Anthropological Irony
Who has power over you? Over whom do you have power?
Throughout my PhD, I studied the dynamics of power, how it operates, who operates it, and how it affects people, relationships, and societies. Heading into fieldwork, any good researcher must grapple with how they will behave and present themselves. As a researcher immersed in the community I was to study, I had to have real clarity of my own morals and ethics, as a human being and a researcher to help guide me through the inevitable challenges and ambiguities I would encounter. It’s about maintaining your own morality and sense of self, living within appropriate ethical boundaries, and nurturing empathetic relationships so you never lose sight of the humanity of others.
This is extraordinarily challenging when you are doing immersive anthropological research living in community with the people you study. My Master’s supervisor at Oxford had so much wisdom that I went to Kenya wishing he had given more structured, clear advice of what to do when/if…But he knew better because context is so important and the only answers of what to do when/if spring from a deep reflection and analysis of each situation that might be anywhere from “sticky” to morally and ethical out-of-bounds. The “right” answer is an answer that takes into consideration all you are as an empathetic human, an ethical researcher, and the context to make a logical and informed decision based on your understanding of ethics, morals and yourself. The “right” answer must navigate all these domains and so that can leave you in a position where you can sleep well at night…and it might leave you with nightmares for years to come.
One priority I had in the field was to remain reflective and analytical about the power I had in my relationships with others. I had the power of the pen – to write my own perceptions, analysis of them, their situations, their lives and how that might affect them.
Hands down the most influential article I read in preparing for fieldwork was by anthropologist Clifford Geertz who wrote about the moral act of thinking and anthropological irony in 1968.
Geertz describes thinking as a moral act to be judged because thinking is serious and affects your behavior. And your behavior affects those around you so it is a social act. In thinking as a moral act, I entered my research and chose methods that would support the participants’ empowerment, value, and voice in my work. I didn’t want to do research “on” people but “with” people.
And at the heart of the research was the critical relationships I maintained with my research assistants. We are working together but I am the supervisor. I am reliant on my research assistant’s language skills, but she still works for me. We spend many hours together in intimate conversations, but is there to make of our relationship? I wonder how it can be strictly “business” when we emotionally connect and give space to so many women who tell us the most intimate details of their lives. And after these moments, we share our own moments and lives with each other. But we are still from very different worlds and life experiences. There are differences in culture, educational levels, opportunities, economics, and status. I worked hard to break down the power that places me above my assistants because, although different, I saw them as my equals in our humanity. But the anthropological irony, the radical asymmetry in life chances and opportunities between researcher (me) and research assistant can never be fully ignored. We might be equal human beings but our life opportunities certainly are not the same. And in this situation, I am the one with power.
In Geertz’s article, he describes a situation with his research assistant where a disagreement over a typewriter (possibly a molehill) became catastrophic (definitely a mountain) and exposed the irony of his relationship with his research assistant.
Geertz tells the story of a typewriter in Java. His research assistant borrowed his typewriter frequently to work on his own writing of Javanese myths and plays. In this sense, the two men were equals, both educated, professional men. Over time, the assistant borrowed the typewriter so much that it became inconvenient for Geertz. So one day when the assistant requested to use the typewriter and Geertz declined saying he needed it for his own work, the relationship became fractured and the assistant stopped working with Geertz and returned to hand-writing his work. Geertz tried to repair the relationship but it was too late, and the typewriter became something bigger.
The typewriter became a symbol of power and distance between them. This is anthropological irony in its most intimate form. This one object, a typewriter, became a site where two people negotiated an impossible equality across a vast structural asymmetry. They did not have equal resources and the refusal, in the most micro view, was a simple fact of having to work. But in the bigger picture, it exposed the inequality between the two mens’ status and reminded both of them who had power in the relationship.
I think this anthropological irony can occur to so many of us in our relationships. How many times do teachers try to relate to high school students and the students confuse support and relatability with friendship? How often do teachers confuse the too as well? I have seen a few in my day.
How often do parents wish to have friendship with their child when the parenting gets in the way and fractures the friendship confusing the relationship for both parent and child. I have seen this happen myself in my years in school.
What about colleagues at work? How “equal” are you with people at different levels and statuses at work? Are you friends? Are you colleagues? Are you equals? And if you’re equals, in what sense are you? And what sense are you not?
These are the types of questions that an anthropologist will ruminate over and again in their heads throughout fieldwork. There is a constant analysis of relationships. Are you getting too close? Are you too formal to make connections? How do you break down barriers while living fully confident and accepting of boundaries and differences that make you different? Being different can work to your advantage in giving you access to intimate ideas that people do not want to share in their community? Be different can be a barrier to building trust and being able to truly be allowed and welcomed into a community.
These are the types of questions that consume me in fieldwork. They consume me in regular work. They consume me when interacting with regular people in their work settings. Does the customer have power over the employee? Maybe at Walmart? But on an airplane where they are in charge of livelihood and safety?
Next time, I’ll share my own fieldwork story of anthropological irony and what sits uncomfortably in me still after my relationship with a research assistant became fractured.
