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)
Representation is always partial, always political.
In a world of movement, culture is hybrid.
Ethnography's strength lies in its vulnerability.
The observer effect is inherent in cultural description.
Primitivist fantasies haunt modern anthropology.
Dialogues across cultures reveal shared humanity.
Writing is the site where ethnography lives or dies.
Power asymmetries shape every ethnographic encounter.
Cultural translation requires humility.
Anthropology's future is in its past critiques.
The field is everywhere, not just 'out there'.
Ethnographic truth is dialogic.
Colonial legacies persist in academic discourse.
Travel is a metaphor for cultural dislocation.
Authority is invented, not discovered.
Culture's edges are where innovation happens.
Reflexivity turns the mirror on the anthropologist.
In ethnography, silence speaks volumes.
Globalization blurs the lines of cultural purity.
The ethnographic gaze must be reciprocal.
Contemporaries of James Clifford
Other Anthropologys born within 50 years of James Clifford (1940).