Page 35 - Culture and Cultural Studies

34 CULTURE AND CULTURAL STUDIES

becomes less an expedition in search of ‘the facts’ and more a conversation between
participants in a research process.
The critique of the epistemological claims of ethnography does not mean that it is of
no value or that it should be abandoned. There is no fundamental epistemological dis-
tinction between ethnography and a multi-layered novel. For both, the purposes do not
lie in the production of a ‘true’ picture of the world but in the production of empathy and
the widening of the circle of human solidarity (Rorty, 1989). Thus, ethnography has per-
sonal, poetic and political, rather than epistemological, justifications.
In this view, ethnographic data can be seen as giving poetic expression to voices from
other cultures or from the ‘margins’ of our own cultures. However, representing such
voices is no longer to be regarded as a ‘scientific’ report. Rather, it is to be understood as
a poetic exposition and narration that bring new voices into what Rorty calls the ‘cos-
mopolitan conversation of humankind’. Thus, ethnographic data can be the route by
which our own culture is made strange to us, allowing new descriptions of the world to
be generated. For example, ethnographic research may help us to learn from other cul-
tures, to supply those ‘toeholds for new initiatives’ and ‘tensions which make people
listen to unfamiliar ideas’ which combat ethnocentrism and help enrich our own culture
with new ideas (Rorty, 1989).
None of this means that we can abandon all methodological rigour, for the following
reasons:

1 Evidence and poetic style are pragmatically useful warrants for truth and action,
epistemologically equivalent to the procedural agreements of the physical sciences.
That is, scientific ‘objectivity’ is to be read as social solidarity and truth signals
maximum social agreement (Rorty, 1991a).
2 The language of observation and evidence are among the conventions that divide
the genre of ethnography from the novel.
3 The rejection of a universal objective truth is based on the impossibility of word–
world correspondence and therefore of accurate or adequate representation. This
does not mean that we have to abandon word–word translation. That is, we can
achieve ‘good enough’ reporting of the speech or action of others without making
claims to universal truth. Thus, it is better to use a tape recorder to document the
utterances of research subjects rather than make it up because:
(a) we will be better able to translate and understand the words of others for
practical purposes;
(b) we will be better able to predict the actions of others.

The problems of ethnography are problems of translation and justification rather than of
universal or objective truth. We can consider languages (and thus culture and knowledge)

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