Critical Review #1: Clifford

Clifford's extremely dense article covers a good deal of the history of anthropology and ethnography as fields, dealing especially with the evolving practices of anthropologists and ethnographers (and the conflation of the two) and how they went about chronicling their experiences and observations. One aspect that I found particularly interested was the account of the emergence of ethnography, "a powerful new scientific and literary genre" (Clifford 30). It was quite interesting how the new "scientific" approach simultaneously improved some practices while making others drastically worse. The new practice involved a more detached, culturally relativistic outlook that was probably more accurate than the previous observations of missionaries and colonial administrators. However, along with this detachment came the belief that an ethnographer need not stay with a group for an extended period of time to fully understand the implications of their practices, as well as the belief that the ethnographer could sufficiently converse with the people and make conclusions based on those conversations after a mere handful of years' experience with the language. This contrasted sharply with the anthropologists of the past who, biased as some may have been, spent years or decades gradually learning about a group's culture and language.

QUESTION:
Which is more valuable (in terms of leading to more accurate information about a culture): a strong sense of detachment and cultural relativism (at the cost of familiarity and long-term observation) or a deep familiarity with a culture, perhaps including fluency in its language and comprehensive knowledge of its cultural practices, at the cost of impartiality and scientific neutrality?