James Clifford
American anthropologist who critiqued ethnographic authority in 'Writing Culture' and travel writing.
Most quoted
"Ethnography is not just description; it is a form of writing that constructs the worlds it claims to represent."
— from Writing Culture, 1986
"The anthropologist is not an objective observer, but a participant in the cultural process."
— from Writing Culture: The Poetics and Politics of Ethnography, 1986
"The invention of culture is a process of ongoing negotiation between power and knowledge."
— from The Predicament of Culture, 1988
All quotes by James Clifford (100)
The fieldworker is always implicated in the power relations of the research encounter.
History is not a linear progression, but a complex web of interconnected events.
The global is always local, and the local is always global.
Ethnography is a form of storytelling, but a particular kind of storytelling.
The idea of a 'pure' culture is a myth.
The anthropologist is not an objective observer, but a participant in the cultural process.
The future is not predetermined, but open to multiple possibilities.
The collection of artifacts is never a neutral act.
The ethnographic present is a temporal fiction.
The concept of 'tradition' is often a modern invention.
The border is not a line, but a zone of interaction and transformation.
Ethnography is a form of cultural critique.
The 'native's point of view' is always mediated by the anthropologist's interpretation.
The idea of a 'root culture' is a romantic illusion.
The museum is a site where cultures are both preserved and invented.
The anthropologist is always a bricoleur, making do with what is at hand.
The concept of 'cultural loss' often masks processes of cultural transformation.
The act of naming is an act of power.
Ethnography is a dialogue between different ways of knowing.
The 'primitive' is a modern invention.
Contemporaries of James Clifford
Other Anthropologys born within 50 years of James Clifford (1940).