that isn't what one does in ethnography per se. it depends on what kind of ethnographer one is. but eli anderson doesn't say a thing through out the entire presentation of his book, _StreetWise: Race, Class and Change in and Urban Community_. he tries so hard to be aneutral conduit for their words that the undiscriminating reader imagines that Anderson holds those views. he does not. e.g., i've seen people think he's 'racist' when he reports blacks views of korean shop owners, even tho he has clearly spelled out the reasons for urban decline, racial tensions, real estate shams, etc. one would think that this sort of an analysis would prevent a reader from mixing up anderson's position and that of those he quotes, but many get confused because he's careful not to make any judgements.
asking wolfe to examine their words, particularly as he is explicating what they say, is completely uncalled for. and a note: wolfe had never done ethnography before. it was all new to him, so he was trying his hand at it.
i personally practice critical ethnography and i do things like challenge my respondents, push them, argue with them, etc. and when i do, i make my reader clear about what i do, etc. i also tend to examine my own relationship to the material at hand. i have also expanded on a method i was introduced to thru marj devault: looking for the places where people do not have the words to say what they want to say, where they stutter, grasp, are frustrated.
wolfe did more of a conventional ethnography which has been very much criticized but is still practiced widely. at any rate, i would think that anyone who isn't an ethnographer probably _ought_ to learn how to "report" as objectively as possible what people say the first time around. doing more critical ethnographies/employing different methods and, indeed, drawing on an entirely different _methodology_ probably requires an experienced hand. wolfe wasn't.
sociologists, plain and simple, are not supposed to judge people. a sociologist isn't a judge. a sociologist is supposed to understand and explain the world around him or her. castigating them for their views and criticizing them is not explanation.
it is in his conclusion where one must nail him. there is where a sociologist on the model reveal his or her biases, where he or she judges what the respondents say, but even then it is not to castigate them as people, but to examine the social institutions and practices that shape their world view and ask why and how they do so.
if you want an essayist and commentator on the american scene an ethnography isn't where you should look, tho it can give one fodder for doing so.
having chosen to do things like study men to learn more about gender and study the professional managerial strata to understand the operations of our political economy i am often to treated to these kinds of crits -- as if i am supposed to bitch about my respondents for their sexist responses. i'm not. i'm supposed understand why they engage in such discourses. i'm supposed to help my reader understand so they can learn that it is the social institutions and attendant social practices we need to change, not give sexist men or self satisfied whities a jolt of the volt to shape them up or something.
kelley
>Clearly most of them buy the notion that PA recipients are a long-term,
>stuck-in-the-mud crowd of chronic dependents. Not
>true, of course. Also, though he does mention their self-pity, he fails
>completely to recognize it as a failure of reality-testing, not only about the
>lives of PA recipients, but also as a failure to recognize that the right-wing
>hit at the floor under income that welfare provided ultimately threatens all
>working people. There are still other defects in his work, which I half
>remember.
>
>Christopher Rhoades Dÿkema
>
>Kelley Walker wrote:
>
> > At 06:35 PM 4/15/01 -0400, Christopher Rhoades Dÿkema wrote:
> > >Can't seem to find my copy of Wolfe's ONE NATION AFTER ALL, but I
> > >remember it fairly well. In it he celebrated the essentially privatistic
> > >outlook of the accidental sample of people he surveyed, and portrayed
> > >them as strongly supportive of personal responsibility, the work ethic,
> > >and a paternalistic attitude towards the poor.
> >
> > finding something is not the same thing as approving of it. eli anderson
> > finds that blacks accuse other blacks of some horrendous things. does that
> > mean eli anderson agrees? please! it isn't that he celebrates them. there
> > is a place where he celebrates the enlightenment liberalism that undergirds
> > their tendency to, for example, believe strongly that abortion is wrong,
> > that it is murder but concede that this is _their_ belief. even the most
> > activist among them, save a few, refrain from agreeing that they should
> > foist their beliefs on everyone else.
> >
> > bellah et al. critique their respondents strongly for the above. wolfe
> > doesn't. to call it celebrating goes a bit overboard.
> >
> > >This is pretty much what
> > >I find when I look at the chapter on the family in the chief
> > >communitarian, Amitai Etzioni's THE SPIRIT OF COMMUNITY: RIGHTS,
> > >RESPONSIBILITIES AND THE COMMUNITARIAN AGENDA.
> >
> > first, it wasn't an accidental sample. what he set out to do was criticize
> > Habits of the Heart for their criticisms of intense individualism among the
> > profesional managerial strata (happy carrol?) therefore, he went to the
> > same four cities and plucked a sample of, iirc, 50 ppl. he then interviewed
> > them. it's called a case study and there is nothing per se wrong with
> > doing a case study. methods are tools and they work best if you choose
> > those tools that work in conjunction with your theoretical framework AND
> > your methodological framework.
> >
> > both authors had a theoretical reason for analyzing the white middle
> > STRATA. it is similar to what ehrenreich did in _The Hearts of Men_: to
> > examine US ideology where it is likely to be most trenchant, where is
> > flourishes, where is broadcast and takes root most firmly. i.e, it's not
> > accidental, but purposeful
> >
> > case studies, as michael burawoy has argued, can be used to make
> > generalizations, however.
> >
> > of cours, as socialists, we need to do better. but they are not.
> > furthermore, as a sociologist it's not really my job to run about writing
> > books that conform to my ideological desires. it is rather, to look and
> > see and be open to the possibility that i might have it wrong!
> >
> > sorry if i jumped on you chris. i spend a lot of time bitching at people
> > on conlib lists for spouting off about how, for example recently, keynes is
> > a fabian socialist. this they heard somewhere. it is then argued that
> > keynes was like a democratic socialist who was after slow
> > change. whatever. but the point is to discredit whatever i say as commie
> > pinko red, to make anyone who even slightly seems that way out to be one as
> > well. when i see people here do that by saying, well alan wolfe hangs out
> > with the communitarians or he says things that seem communitarian therefore
> > he's antifeminst and homophobic????
> >
> > when i see "us" do the same thing, i get more pissed than i do elsewhere.
> > the views there are excusable. the tactics are possibly
> > understandable. but they are neither in our case.
> >
> > lots to critique in wolfe, etzioni, bellah et al., but what i saw early on
> > wasn't exactly critique.
> >
> > >Of course, neither of these writers is Dr. Dobson, or a real religious
> > >right type. Etzioni makes a few perfunctory feints in a liberal
> > >direction, but his is essentially an apology for a neoliberal family
> > >policy. Several of the more admiring quotes are from people overtly to
> > >the right of the position he lets you think he takes. People like
> > >Barbara Dafoe Whitehead, Mary Anne Glenton, Judith Wallerstein. He
> > >denies that he wants to abolish divorce, but then says he thinks it
> > >needs to be more difficult, that social policy should place obstacles in
> > >its way.
> > >
> > >In effect Etzioni describes many of the negative effects of the
> > >instability of the family and its generally counterdevelopmental effect
> > >on many of the children who grow up in the complex and frequently
> > >reconstituted families that are now more or less the norm. But does he
> > >propose a strong program of universal social welfare measures that would
> > >extend support to all children? Even more important, does he recognize
> > >that marriage is an institution whose instability is inevitable given
> > >fundamental political-economic changes that are integral to contemporary
> > >capitalism?
> > >
> > >Of course not. He does say fleetingly that it would be nice for
> > >corporations to provide paid child-care leave, and that family
> > >allowances would be a good thing. These are his feints to the left.
> > >However, he goes on for pages on the moral duty of individuals, as
> > >individuals, to be personally responsible, exercise care in family life,
> > >etc. (Rhetorical hint of the Clinton welfare reform here.). He takes an
> > >effectively pro-corporate stance without owning up to it, because the
> > >only way not to do this would be to propose real social welfare
> > >alternatives.
> > >
> > >Wolfe, in a different way, takes a similarly tired liberal privatistic
> > >approach to what are really social issues. He, and Etzioni in a more
> > >upbeat, pseudo-inspirational way, really seem to be the Tony Blairs of
> > >American social policy.
> > >
> > >As socialists, we need to do better. For example, both Etzioni and Wolfe
> > >strongly oppose day-care, saying that existing day-care is of dubious
> > >quality. Often enough they are right, of course, but they go on to
> > >insist that children always belong at home. This is a gross example of
> > >political defects they share. And their stance has consequences that
> > >contradict their supposedly tender concern for children. For example,
> > >their kind of thinking gives aid and comfort to the anti-poor right,
> > >who, under forced-work programs, must leave their children in really
> > >questionable day care.
> > >
> > >Christopher Rhoades Dÿkema
> > >
> > >
> > >LeoCasey at aol.com wrote:
> > >
> > > > Part 1.1 Type: Plain Text (text/plain)
> > > > Encoding: quoted-printable