Mike's Original Question
My Answer
Mike's Feedback
Feedback Response:
Hi Mike!
I originally wrote a comment on your actual post last week, because I forgot that we were doing another round of feedback, so I've taken my original comment and revised it somewhat.
I definitely agree with you that currently there is an over-representation of outsider ethnographies. I think the solution is an attempt to equalize the status of ethnographies. Neither insider nor outsider ethnographies should be seen as better than the other, merely different, and there should not be an overabundance of either one. Ideally, readers would be able to discern the qualities and advantages of each view, and they would be able to glean useful information from both. Whether such a state of equality is achievable is another question! One problem with this is establishing standards of quality. What are the characteristics of a good, thorough ethnography? If we base them off of what we're familiar with, then we would be forcing people from other cultures to write ethnographies in the Western academic tradition. What if their concept of an ethnography is completely different from our own? How do we evaluate the quality of their ethnographies, and how do we compare/combine insider and outsider ethnographies when they are written by people from different cultures who are going about the observation and writing processes from completely different points of view? There are a lot of issues to discuss here, and I think that in principle you are right that outsider ethnographies are over-represented, but I believe that this observation merely raises a whole host of new issues if we want to “fix” the problem. This is definitely a conversation that could continue for some time.
I also agree that the dominance of outsider ethnographies from the West is unfortunate. I would definitely like to see more outsider ethnographies done by non-Westerners, but as long as ethnomusicology remains a Western-dominated field, this seems unlikely. I'm not sure what a good solution to this would be. Any ideas?
Best,
Joe
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1 comment:
Nice reply, Joe. I disagree somewhat with your point that emic and etic approaches are equaly valuable. For certain questions/studies, an emic approach can be far more usefull than an etic and vice versa. Examples of this might be highly marginalized groups. But congrats on a sophisticated, productive exchange with Mike.
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