However, to underpin this dubiousness only through differentiation of what is considered “subjective” and what is considered “objective” is, from my view, a simplification. To complicate this tension, it would be necessary (I think) to explore whether outside of the objective anthropological domain, what actually constitutes a notion of the objective, if there even is a notion? In this sense, how can we answer the question of the definite-ness of an action rather than through subjective/objective interpretation? Is it a matter of perspective, of totally relegating the anthropologist to a non-existent, passive role, of solely one who observes and catalogues and presents rather than one who interprets?  Further, in a particular culturally context, is the notion of objectivity synonymous with the notion of what is immutable?

Impacting the Future

    In reading Pandian's "The Remembering Village", I was struck with the concept of the impact that an anthropologist can have on the community or setting that they are studying. In thinking of an anthropologist, I had always thought of them as this outside player that observes and analyzes a particular community’s past and present. But what I found particularly interesting was the ability of the anthropologist to also play a role in altering the future of a community. For, example, in this particular case, Dumont’s presence in Tengalapatti played a significant role in shaping some of the aspects of their culture looking forward. This impact is seen simply in the fact that Dumont’s house is still to this day referred to as “the white man’s house”. I think that this brings to light the very important consideration when undergoing ethnographical research of the need for the utmost respect for the culture that you are observing and analyzing. Because although it may seem like you are just “a fly on the wall” as an observer, you could be shaping the future direction of this culture without even realizing it.

Objectivity

The Daston paper asks a very interesting question. "How could it be that the very objectivity that seemed to insulate science from the moral.. simultaneously lay claim to moral dignity of the highest order?" The author then goes on to assert that this is one of the negative qualities of objectivity. 

This is an extremely interesting point, because scientists are always trying to remove themselves from their research. This is especially important in the natural sciences. There should be no subjectivity when conducting basic biology or chemistry research and the reasoning is sound. Any subjectivity would systematically skew any data and objectivity confers additional morality onto the findings. 

However, especially after the lecture on conducting ethnography, this raised an interesting question. Anthropology is the science of studying other people, other cultures. Should the aim of an anthropologist be subjectivity? Is that even possible? Although I do agree that to some extent, anthropologists should try and be objective, I do not believe it is possible to completely remove oneself. I actually believe this would be detrimental, because the science is based on people studying other people and our own lenses and understandings and emotions are key to understanding those of others. 

The major question is, what should be the goal when conducting ethnographic research, and if some subjectivity is warranted or even beneficial, where is that line drawn?

The Influence of the Anthropologist

While reading the work from Dr. Pandian on Louis Dumont one thing that stood out to me the most was the role of the anthropologist and how their mere presence can significantly alter the behavior of the people they seek to understand. One quote from the paper that stood out was on pg 6, "When an old person had died, for example, Amsu Thevar suggested that some would pose themselves excitedly for its lens: 'He is going to take a photo, he is going to take a photo, stand, man!'" While I understand Dumont was conducting research in a time very different than our own, the phenomena of observation still rings true in the works of anthropologists today. This may even tie in a little to the Daston paper we are also looking at, the idea of the mechanically objective observer or rather how would our subjects act if we were just a fly on the wall.

 

In Between

The Multiple Viewpoint, and the “global village” triggered the questions I had when reading becoming sinners. A debate on what “native” or “uncontaminated” means, and why change, must be seen as an invasion, or in Mirzoeff’s language, diasporic. “In the nineteenth century, diaspora peoples were seen as a disruption to the natural economy of the natural economy of the nation state.” (2) “While we have become accustomed to thinking of the nation state as an “imaginary community” (Anderson 1992), it can nonetheless call on a range of geographical sites, monuments and symbols to create a powerful visual rhetoric of nationality.” (2) I wonder if  the feeling of belonging and rootedness that us information agers may feel to the so-called “global” village can somehow be authenticated. I’m curious to find out when change is seen positively and when change is seen as evil. Confirmed by the reading, I think we’re headed to an ultimate in-between zone of culture. Is that bas?

In the Daston reading we get an account of the moralization of objectivity in science, particularly atlas making. In science objectivity was understood as the removal of the mediating presence of the observer (82). Objectivity was the method to which everyone aspired. However, the fact is that it is almost impossible to completely remove any subjectivity when conducting science, whether quantitative or qualitative. If we presume the objectivity of scientific research, then it becomes difficult to question the research. In all science there will be some interpretation and the observation is always taking place from some subjective point. While reading the piece I was reminded of the different ways to portray the world on a map, something that we generally presume to be a hard fact and infallible. With this link you can see the disagreement over the world map.
http://www.businessinsider.com/mercator-projection-v-gall-peters-projection-2013-12
Most people do not consider that the map they have seen their entire life may not be true. With this example we see the danger of presuming objectivity. The map is not questioned because it is portrayed as objective; in reality, the process of mapmaking is fraught with power relationships and the colonial legacy. Assuming objectivity presumes a lack of power and is dangerous for any enlightened discussion.

Meta-anthropology as Ethnography

When one first looks at Pandian's "The Remembering Village", it feels almost like a book report. The first sentence is about Louis Dumont, who appears to be the subject of the article. It isn't until the third page (end of the third paragraph) that Pandian reveals his interest in Dumont: to uncover the hidden aspects of the anthropologist's life in the field by visiting his old site. This kind of meta-anthropology is interesting in content, quite a lot is revealed about Dumont and his role in the village in which he stayed, but this could easily have been achieved in different ways. The point of this particular style of writing is also to critique the role of ethnographies in anthropology.

Throughout the article, there is a back and forth between the Dumont's history and Pandian's current experiences. A vignette of Dumont's home in the Kallar village is juxtaposed against Pandian's remarks on logical gaps which Dumont failed to point out such as the spacing between the buildings, and the current (at the time of Pandian's visit) state of the house first mentioned. Similarly, there is an instance when Pandian states that Dumont would carry a hand camera and the older members of the village said to him "I'm there too!"

I think Pandian is drawing out the gaps the reader does not see in an anthropological text. He does this by showing these gaps, literally stating accounts from people about Dumont which were not mentioned in his works, but also by demonstrating, by not elaborating where it ought to be. The crux of his argument is that the people anthropologists study are touched by them long after they are gone and it is important to remember this, but less than half of the article is about these people! This illogical composition, if by mistake, is a happy one in pointing out some finer aspects of ethnography that are often overlooked. 

The Role of the Subjective

In Daston’s article, I was intrigued by the juxtaposition of objectivity and subjectivity.  This idea of “moral objectivity” seems to be one that pervades throughout many different fields and contexts. It is generally looked up as favorable to be objective, to not insert one’s own opinion where it doesn’t belong. It allows the reader or the analyzer to draw his/her own conclusions and preserves the nature of the topic.

What I thought was interesting, however, is that this piece was coupled with the Dumont article at the end. I found this article to interesting as it dealt with an anthropologist that didn’t seem to take objectivity into much account during his fieldwork. It was written that he would often position people to take their pictures and would wear guns and eat beef, despite that not being the custom. It would seem to me that an anthropologist would want to observe the most natural and normal way of life in the place that they are studying, and not insert so much of their personal ideas or themselves into the equation. It brings up the issue of objectivity versus subjectivity that Daston wrote about. Is objectivity always better? Is Dumont’s research less-worthy or accurate because he did not take a completely hands-off approach?

I actually found this idea of subjectivity in Daston’s work to be refreshing. I think sometimes we try to focus on being completely objective and in doing so we take away a human element in our research. Daston came to study the people in Tengalapatti, but he did so in living with them. He brought his own habits and customs to the people in Tengalapatti, as he too was human. Therefore, he learned from the people of the Tengalapatti, and they also learned from him. To me, this signifies a more real and natural human interaction, even though it isn’t entirely objective. How can we know how much is too much when it comes to subjectivity?

Can we zoom out too much?

Professor Pandian takes an interesting approach: he writes an anthropological writing on another anthropological writing. I can see how this would be a logical next step: responding to what someone before you has written. When we're getting further and further away from the original document, however, does it give as much worth as the earlier analyses? For example, if someone were to respond to Professor Pandian's anthropological writing with another anthropological writing, would this be too washed out? Is it better if we stay within only a couple of layers and reactions in order to stay closer to the original document?

http://blog.usabilla.com/top-ethnographic-research-videos/

"top 10 vids on ethnography"

Some links to resources in conducting ethnographic research

http://www.uky.edu/~tmute2/geography_methods/readingPDFs/atkinson-hammersley.pdf
http://people.ucsc.edu/~gwells/Files/Courses_Folder/documents/Fieldnotes.pdf
https://camtools.cam.ac.uk/wiki/site/e30faf26-bc0c-4533-acbc-cff4f9234e1b/ethnographic%20and%20field%20study.html
http://www.americanethnography.com/ethnography.php
http://methodsofdiscovery.net/?q=node/19

http://www.free-tv-video-online.me/internet/the_leftovers/season_1.html

Cassettes in other societies?

Hirschkind emphasizes that cassettes were already a part of Muslims' ordinary life, and that Muslims' lives do not only center around the common stereotype of violence and terrorism. The sermons on tape have helped increase morality and religious awareness. Something I wondered while reading about this is: Would cassettes work in other societies and even, other time periods? I believe that cassettes in the United States in current years would increase curiosity but wouldn't increase morality and religious awareness. I think Americans are much more prone to talk about things but in the end, not follow after them. Muslims, on the other hand, (this is a huge generalization, but I get this sense form the book) seem much more passionate about the things that come their way shown by them taking the cassette tapes so seriously. Directly after any war period in the United States, I think cassettes would be taken seriously. I think people's hearts would be more open to trying new things and therefore may take in the cassette talk.

Body and Sound

This book highlights a point we have been working on for the past few weeks in class, the physiology involved with experiencing sound in a religious form. In this post I want to look into that connection and expand on it. From the introduction it is easy to see that noise and word choice is important. Hirshkind highlights the dichotomy between the street noise going on around him and the "scary" words of the sermon playing through the cassette. How do these two contrasting noises affect the driver? He definitely seems invested and even anticipatory of the cassette, but was this to the point of eliminating the other sounds occurring around him?

Now flash forward to "The flesh of the ear". Here a really important concept gets fleshed out, listening. Although the process may seem simple at first it is one of great complexity that involves fluctuations of attention. These fluctuations further lead to physiological changes in the body. Hirschkind highlights this by mentioning how the act of listening "recruits the body in it's entirety." When a person interprets a powerful message through the sermons or even through song the body becomes attuned to it. This is why a drastic shift in mood can be seen when people play certain music as they work-out, study, and other activities. The music, beat, rhythm and all other aspects of sound are produced to elicit specific responses and do so by actively tailoring the subjects "listening" to key words, pauses, crescendos, etc.

Stress and Religion

"I listen to sermons while I am driving because it soothes and relaxes me. . .Then I say, 'I fear God in His Glory.' 'May God forgive me.' This gives me strength, and calms me and leaves my heart open."

-Beha Pg 72

     On more than one instance as the reader we are reminded that the cassette sermons are in many ways the working man's supplement to reading from the Quran or going to the mosque. In this particular quote from Beha he mentions that for him, who works days in upwards of 18 hours on some instances, listening to the sermons not only keeps his heart at ease but also allows him to realize that the worldly things he often concerns himself with won't matter when it's time for him to be judged in the after life. For me this highlights one of the main reasons I envy religion, which is that it's an amazing support pillar. Even if you take away most of the more organized aspects of it, which is what they've essentially done with cassette sermons, the individual bond a person shares with their God allows them to pursue life even under periods of intense stress. It affords them comfort in regards to the monotony of life and the inevitability of death. This is, to me, a very beautiful thing and speaks to the power of religion to move someone's heart in positive ways and also provides excellent counterarguments to the Islamic Militant conception that the cassette were often unfairly paired with. 

Religious Media: Discrepancies in allocation of religious meaning

Hirschkind, in distinguishing the notion and subsequent effect of fear as constructed in Islamic discourse compared to that of mass entertainment, writes: “In short…the emotions induced by reflection on the grave presuppose and are integral to a structure moral action, one presupposing a particular kind of motivation. Note also the different loci of the contrasting types of fear, one literally in the brain, the other in the heart, the organ of moral knowledge and practice.” (p.97) Here, Hirschkind, intentionally or unintentionally, conceives of the heart and the body holistically in terms of a repository of “moral knowledge and practice.” Hirschkind does not consider the source of such moral knowledge (it is incidental in the scope of the entirety of his work): whether it is possible to consider the knowledge as a-priori, as only formed and accentuated through the affective orientation sourced in Islamic discourse, or alternatively, this moral knowledge is sourced from (as opposed to in), extracted from Islamic discourse in the form of pedagogy. The former notion is (in my opinion) more provocative philosophically and engenders two correlating questions: whether God can be conceived as an immanent being through the cassette sermons and their affective orientation of ethical feeling//how would God be perceived as immaterial through a form of media? And further, a more general question, when one interacts with religious media, how is that media imbued with affective force; that is, does it inherently have any capacity to evoke an affective response, or rather that affective meaning applied to it by recipients?