Essay on Reflexivity

anthropology. The use of reflexivity has and will always be questioned in anthropology. Malinowski, who was a pioneer in the field of anthropology, discouraged the use of reflexivity; he, instead, believed that anthropology was scientific and could produce “concrete evidence” (Malinowski 17). Reflexivity is way in which anthropologists try to get rid of this scientific and rigid anthropology; it is a move towards an emotional and self-reflective anthropology. Reflexivity denies the structuralism…

However, I contend that it is important to include reflexivity in anthropological method. The anthropologist has to recognize not only the effect the surroundings have on him/her personally, but also the effect he/she has on the surroundings. This dialogue comprises data. If neglected, the text in its attempt to be comprehensive would be left incomplete. The anthropologist Renato Rosaldo has been particularly criticized for his statement on reflexivity in Culture and Truth: The Remaking of Social Analysis…

Ethnography Works Cited Missing Reflexivity is a qualitative method of research that takes an ethnography one step further, displaying the personal thoughts and reflections of the anthropologist on his informants. Ethnographies generally take an outside or foreign perspective of a culture, like reading a text, and reflexivity introduces a new component of inside description. Here, the anthropologist may describe personal interactions and experiences with natives and use this inside information…

The Advantages and Limits of Ethnographic Reflexivity Awareness of writing choices generates an appreciation of the reflexivity of ethnographic research. Reflexivity involves the recognition that an account of reality does not simply mirror reality but rather creates or constitutes as real in the first place whatever it describes. Thus ‘the notion of reflexivity recognizes that texts do not simply and transparently report an independent order of reality. Rather, the texts themselves are implicated…

character behavior and audiovisual design that filmmakers systematically organize in a given film to create an ordered world on-screen in which characters may act and in which a narrative may unfold.(262) One mode of cinematic screen reality is self-reflexivity. While the other three modes of screen reality seek to sway the audience into accepting the authenticity of the world and the story that are on screen, the self-reflexive style deliberately attempts to tear down the illusion of the cinema. In doing…

Reflexivity: Crossing That Line Traditionally, ethnographic works had always been about objective studies of the “other.” The discipline attempts to use non-biased methods to research of our subjects to qualify anthropology into the category of science. However, an increasing number of anthropologists begin to question the existence of objectivity in fieldwork. More recently, some anthropologists advocate the incorporation of the self, or the use of reflexivity, in the research to acknowledge…

This new form is, in essence, a breaking of the "rules of anthropology" established by early anthropologists and, similar to discoveries made in the fields of chemistry and biology, reflexivity is necessary in aiding in the advancement of this field, too. Before attention can be given to the concept of reflexivity and its benefit to anthropology, the "rules of anthropology," mentioned earlier, must be understood. Bronislaw Malinowskis "The subject, Method and Scope of this Enquiry" is a highly…

Reflexivity and Modern Works of Anthropology The role of reflexivity in Anthropology has changed a great deal over time. The effects of doing ethnography on the ethnographer was not considered an important mode of inquiry in the past. While inevitably, going to far distant lands and living with a culture so different from your own will at least cause the ethnographer to reflect on personal issues but most likely will cause profound changes in the way he or she will view the world. But in the…

ethnographic authority. One such method is the use of reflexivity in the ethnography. Ethnographers such as Renato Rosaldo in his work Culture and Truth: The Remaking of Social Analysis and Bronislaw Malinowski in his work Argonauts of the Western Pacific assume their authority through the use of reflexivity. On the other hand, there are authors such as George E. Marcus in his work Ethnography Through Thick and Thin, who explain that reflexivity should be used as a means of demonstrating that one cannot…

The Role of Reflexivity in Ethnography Reflexivity, as I understand it, is very well named.It is the practice of reflecting upon oneself and one’s work, of being self-aware and self-critical. In anthropology, it is well exemplified by the work of Renato Rosaldo, Ruth Behar, and Dorinne Kondo, among others. In its most obvious form (or at least the form most obvious to me), reflexivity is manifest in the practice of an ethnographer including herself in her own ethnographic research---seeing herself…