Ethnographic Amendments: Towards a Grammatological Ethnography

Abstract

At least one challenge posed by our post·modern critical ethos is "the crisis of representation." This article examines the implications of this "crisis" as it effects ethnography. Outlining the radical challenge posed by post-modernism to an ethnography that is concerned with writing "the Other," this article illustrates how a ligature between ethnography and the Derridean strategy of grammatology can restore ethnography to its radical potential. Surveying some of the responses to the challenges of post·modernism that are articulated by scholars such as Tyler, Van Maanen, Clifford, and Roy Wagner, this article illustrates the shortcomings and contradictions within their responses, thereby pointing towards what might be called a "grammatological ethnography": that is, an ethnography that displaces traditional notions of reference and representation to produce a project dedicated simultaneously towards a new ethnographic writing and a new ethnographic reading.