The ethnographic gaze and the subaltern voice
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.22380/2539472X.1265Keywords:
subaltern voice, post-colonial theory, anthropological theory, ethnographic methodAbstract
The essay presents a theoretical and methodological assessment of anthropology and of its place in contemporary thought in the Humanities. To do so, the author develops the metaphor of the metamorphoses of the ethnographic eye and detects some crucial moments of the reception and reproduction of this knowledge created in metropolitan centers in the days of colonialism, in periferal countries. After a review of theorists of postcolonial and subaltern studies, such as Edward Said, Gayatri Spivak and Homi Bhabha, the author discusses the possibilities of a postcolonial ethnography based on the narration of subaltern voices. Finally, he illustrates these discussions with the presentation of a narrative of a woman from the Brazilian state of Maranhão who works as a gatherer of babaçu cocoanut. He compares her text with Heidegger’s reading of one of Hölderlin’s poems.
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