Facts and Fictions, Saris and Stories

‘The concept of culture I espouse is essentially a semiotic one. Believing, with Max Weber, that man is

an animal suspended in webs of significance he himself has spun, I take culture to be those webs, and

search of meaning.’ - Clifford Geertz - Thick Description

Ethnography Vs Fiction

Ethnography is defined to be the study of human behavior. It is often understood as a quest for truth

about some people under study. But, what is this truth? Can ethnography be a static subject aiming for

the "truth" while studying the dynamic nature of human beings. Is objectivity really attainable? Or, is

only a thick description possible? These concepts have been clearly reflected in the 'Sari Stories' by

Kamala Visweswaran.

The author was one of the pioneering feminists in India. The ethnographic viewpoint from which she

evaluated the cultural and social aspects of Madras and her citizens is essentially a feminist one. We can

easily find that there are almost no male characters in the whole story except the rude laundry boy, the

libertine professor and her grandfather. The story seems to reflect that society can be complete even

without men playing a pivotal role.

Aptly named. "The sari stories" is a brilliant account of the importance of the sari as a cultural artefact in

the lives of Indian women. She efficiently describes her own craze for saris and the important role

played by the sari in the society. It was something that had to be carefully scrutinized before buying,

otherwise, when gifted it was usually passed on to someone else or when worn it usually attracted curt

remarks from elders.

The entire work revolves around her grandmother and the saris. . With her grandmother as her hero she

weaves a story, a fictional ethnographic account. The story is rich with economic political and cultural

practices of the people. The bargaining practice, the visits to the temple, the weekly ritual of watching

Ramayana to name a few. More than the actions and the practices the author gives a brilliant account of

the people, a true anthropological work indeed. Her story covers subjects like the generation gap, the

stereotypes against western women, the suspicious nature of old women(the cook episode) and the

clashes that they produce. Her story is a story of people. It may have been arranged like a work of

fiction, but it is undoubtedly a study of her surroundings and its members. This is discussed with great

details in the next section.

Importance of context in ethnography

The clash between subjectivity and objectivity is supposedly more evident in Ethnography than in

Fiction. A Fiction is considered to be a pretty shallow topic, written for the entertainment of the reader

as well as the writer, whereas Ethnography is a topic on which college lectures are given. It is expected

that an ethnographer will analyse from an objective viewpoint, however due to the lack of well defined,

popularly accepted standards and lack of ultimate authorities it cannot help being somewhat subjective.

The controversy of subjectivity-objectivity is primarily based on an idea that ethnography is expected to

be a topic whose actual aim is nothing but the quest for truth(somewhat like the natural sciences),

however the activity of creating and propagating the idea of a fiction is not so much reality oriented.

Consequently, fantasy is often synonymous to fiction . The very idea of fantasy seems to be against the

concept of search for truth. An ethnographer while aiming for objectivity tries to view his subjects as the

"other", but this inevitably denies him the knowledge of many details of the lives of his subjects. In such

cases he must resort to imagination. He becomes subjective. So, how to draw the boundary between

fiction and ethnography? An ethnographer has to be very careful that he is not getting away from the

reality. But what is reality? Is there really any reality? A goldfish in a spherical tank sees a distorted

image of the world outside. That is the goldfish's reality. Similarly, there is no reason why the world that

we see is not a distorted image of a higher truth. ①

Ethnography and fiction exist because we exist. They are both the brain child of man, and hence it is

influenced by the same factors that influence a human being. The context of ethnography is as

important as the study itself. Ethnography stresses the importance of 'context' or 'setting', and thus

there can be no theoretical perspective which can explain in advance what one is likely to see in a new

setting, nor any data which constitutes the 'right' data to be collecting ②. Ethnographic data takes a

variety of forms and can include general descriptions of behaviours, descriptions of physical layouts,

close descriptions of conversation, thoughts and feelings about what is going on, tentative hypotheses,

examples, repeated occurrences, and so on. Inevitably, this makes it rather difficult to distil data down

to an 'essential' form.

①As explained in Stephen Hawkins "The Grand Design".

② In the "Notes on The Balinese Cockfight" by Clifford Geertz, Geertz gives a very brief account of the

massacre in Bali by the government forces. He only provides a footnote regarding it. This shows, what

may be important to one ethnographer, may be completely disregarded by another.

Sources :

1. The Margaret Mead and the Derek Freeman debate, last accessed on 25/08/2012

2. Fictions of Feminist ethnography , last accessed on 25/08/2012

3. Notes on the Balinese cock fight, last accessed on 25/08/2012

4. http://www.utexas.edu/cola/depts/anthropology/faculty/kv84 accessed on 25/08/2012

5. Geertz, C. ‘Thick description: Toward an Interpretive Theory of Culture’ in ‘Anthropology in Theory’

eds. Moore & Sanders. Blackwell, Oxford, 2006.

6. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnography accessed on 25/08/2012