The last thing writers want to do – and this is a terrible secret – is actually write. That’s the hard part. Maybe I’m wrong, some writers say they love the process. On days when it’s going well it’s the most sublime experience , but most days it’s really just trying to swim through a creek of shit. That’s very eloquent, isn’t it?
London - Double Landscape (by Ben Heine)
Maybe now is the time to tell you that I’ve been having some serious doubts about my place in Internet Feminism. Not my involvement in Internet; that, no doubt, will go on. Because what else am I going to do with my time? But there are problems, I think, with the terms of the conversation I’ve set up here; there are problems with my own place within that conversation, the person I’ve agreed to be when I talk to you. That outraged, righteous, upright, know-it-all person who has compassion for all the right people and scorn for all the wrong ones, who’s on the right side (your side) of all the issues: I think she’s dangerous, and I think she’s at least partially false. The falseness is the root of the danger; problem with Internet Feminism, or any politics of identity, any system that purports to help you get your life and problems understood better, is when it sets up a too-easy, pre-packaged narrative for your own life. When it gives you the language, the rules for engaging and discussing, but doesn’t help you to look with any greater or more dangerous honesty at what you’re thinking, or how you’re acting, or who you are.
Oh KRudd
Imagine an alternative, in which fieldwork is reported as it happens. Site reports can be updated daily and followed in real time. Each interview as a part of ethnographic fieldwork can be published, each story told on its own before it is assimilated into the larger picture. Conference volumes can be e-books, published before the meeting so that they enhance the value of the face-to-face event. Meetings can be archived, linking presentations, discussions, and text.
anthropologies: What’s wrong with anthropology?
This is a really interesting article for all those interested in the social sciences generally (this article covers anthropology, but it is potentially relevant to any research which involves talking to and/or observing people). I don’t agree with all of it though. I think that while anthropology could stand to be more up-to-date and in touch with present culture, even up to the very moment, I think that this article misses the important point that it takes time to be accurate. Especially if you aren’t just reporting facts, but are applying theory and talking about wider implications of the way things are. Initial field observations could be valuable, but the cumulation of impressions, the sense that you know what this culture is like because you spent years there is far more valuable because it’s actually likely to be accurate. This is important when you are talking about peoples lives and where false impressions can go towards hurting and marginalising the people you are studying. With time and carefulness, one can share their work respectfully, without compromising those they observe.
(via Story of my life on we heart it / visual bookmark #28050247)
Happy weekend, tumblverse!
I'd Rather Dance With You: Please don't go. We'll eat you up. We love you so.
“Once a little boy sent me a charming card with a little drawing on it. I loved it. I answer all my children’s letters — sometimes very hastily — but this one I lingered over. I sent him a card and I drew a picture of a Wild Thing on it. I wrote, “Dear Jim: I loved your card.” Then I got a letter back from his mother and she said, “Jim loved your card so much he ate it.” That to me was one of the highest compliments I’ve ever received. He didn’t care that it was an original Maurice Sendak drawing or anything. He saw it, he loved it, he ate it.”
