The Pros and Cons of Ethnographic Reflexivity Essay -- Pro Con Essays

The Advantages and Limits of ethnographical reflexivenessAwareness of writing choices generates an appreciation of the reflexivity of ethnographic research. Reflexivity involves the recognition that an account of naturalism does non simply mirror reality but rather creates or constitutes as real in the maiden place whatever it describes. Thus the notion of reflexivity recognizes that texts do not simply and transparently report an independent order of reality. Rather, the texts themselves are interested in the work of reality-construction (Emerson et. al., 1995213).According to Robert M. Emerson and colleagues, reflexivity is a method in which the ethnographer is aware that his/her writing choices are shaped to acknowledge the ethnographers presence in the culture being studied. Thus, while writing and analyzing fieldnotes, the ethnographer-as-author grows increasingly aware of his government agency and responsibility in telling the story of the people being he/she studied for in writing he/she re-presents their everyday world1. By fetching the ethnographers presence in consideration, the ethnography becomes more than a mere baste of text. In the process of writing his/her analyzes of a culture, the ethnographer is constantly reminded that his work is to comprehend a realm of reality. In the following I will discourse the approach Dorinne K. Kondo and Renato Rosaldo use in writing their reflective ethnography.Dorinne K. Kondo in play and Reconstitution of Self Implications for Anthropological Epistemology suggested that to understand the culture one studies the ethnographer should account his/her presence. In other words, the ethnographer should write about his/her experiences because it establishes the I was there author... ... argues that even though our mission is to understand the culture we our studying one whoremongernot make last-place assumptions about a culture. One has to reflex on the fact that a culture is always changing and that our preparation of our discipline is not ofttimes the method one uses in fieldwork.As I reflect tush to my confess ethnographic research I found that even though I am Mexican-American and part of the Latino culture on campus my own community often challenged my interpretations. My interpretations were often critiqued by the male Latino culture, they felt that the nub was much deeper and that I could not fully grasp the meaning because of my gender. Thus, I agree being reflective on ones ethnography can one fully add more meaning and understanding of a culture.1 Emerson et. al. Writing Ethnographic Fieldnotes. Chicago University of Chicago Press, 1995 213.