Postmodern Sensibilities and Ethnographic Possibilities

POSTMODERN  SENSIBILITIES  AND  ETHNOGRAPHIC  POSSIBILITIES  

Simon  Gottschalk,  Ph.D.  Department  of  Sociology  

University  of  Nevada  Las  Vegas    Pp.  205-­‐233  in    By  Ice  or  Fire.  Edited  by  Steve  Banks  and  Anna  Banks.  Thousand  Oaks:  Sage    (Altamira).    1998.  

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INTRODUCTION:  THE  POSTMODERN  TURN  IN  ETHNOGRAPHY:    

(AT  LEAST)    FIVE  METHODOLOGICAL  IMPLICATIONS  

Post-­‐modern  ethnography  is  a  meditative  vehicle  because  we  come  to  it  neither  as  to  a  map  of  knowledge  nor  as  a  guide  to  action,  nor  even  for  entertainment.  We  come  to  it  as  the  start  of  a  different  kind  of  journey  (Tyler  1986,  140).  

  Recent  developments  in  the  feminist,  postcolonial,  postmodern  critiques  and  

the  Cultural  Studies  project  have  radically  questioned  the  practice  of    ethnography,  

have  pointed  at  exciting  new  possibilities,  and  are  concretizing  the  claim  that  we  

may  very  well  find  ourselves  in  the  “sixth  moment”  of  ethnography’s  history  

(Denzin  1996;  Denzin  and  Lincoln  1994).  In  this  chapter,  I  am  chiefly  interested  in  

discussing  five  challenges  raised  by  the  postmodern  turn  and  their  methodological  

implications  for  the  (my?)  practice  of  ethnography.  These  five  challenges  are  

neither  exhaustive  nor  mutually  exclusive,  and  their  methodological  implications  

are  multiple  and  ambiguous.  Still,  I  thought  that  it  might  be  useful  to  discuss  what  

these  challenges  may  “mean”  practically  in  the  field,  and  to  assess  their  relevance  

to  the  uses  of  fiction  writing  and  assertions  of  facts.          

  Over  the  last  two  decades  or  so,  the  postmodern  has  become  one  of  the  most  

controversial  concepts  in  the  human  and  other  sciences,  and  the  topic  of  an  

exponentially  growing  number  of  articles,  books,  conferences,  courses,  and  

intellectual  skirmishes.  1  Whereas  many  respected  scholars  dismiss  this  concept  as  a  

faddish  articulation  of  a  crisis  among  Western    intellectuals  or  worse  (see  Callinicos  

1990;  Dawson  and  Prus  1993;  Faberman  1991;  Huber  1995;  Maines  1996;  Rosenau  

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1992)  others  approach  it  with  more  curiosity  and  intellectual  tolerance  (Dickens  

1996,  1995b;  Dickens  and  Fontana  1996;  Fontana  1993,  1994;  Greer  1990;  Manning  

1995;  Seidman  1994;  Van  Maanen  1995).  Characteristically,  the  postmodern  means  

different  things  to  different  people,  and  it  is  rare  to  find  two  authors  who  define  it  

similarly.  Ultimately,  what  the  postmodern  means  depends  on  the  context  of  its  use  

and  on  the  purpose  at  hand.  In  this  paper,  I  will  follow  Denzin’s  definition  of  this  

concept  and  also  inscribe  it  as  a  “sensibility.”  This  sensibility  refers  to  “a  moment  in  

history  (Post  World  War  II),  a  new  cultural  system  with  new  cultural  logics,  a  

movement  in  the  arts  and  social  theory,  and  a  new  way  of  writing  the  social  

(postmodern  ethnography)”  (Denzin  1993a,  179).  Of  course,  these  three  aspects  are  

interestingly  interwoven;  as  he  also  remarks:  

    We  inhabit  a  cultural  moment  that  has  inherited  (and  been    given)  the  name  postmodern.  An  interpretive  social  science  informed  by  poststructuralism,  Marxism,  feminism,  and  the  standpoint  epistemologies  aims  to  make  sense  of  this  historical  moment  called  the  postmodern  ...  We  seek  an  interpretive  accounting  of  this  historical  moment,  an  accounting  that  examines  the  very  features  that  make  this  moment  so  unique.  (Denzin  1996,  746)  

Stimulated  by  such  a  project,  “affirmative”  postmodernists  (Rosenau  1992)  

interested  in  ethnography  are  developing  alternative  approaches  to  their  writing.  In  

both  content  and  style,  they  seek  to  produce  texts  which  are  more  attuned  to  the  

postmodern  moment,  more  sensitive  to  the  cultural  forms  which  both  express  and  

inform  it,  more  alert  to  the  social  psychological  dispositions  it  may  encourage,  more  

modest  about  truth  and  authority  claims,  more  critically  self-­‐reflexive  with  regard  

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to  subjectivity,  and  more  self-­‐conscious  about  linguistic  and  narrative  strategies.  

The  number  of  such  ethnographies  has  been  increasing  both  as  written  texts  and  as  

presentations  at  conferences,  and  the  discontent  they  sometimes  produce  among  

more  traditional  scholars  attests  to  their  radical  difference  from  modern  

ethnographies.  To  avoid  any  confusion,  let  me  state  right  here  that  I  am  interested  

in  exploring  the  implications  of  the  postmodern  turn  for  sociology  in  general,  and  

for  ethnography  in  particular.  This  interest  does  not  necessarily  imply  a  rejection  

and  silencing  of  “modern”  approaches  to  ethnography  because,  in  order  to  remain  

consistent  with  itself,  an  honest  postmodern  position  should  encourage  difference  

and  multiplicity  in  politics,  methodologies  and  writing  styles  -­‐-­‐  albeit,  unavoidably,  

up  to  a  certain  point  2.  As  Fontana  (1994,  220)  suggests,  “postmodern  

ethnographers  do  not  advocate  any  one  way  of  doing  and  reporting  ethnography;  

instead  they  favor  a  multiplicity  of  approaches.”  

In  contrast  to  traditional  ethnographies  which  were  written  and  evaluated    

according  to  the  rules  of  specific  genres  (Atkinson  1990;  Richardson  1994;  Van  

Maanen  1995),  the  task  of    specifying  what  a  “good”  postmodern  ethnography  

should  read  like  is  inherently  problematic.  When  you  consider  the  various  

postmodern  arguments  insisting  on  radical  ambivalence  and  doubt,  de-­‐

authorization,  modest  truth  claims,  petites  histoires,  textual  politics,  subjectivity,  

evocation,  self-­‐reflexivity,  voice,  the  problematics  of  representation,  etc.,  tracing  

precise  boundaries  delineating  the  desirable  forms  of  a  postmodern  ethnography  

would  be  a  contradiction  in  terms.  At  basis,  it  seems  that  the  methods  one  develops  

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to  accomplish  a  postmodern  ethnography  should  concretize  or  enact  one’s  

understanding  of  the  methodological  implications  of  the  postmodern  sensibility  or  

turn.  Aligning  myself  with  a  postmodern-­‐critical  approach  to  ethnography  (Denzin  

1994b;  Gottdiener  1996;  Thomas  1993),  I  also  believe  that  “both  in  revealing  

conditions  of  postmodernity  as  well  as  in  enacting  them,  postmodernist  writing  has  

been  attractive  in  defining  the  radical  form  of  contemporary  cultural  criticism”  

(Marcus  1994,  564).    

In  opposition  to  the  claims  of  various  critics  (Dawson  and  Prus  1993;  Maines  

1996),  I  believe  that  writing  a  postmodern  ethnography  is  more  or  differently  

demanding  than  writing  a  modern  “realist”  one  because,  in  addition  to  the  essential  

tasks  of  collecting,  organizing,  interpreting,  validating  and  communicating  “the  

data,”  a  postmodern  ethnography  also  requires  its  author  to  remain  constantly  and  

critically  attentive  to  issues  such  as  subjectivity,  rhetorical  moves,  problems  of  

voice,  power,  textual  politics,  limits  to  authority,  truth  claims,  unconscious  desires,  

etc.  Factor  in  the  very  few  guidelines  explaining  how  to  accomplish  this  successfully,  

and  it  seems  reasonable  to  suggest  that  the  work  postmodern  ethnographers  must  

accomplish  has  not  simply  increased  but  has  become  remarkably  more  complex.  As  

Richardson  (1994,  523-­‐524)  explains:  

Although  we  are  freer  to  present  our  texts  in  a  variety  of  forms  to  diverse  audiences,  we  have  different  constraints  arising  from  self-­‐consciousness  about  claims  to  authorship,  authority,  truth,  validity,  and  reliability.  Self-­‐reflexivity  unmasks  complex  political/ideological  agendas  hidden  in  our  writing.  Truth  claims  are  less  easily  validated  now;  desires  to  speak  “for”  others  are  suspect.  The  greater  freedom  to  experience  with  textual  form,  however,  does  not  guarantee  a  better  product.  The  opportunities  for  writing  worthy  texts  -­‐-­‐  books  and  articles  that  are  

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“good  read”  –  are  multiple,  exciting,  and  demanding.  But  the  work  is  harder.  The  guarantees  are  fewer.  There  is  a  lot  more  for  us  to  think  about.  

Let  me  concretize  this  awfully  abstract  discussion  by  utilizing  a  postmodern  

ethnography  I  wrote  about  Las  Vegas  (Gottschalk  1995a).  To  the  question  asking  

why  I  choose  this  specific  ethnography  when  so  many  others  would  have  done  just  

as  well  and  probably  better,  and  to  the  accusation  that  such  a  choice  must  be  self-­‐

serving,  I  would  answer  that  this  particular  text  is  one  which  I  self-­‐reflexively  

developed,  practiced,  produced,  put  my  name  on,  etc.  It  is  certainly  not  the  best  

ethnography  ever  written  following  the  postmodern  turn,  but  it  is  necessarily  the  

one  I  know  best  and  can  make  the  best  use  of  for  the  purpose  of  this  paper.  

Further,  since  the  postmodern  turn  in  ethnography  invites  the  author  to  be  present  

in  her/his  text  and  to  self-­‐reflect  about  choices  of  site,  topic,  methods,  voice,  

politics,  textual  strategies,  authority  claims  etc.,  it  seems  that  relying  on  my  own  

less-­‐than-­‐perfect  work  might  facilitate  the  communication  of  ideas  which,  I  hope,  

might  be  useful  to  readers  interested  in  similar  projects.    

The  interrelated  methods  I  developed  to  produce  the  Las  Vegas  ethnography  

combine:  (a)  self-­‐reflexivity,  (b)  “derives”  or  drifts  in  diverse  Las  Vegas  sites,  (c)  

evocation  rather  than  description,  (d)  interruptions  by  multimedia  texts,  and  (e)  

interventions  by  a  wide  variety  of  individuals  encountered  in  Las  Vegas.  These  

methods  are  not  as  idiosyncratic  as  they  seem  but  concretize  my  ways  of  engaging  

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five  concerns  raised  by  theorists  of  postmodern  ethnography  and  critical  Cultural  

Studies  (Agger  1992).  More  concretely,  these  concerns  pertain  to  (a)  subjectivity,  (b)  

local  truths,  (c)  the  crisis  of  representation,  (d)  multimedia  saturation,  (e)  authority  

and  voice.  Thus,  each  of  the  five  methods  or  “moves”  mentioned  above  concretizes,  

respectively,  a  strategy  enabling  me  to  address  each  of  these  five  concerns.  Before  

continuing,  let  me  emphasize  that  I  do  not  seek  to  impose  these  methods  on  

anybody  conducting  postmodern  ethnography.  Any  one  of  those  five  moves  could  

be  replaced  by  another  one  to  create  a  different  methodological  “toolbox”.  Other  

moves  could  be  added,  or  an  entirely  different  list  could  substitute  for  the  one  I  

discuss  here.  Many  authors  interested  in  the  postmodern  turn  recommend  a  variety  

of    strategies  for  the  conduct  of  ethnography  (see  for  example  Denzin  1990;  

Richardson  1994;  Tyler  1986;  Wolcott  1995),  and  while  these  recommendations  are  

undoubtedly  useful,  my  first  suggestion  will  always  be  to  develop  strategies  which  

are  practical,  attuned  to  the  site  and  the  people  one  interacts  with,  and  which  most  

enable  the  ethnographer  to  practice  his/her  craft  while  remaining  ethical  (see  

Punch  1994).  In  other  words,  Denzin  and  Lincoln’s  (1994)  metaphor  of  the  critical  

self-­‐reflexive  bricoleur  is  still  the  most  pertinent  one  for  the  conduct  of  postmodern  

ethnography.  Creativity,  flexibility,  and  ethical  adaptation  to  the  field  should  count  

more  than  compliance  to  rules  produced  elsewhere  by  somebody  else  at  another  

time  and  for  different  purposes.  Given  the  vague  definition  of  postmodernism,  its  

methodological  implications  for  the  conduct  of  ethnography  are  multiple  and  

uncertain,  but  must  always  remain  context-­‐specific.  Different  ethnographers  will  

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necessarily  focus  on  those  aspects  of  postmodernism  which  seem  most  relevant  to  

their  specific  project,  and  will  have  to  develop  methodological  moves  which  best  

allow  them  to  account  for  those  aspects.  This  does  not  necessarily  mean  that  we  

have  entered  the  “anything  goes”  moment  of  ethnography.  The  postmodern  turn  

contains  simultaneously  more  choices  and  risks  for  those  who  are  seduced  by  it;  

every  ethnographer  must  follow  this  turn  in  her  and  his  own  way  but  must  also  be  

able  to  account  for  her  and  his  methodological  choices.  As  a  last  note,  although  I  

have  organized  the  five  moves  below  into  five  separate  sections,  such  an  

organization  is  of  course  artificial  and  is  developed  solely  for  communication  

purposes.  In  the  field  these  moves  were  always  intertwined.  

SUBJECTIVITY  AND  SELF-­‐REFLEXIVITY  

Since  self-­‐reflexivity  is  an  essential  aspect  of  the  ethnography-­‐as-­‐process,  

scholars  associated  with  critical  discourses  (Clough  1992,  1990;  Lincoln  and  Denzin  

1994;  Denzin  1992,  1989;  Gordon  1990;  Haraway  1988;  Pfohl  1992;  Reinharz  1992;  

Richardson  1992a  1992b;  Tyler  1986;  Van  Maanen  1995)  insist  that  it  should  also  

become  an  essential  aspect  of  the  ethnography-­‐as-­‐text.  Such  an  insistence  is  also  

informed  by  various  lines  of  criticism  which  dethrone  the  authority  of  the  neutral-­‐

objective  observer,  dismiss  the  scientific  genre,  point  at  the  rhetorical  construction  

of  truth,  question  the  boundaries  which  have  traditionally  been  established  

between  the  biographical-­‐subjective  and  the  supposedly  sociological-­‐objective,  and  

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promote  the  purposeful  trespassing  of  such  boundaries.3  Accordingly,  many  

emphasize  the  imperative  of  developing  “ways  of  knowing”  which  have  historically  

been  marginalized  or  delegitimized  by  the  traditional  scientific  discourse.  Such  new  

ways  of  knowing  most  often  include  information-­‐gathering,  interpretative,  and  

communication  styles  which  resist  the  disciplinary  limitations  of  the  scientific  

discourse  and  challenge  its  foundational  assumptions  (Denzin  and  Lincoln  1994;  

Denzin  1994b;  Lather  1993,  1991;  Richardson  1994;  Tyler  1986).  Claims  to  

objectivity  are  now  suspect  or  scoffed  at,  and  the  responsibility  to  be  self-­‐reflexive  

about  one’s  ethnographic  practices  has  become  de  rigueur.  As  Marcus  (1994,  568)  

remarks,  “one  cannot  choose  to  be  self-­‐reflexive  or  not  in  an  essential  sense  -­‐-­‐  it  is  

always  part  of  language  use.”  Our  task,  then,  is  to  “deal  with  the  fact  of  reflexivity,  

how  to  strategize  about  it  for  certain  theoretical  and  intellectual  interests.”  

At  the  same  time,  the  injunction  to  incorporate  self-­‐reflexivity  as  part  and  

parcel  of  ethnography  is  not  without  dangers.  By  comparison  to  “realist  tales”  (Van  

Maanen  1988)  where  the  author  seeks  to  erase  him/herself  out  of  the  text,  today,  a  

number  of  ethnographies  associated  with  the  postmodern  turn  “read”  a  little  like  

morning  talk  shows  where  individuals  discuss  family  secrets,  personal  crises,  

traumas,  desires,  experiences,  etc.,  to  countless  anonymous  others  for  purposes  

which  are  not  altogether  clear.  In  some  cases  (no  references  here,  the  reader  will  

have  to  judge  for  her/himself),  writers  are  so  desirous  to  be  ever  more  self-­‐reflexive  

than  others  about  subjectivities,  private  stories  and  idiosyncratic  departures  that  

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they  effectively  evacuate  the  sociological  from  their  account,  and  produce  texts  

which  are  narcissistic,  incomprehensible,  or  self-­‐indulgent  (Atkinson  and  

Hammersley  1994;  Marcus  1994).  But  as  Tierney  (1995,  382-­‐383)  reminds  us,    

We  need  to  be  able  to  judge  why  we  have  inserted  ourselves  in  a  text  in  a  particular  manner.  The  point  is  surely  not  to  avoid  experimentation,  but  to  be  certain  that  our  experiments  are  efforts  at  creating  change  rather  than  merely  an  exercise  in  intellectual  narcissism.                              

Like  Van  Maanen  (1995),  I  believe  that  in  spite  of  its  radical  democratization,  

ethnography’s  main  task  should  still  -­‐-­‐  should  especially  -­‐-­‐  consist  in  artfully  

communicating  about  people-­‐and-­‐their-­‐culture.  Successful  ethnographies  are  those  

which  can  self-­‐reflexively  connect  private  troubles  to  public  issues,  evoke  

recognition  and  empathy,  promote  action  (Lather  1993),  in  some  cases,  facilitate  

healing  (Ellis  and  Bochner  1996;  Ellis  1995)  and  “make  possible  collective  identity  

and  collective  solutions”  (Richardson  1995,  216).  Although  self-­‐reflexivity  helps  us  

recognize  that  “the  Other  who  is  presented  in  the  text  is  always  a  version  of  the  

researcher’s  self”  (Denzin  1994b,  503),  the  task  of  ethnography  should  remain  the  

des/inscriptions  of  Others,  not  of  oneself.  4  As  disappointing  as  it  might  sound,  self-­‐

reflexive  academic  types  writing  exclusively  about  their  own  experiences  are  not  

the  kinds  of  text  consumers  of  ethnographies  usually  want  to  read  about.      

As  a  means  rather  than  an  ends,  self-­‐reflexivity  is  a  useful  and  important  tool  

which  reminds  writers  and  readers  about  the  essential  situatedness  and  limitations  

of  what  one  is  about  to  say.  For  Greer  (1990,  64),  “to  be  self-­‐reflexive  in  

ethnographic  discourses  means  that  one  knows  who  one  is,  and  knows  the  position  

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from  which  one  speaks,  writes  and  observes  ...”  But  besides  acting  as  a  self-­‐

monitoring  and  “situating”  device,  self-­‐reflexivity  in  ethnography  can  also  

importantly  act  as  an  emancipating  practice.  As  Richardson  (1994)  suggests,  by  

allowing  authors  to  find  and  develop  their  own  ethnographic  voices,  self-­‐reflexivity  

can  counteract  a  certain  collective  -­‐-­‐  albeit  normalized  -­‐-­‐  disorder  we  can  call  

textual  alienation.  Promoted  by  the  rules  of  the  “neutral-­‐objective”  scientific  

discourse,  this  alienation  results  from  the  absence  of  the  author  in  his  or  her  own  

text,  an  absence  which  encourages  distorted  relations  between  author,  writing,  

language,  finished  product,  and  audience.  Since,  as  academics,  writing  is  what  we  

mostly  do  and  texts  are  what  we  mainly  produce,  the  liberating  possibilities  

provided  by  self-­‐reflexivity  should  not  be  underestimated.  Ultimately,  then,  since  

every  ethnographer  is  her/his  own  self-­‐reflexive  research  instrument,  we  will  each  

have  to  find  our  own  poise  whereby  we  (a)  communicate  our  story  in  ways  that  

enable  comprehension  of,  identification  and  empathy  with  the  phenomena  we  are  

evoking,  while  at  the  same  time,  (b)  acknowledge  and  work  through  the  

unavoidable  presence  of    our    subjectivity  in  the  entire  ethnographic  process.  Both  

tasks  are  of  course  complexly  interrelated.      

In  the  Las  Vegas  ethnography,  I  convey  to  the  reader  that  the  “stories”  I  tell  

necessarily  articulate  the  subjective  positions  I  presently  occupy  and  enact.  In  some  

changing  ways,  I  construct  and  experience  the  social,  the  ethnographic,  and  the  self  

from  the  multiple  positions  of  a  post-­‐Holocaust  middle-­‐class  Jewish  European  male  

heterosexual  sociologist  associating  himself  with  the  postmodern  turn.  All  those  

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subjectivities  matter  although  differently  in  different  contexts,  and  in  the  Las  Vegas  

ethnography  I  repeatedly  call  the  reader’s  attention  to  this  multiple  presence  and  

to  its    effects  on  what  I  am  evoking.  Thus,  beyond  positioning  myself  in  the  text  (by  

simply  using  the  pronoun  “I”),  I  alert  the  reader  early  on  that  my  perspectives  on  

American  culture  have  been,  and  continue  to  be,  informed  by  childhood  memories  

of  televisual  texts  which  were  “decoded”  through  Jewish  lenses  and  family  history.  

Such  memories  construct  America  as  a  very  ambiguous  signifier:  

Beyond  this  glorification  of  the  excessive,  the  Strip  and  its  casinos  also  construct  a  text  exaggerating  a  number  of  cultural  contradictions  which    have  haunted  me  for  quite  a  while  ...  The  scene  is  in  Brussels  (Belgium),  early  1960s.  My  mother  and  I  are  sitting  in  our  living-­‐room  watching  “The  Longest  Day”  -­‐-­‐  a  movie  about  D-­‐Day,  featuring  John  Wayne,  Robert  Mitchum  and  other  ex-­‐macho  gods  of  the  Hollywoodian  pantheon.  “I  was  there,  Simon,  I  lived  this,”  says  my  mother.  “When  the  Americans  came,  they  were  our  saviors,  our  liberators.  We  were  so  grateful  to  America,  you  can’t  imagine.  If  it  wasn’t  for  them,  it  would  have  been  Auschwitz.  For  all  of  us.  You  too,  Simon.  Logically”  (198).  

In  another  passage  (211),  I  self-­‐reflect  from  my  informants’  perspective,  

wonder  about  my  refusal  to  honor  an  invitation  to  attend  the  implosion  of  the  

Dunes,  and  question  my  reaction  to  such  an  event:      

Should  I  go?  Are  my  aesthetic  sensibilities  too  constricted  by  middle-­‐class,  European-­‐Jewish-­‐modern  parameters  specifying  what  good      entertainment  should  look  like?    

In  still  another  passage,  by  reacting  to  an  informant  in  a  non-­‐supportive  way,  I  

acknowledge  that  the  Strip’s  constant  spectacle  and  fascinating  logic,  which  I  

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am  reproducing,    might  indeed  inhibit  meaningful  relationships  between  

people:  

“It’s  so  hard  to  create  meaningful  relationships  in  this  town,”    says  Sally,  as  we  are  driving  down  the  Strip  one  night.  “People  come  here  from  all  over  the  place  on  all  kinds  of  weird  trips.”  “Yes,  I  have  heard  quite  a  few  people  mention  this,”  I  answer  absentmindedly,  as  I  am  reading  the  billboards  and  navigating  through  the  traffic  (205).      

As  I’ll  discuss  below,  I  also  attempt  throughout  the  text  to  be  self-­‐reflexive  

about  the  constant  influence  of  media  texts  on  my  “reading”  of  Las  Vegas  and  

my  interactions  with  informants.  Overall,  there  are  no  clear  formulae  specifying  

how  to  achieve  a  self-­‐reflexive  poise.  It  must  be  developed  as  part  of  the  

ethnographic  process  itself  and  will  necessarily  always  unfold  differently  for  

different  ethnographers  or  for  the  same  ethnographer  in    different  fields.  

LOCAL  TRUTHS:  SITE,  SIGHT,  AND  CITE  

Following  the  injunction  of  self-­‐reflexivity,  I  must  explain  my  reasons  for  

choosing  Las  Vegas  as  an  ethnographic  site.  Hopefully,  this  explanation  will  

point  at  a  second  postmodern  concern  for  the  conduct  of  ethnography  -­‐-­‐  local  

truths.  Now,  the  reasons  justifying  my  choice  of  Las  Vegas  are  several.  First,  I  

simply  live  here  and  had  been  living  here  for  more  than  two  years  by  the  time  I  

finished  my  ethnography.  But  that  in  itself  is  only  part  of  the  story.  Las  Vegas  is  

not  only  important  for  biographical  and  practical  reasons  but  also  for  

theoretical  ones.  Having  proclaimed  an  end  to  the  search  for  a  grand  Truth,  

postmodern  theorists    propose  that  the  focus  of  ethnography  should  be  

reoriented  towards  the  here  and  now,  and  that  its  scope  should  be  focused  on  

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the  production  of  tentative,  local,  modest,  temporal  and  intertextual  “truths.”  

  A  second  reason  explaining  my  choosing  Las  Vegas  as  the  site  for  a  

postmodern  ethnography  is  informed  by  the  literature  on  postmodernism.  

Soon  before  my  arrival  in  Las  Vegas,  a  small  number  of  sociologists  and  others  

interested  in  postmodernism  (Baudrillard  1988;  Denzin  1993b;  Fontana  and  

Preston  1990;  Venturi  et  al.  1977)  had  increasingly  started  paying  attention  to  

this  city.  Whether  exploring  its  architecture,  lifestyle,  media  representations  or  

other  cultural  texts,  many  were  suggesting  that  Las  Vegas  articulated  themes  

indicative  of  a  postmodern  moment  or  culture.  Simultaneously,  authors  of  

popular  cultural  texts  were  reaching  similar  conclusions.  5  Here  also,  Las  Vegas  

was  portrayed  as  a  privileged  site  where  one  could  experience  culture  shock  

with  the  postmodern  moment  or  logic.  And  whereas  several  sociologists  

(Baudrillard  1983;  Davis  1992;  Denzin  1994a;  Jameson  1983;  McCannell  1992;  

Reid  1992,  for  example)  have  also  pointed  at  Los  Angeles  as  a  quintessential  

postmodern  urban  space,  these  two  choices  are  not  mutually  exclusive.  Both  

Los  Angeles,  Las  Vegas,  and  many  other  sites  worldwide,  can  be  experienced  as  

articulating  and  constructing  different  and  local  aspects  of  this  cultural  logic  

(see  Friedman  1992;  Van  Maanen  1992).  Although  the  works  cited  above  are  

invaluably  informative  about  various  aspects  of  Las  Vegas,  their  authors  

(re)present  the  phenomena  under  observation  from  a  detached  position,  a  

certain  distance  enabling  the  production  of  “realist  tales”  (Van  Maanen  1988)  

about  the  postmodern.  This  remark  does  not  constitute  a  criticism  of  these  

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works;  my  purpose  and  approach  are  simply  different.  More  specifically,  I  seek  

to  produce  critical  ethnographic  tales  which  evoke  the  postmodern  logic  

through  my  subjective  experience  of    Las  Vegas.          

  Third,  the  idea  that  the  physical  site  of  an  ethnography  (or  any  other  

activity)  should  guide  one’s  approach  is  also  informed  by  developments  in  

ecopsychology  and  related  discourses.  6  Sensitivity  to  “site”  is  an  important  

and,  I  think,  often  underestimated  aspect  of  ethnography.  As  forerunners  of  

much  postmodern  thought,  Situationists  called  our  attention  to  the  “combined  

effects  of  climate,  architecture,  lay-­‐out,  density,  light,  sound,  speed,  smells,  

temperature,  and  colors”  (Plant  1992,  57).  As  they  argued,  these  influence  

everyday  life  and  consciousness  in  more  ways  than  we  can  understand.  Sites  

impact  our  senses,  promote  various  insights,  orient  perceptions,  nurture  a  

variety  of  emotional  responses,  enable  and  limit  different    kinds  of  interaction,  

summon  diverse  subjectivities,  and  thus  should  call  for  different  approaches  

and  writing  styles.  Site  affects  sight  and  site  affects  cite.  Wanting  to  understand  

the  “precise  laws  and  specific  effects  of  the  geographical  environment,  

consciously  organized  or  not,  on  the  emotions  and  behaviors  of  individuals”  

(Plant  1992,  57),  Situationists  developed  a  method  called  “derive”  or  drift.  As  

Plant  (1992,  59)  explains,  “To  drift  was  to  notice  the  ways  in  which  certain  

areas,  streets,  or  buildings  resonate  with  states  of  mind,  inclinations,  and  

desires,  and  to  seek  out  reasons  for  movement  other  than  those  for  which  an  

environment  was  designed.”  Back  on  the  Las  Vegas  Strip  now,  its  very  location  

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in  the  middle  of  a  desert,  its  (subjectively  perceived)  schizophrenic  and  

megalomaniac  architecture,  the  palpable  velocity  of  change,  the  sudden  and  

constant  reshuffling  of  the  urban  lay-­‐out,  the  sheer  size  of  this  enterprise,  the  

disorienting  Strip  neon  lights,  the  fascination  with  spectacles,  all  these  already  

foster  certain  mindsets,  ways  of  perceiving,  subjectivities:  

But  my  thinking  is  becoming  increasingly  distracted  as  everywhere  around  me  multiple  human/electronic  texts  call  my  attention.  To  my  right,  they  promise  money,  sex,  excitement  and  food.  Twenty-­‐four  hours  a  day,  seven  days  a  week.  To  my  left,  they  appeal  to  my  beliefs  in  social-­‐economic  justice  for  the  working-­‐class  (204).    

Contemplating  this  quasi-­‐religious  devotion  [in  casinos],  this  show  of  faith  continuously  reaffirmed  by  individuals  coming  here  from  all  over  the  world,  the  logic  of  the  Strip  becomes  harder  to  resist  (207).  

All  around  the  dance  floor,  suspended  TV  screens  display  silent  footage  of  mass  destruction  caused  by  hurricanes  in  various  cities  ...  In  this  case,  the  media  representation  of  real  disasters  is  not  even  used  as  an  adrenaline-­‐triggering  spectacle,  but  as  a  sort  of  postmodern  pastime  between  music  sets.  As  I  am  sitting  at  the  bar,  watching  the  screens,  already  blasé  ...  (222).              

In  those  excerpts,  I  do  not  only  communicate  how  I  “see”  those  sites  but  try  to  

convey  how  they  affect  my  thoughts,  attention,  emotions,  etc.  Such  an  approach  

resonates  with  Marcus’s  (1994,  567)  notion  of  the  “messy  text.”  As  he  explains,  

such  a  text    emerges  from  the  “mapping  of  a  cultural  territory”  by  an  ethnographer  

“who  is  within  its  landscape,  moving  and  acting  within  it,  rather  than  drawn  from  a  

transcendent,  detached  point.”  In  sum,  inspired  by  the  often  discussed  postmodern  

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quality  of  Las  Vegas,  being  physically  in  situ,  guided  by  the  postmodern  insistence  

on  local,  modest  and  tentative  “truths”,  I  saw  a  compelling  affinity  between  this  

site,  its  culture,  and  self-­‐reflexive  “drift”  as  a  strategy  for  the  conduct  of  

postmodern  ethnography.        

CRISIS  OF  REPRESENTATION  AND  FRAGMENTARY  EVOCATIONS  

  The  “crisis  of  representation”  (Denzin  1994;  Rosenau  1992)  has  had  enormous  

implications  for  the  conduct  of  postmodern  ethnography.  When  the  self-­‐reflexive    

“inscribing”  replaces  the  authoritative  “describing,”  and  when  the  modest  

“evoking”  displaces  the  pretentious  “representing,”  one’s  writing  position  and  

claims  to  authority  demand  radical  re-­‐cognition.  Having  suggested  that  the  

postmodern  moment  lies  “beyond  the  illusion  of  transcendental  science,  truth  or  

religion,”  Tyler  (1986,  131)  invites  postmodern  ethnographers  to  “capture  this  

mood”  and  to  evoke  “transcendence  without  synthesis,  without  creating  within  

itself  formal  devices  and  conceptual  strategies  of  transcendental  order.”  As  such,  

ethnographies  of/in  postmodern  culture  should  articulate  postmodern  

(anti)epistemological  assumptions  about  knowledge,  truth  and  representation.  

Rather  than  attempting  to  convince  the  reader  of  the  truth  of  his/her  account  by  

appealing  to  traditional  and  increasingly  challenged  authorities  and  criteria  (Clough  

1990;  Lather  1993;  Richardson  1995,  1992a,  1992b),  postmodern  ethnographers  

seek  instead  to  promote  an  understanding  through  recognition,  identification,  

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personal  experience,  emotion,  insight,  and  communicative  formats  which    engage  

the  reader  on  other  planes  than  the  rational  one  alone.  They  seek  to  evoke  the  

postmodern  culture,  moment  and  consciousness  rather  than  to  “describe”  it.  In  

Tyler’s  (1986,  138)  words,  “a  postmodern  ethnography  will  not  be  about  experience  

as  it  will  be  an  experience  itself.”  To  accomplish  this  task,  postmodern  

ethnographies  will  be  “of  the  physical,  the  spoken,  and  the  performed,  an  evocation  

of  quotidian  experience,  a  palpable  reality  that  uses  everyday  speech.  [italics  mine]”  

(136).    

  Throughout  the  text  therefore,  I  attempt  to  evoke  a  postmodern  orientation  by  

utilizing  several  textual  practices.  For  example,  as  the  excerpts  below  respectively  

illustrate,  (a)  I  use  strong  metaphors  to  inscribe  various  sites  and  experiences,  (b)  

recreate  encounters  with  informants  by  reproducing  our  dialogues  and  by  including  

my  internal  reactions  to  them,  (c)  call  the  reader  in  the  text,  asking  her/him  

questions,  inviting  her/him  to  respond,  and  articulate  a  position  marked  by  strong  

ambivalence  and  radical  doubt,  (d)  include  cultural  texts  such  as  neon  messages  

and  commercials  which  constantly  circulate  on  Strip  billboards,  in  casinos,  on  slot  

machines,  in  the  streets,  etc.  These  messages  both  punctuate  the  text  and  appear  

as  pictures  in  the  ethnography:    

The  casinos  indeed  appear  as  clean,  comfortable,  and  colorful  factories  where  music  is  playing,  where  food  is  cheap  and  where  drinks  are  free.  As  long  as  you  keep  p(l)aying.    Here,  aisles  upon  aisles  of  operators  activate  loud  machines  by  feeding  them  with  

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money,  thereby  insuring  the  constant  operation  of  a  cycle  where  nothing  ever  gets  produced  except  more  money  ...    Other  “employees”,  seemingly  caught  in  a  diabolic  Skinnerian  experiment,  eyes  glued  to  the  screen,  frenetically  press  switches  which  rotate  wheels  decorated  with  plain  colorful  images.  Still  others,  clutching  a  plastic  bucket  full  of  coins  in  their  hand,  wander  hypnotized  amidst  electrifying  machines  which  continuously  discharge  a  maddening  cacophony  composed  of  random  rings  and  the  aggressive  staccato  of  coins  hitting  metal  trays.  Twenty-­‐four  hours  a  day  ...  (206).  

Considering  the  tragic  events  which  have  struck  the  Los  Angeles  area  lately,  I  should  tell  him  that  bars  with  names  such  as  The  Earthquake,  The  Riots,  and  Flaming  Malibu  will  soon  follow,  each  showing  the  appropriate  theme  films.  This  is  not  so  far-­‐fetched.  For  almost  an  entire  year,  the  Omnimax    theater  at  Caesar’s  Palace  has  been  featuring  a  high-­‐tech  movie  called  The  Fires  of  Kuwait,  a  movie  depicting  the  environmental  holocaust  unleashed  by  the  Gulf  War.  More  real  than    real  (222).  

Thus  an  event  orchestrated  by  and  for  the  media,  and  portrayed  as  a  spectacle  on  TV  screens,  becomes  itself  raw  material  for  a  “real”  movie  about  the  very  same  event,  a  movie  which  we  will  be  fortunate  enough  to  watch  on  TV  in  the  near  future.  Does  this  make  sense?  ...(212-­‐213).    

 MEGAbucks  and  quarterMANIA  -­‐-­‐  scream  the  ever-­‐present  signs  on  slot  machines  ...  These  endless  cycles  are  interrupted  from  time  to  time  by  exploding  marquees  preaching  the  mantra  of  the  Strip.    SHOP  SHOP  SHOP                WIN  WIN    WIN                  ALL  YOU  CAN  EAT  (205).  

Through  these  moves,  I  attempt  to  communicate  the  Las  Vegas  sensibility  in  

different  ways  than  by  constructing  a  logical  argument  about  what  I  perceive  it  to  

be.  I  attempt  as  much  as  possible  to  “take”  readers  to  these  sites,  encounters,  

moments,  and  share  with  them  my  subjective  reactions  to  these.  Hopefully,  such  

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evocations  might  facilitate  a  different  kind  of  “experience”  with  the  ethnography,  

and  perhaps  a  different  kind  of  recognition  of    the  sensibility  evoked  therein.  

MULTIMEDIA  SATURATION  AND  TELEVISUAL  INTERRUPTIONS  

Although  the  decision  to  incorporate  media  texts  in  an  ethnography  might  

raise  a  few    eyebrows  among  orthodox  practitioners,  such  a  move  is  partly  inspired  

by  theoretical  insights  and  methodological  questions  associated  with  the  

postmodern  turn  in  the  social  sciences,  a  turn  which  makes  biographical  sense.  If  

Mills  (1959)  suggested  that  the  sociological  imagination  emerges  and  grows  at  the  

self-­‐reflexive  intersection  between  biography  and  history,  it  seems  clear  -­‐-­‐  to  me  at  

least  -­‐-­‐  that  at  the  end  of  the  twentieth  century  and  in  a  growing  number  of  

societies,  everyday  life,  politics,  sense  of  self,  hopes,  fears,  desires,  etc.  are  

constantly  being  mediated  by  simulations  of  actual  or  fictional  situations  occurring  

in  invisible  sites  but  REALized  through  their  telecommunication  on  screens.  7  My  

biography,  subjectivity,  sociological  questions  and  theoretical  leanings  have  been,  

and  continue  to  be  informed  by  my  and  others’  (always  partial  and  biased)  

decodings  of  such  texts  as  well  as  by  theoretical  reflections  about  the  possible  

social,  psychological,  and  sociological  implications  of  the  media  saturation  of  

everyday  life  (see  Agger  1992;  Clough  1997,  1990;  Denzin  1993a;  Manning  1996).  Of  

course,  the  numerous  trends  of  postmodernism  proceed  in  a  wide  variety  of  

directions,  cover  an  immense  territory,  and  probe  a  multiplicity  of  levels,  and  

although  one  cannot  reasonably  reduce  postmodernism  to  a  simple  focus  on  mass  

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media,  part  of  its  attraction  -­‐-­‐  to  me,  anyway  -­‐-­‐  stems  from  its  visible  interest  in  

such  issues.  At  the  same  time,  television  is  but  the  most  prevalent  and  discussed  

new  technology  marking  the  postmodern  moment.  New,  more,  and  increasingly  

sophisticated  technologies  of  simulation,  communication,  spectacle  and  

surveillance  are  constantly  being  produced,  circulated,  and  used  by  a  growing  

number  of  individuals  in  an  expanding  number  of  life-­‐spheres  (Altheide  1995;  

Bogard  1996;  Chayko  1993;  Gottschalk  1997,  1995a,  1995b;  Penley  and  Ross  1991;  

Poster  1982,  1988,  1990,  1995;  Rheingold  1991;  Ross  1991;  Turkle  1995).  Charges  of  

technological  determinism  aside,  it  seems  obvious  that  the  exponential  

proliferation  of  such  technologies  substantially  affect  macro-­‐  and  micro-­‐social  

dynamics  in  ways  that  we  do  not  fully  comprehend  and  that  they  will  continue  to  do  

so  in  ways  we  cannot  presently  imagine.  While  a  growing  number  of  social  and  

human  scientists  recognize  the  importance  of  the  multimedia  saturation  of  the  

social,  the  conscious  and  the  unconscious,  explanations  about  its  possible  effects  

on,  meanings  to,  and  uses  by  differently  situated  groups  remain  uncertain  (Fiske  

and  Hartley  1978;  Hartley  1992;  Morley  1992).  I  will  not  attempt  to  propose  here  

impossible  conclusions  about  the  topics  of  media  effects  and  audience  research,  

but  wish  only  to  emphasize  that,  although  such  media  texts  are  in  no  way  

deterministic  and  are  subject  to  different  decodings,  they  still  form  a  large  share  of  

the  raw  material  individuals  utilize  as  they  go  about  producing  meanings  and  

interpreting  their  lives.  Such  media  texts  constitute  significant  frameworks  through  

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or  against  which  individuals  (ethnographers  included)  perceive  the  “real,”  assess  

others  and  their/our  selves.  For  Silverstone  (1989,  77):  

Television,  it  might  be  suggested,  is  everyday  life.  To  study  the  one  is  at  the  same  time  to  study  the  other.  There  are  television  sets  in  almost  every  household  in  the  western  world.  They  are  to  be  found  constantly  flickering  in  family  rooms,  bars,  cafes  and  shopping  malls.  Their  texts  and  their  images,  their  stories  and  their  stars  provide  much  of  the  conversational  currency  of  our  daily  life.  Television  has  been  much  studied.  Yet,  it  is  precisely  this  integration  into  the  daily  lives  of  those  who  watch  it  which  has  somehow  slipped  through  the  net  of  academic  scrutiny.  

  Approaching  media  texts  in  this  manner  problematizes  the  segregation  

between:  theoretical  interest  in  this  circulation  of  media  texts,  conventional  

approaches  to  ethnography,  and  the  study  of  symbolic  interaction  between  

individuals.  More  precisely,  we  continue  to  segregate  (a)  the  interpretation  of  

televisual  texts  (b)  from  the  study  of  symbolic  interaction  between  individuals  

from  (c)  attempting  to  understand  how  televisual  texts  mediate  symbolic  

interaction  (ethnography  included)  between  individuals  (but  see  Altheide  

1995).  Thus,  whereas  scholars  study  various  genres  of  media  text,  others  

analyze  fields,  groups,  practices,  social  psychological  dynamics,  biographies,  

etc.,  and  still  others  research  how  differently  located  audiences  decode  media  

texts.  And  although  all  three  projects  are  certainly  worthy  ones,  this  division  of  

intellectual  labor  presupposes  that  we  can  meaningfully  evoke  any  

contemporary  field,  group,  practice,  social  psychological  dynamics  or  biography  

without  paying  attention  to  the  influence  of  media  texts  on  these  processes.  

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  My  decision  to  incorporate  televisual  interruptions  thus  attempts  to  address  

several  problems  which  I  see  inherent  for  the  conduct  of  ethnography  in  

postmodern  culture.  Whereas  traditional  methodological  guidelines  have  often  

urged  fieldworkers  to  achieve  a  comprehensive  interpretation  of  a  field,  its  

members,  their  practices  and  other  phenomena  under  observation,  relatively  

little  attention  has  been  paid  to  the  “normal”  and  permanent  intrusion  of  the  

field  by  televisual  texts  which  must  always  affect  it.  Accordingly,  whereas  many  

audience  researchers  emphasize  the  importance  of  the  fabric  of  everyday  life  

to  better  understand  the  practice  of  TV  watching,  my  televisual  interruptions  

posit    that  we  should  also  consider  the  importance  of  TV  watching  to  better  

understand  the  fabric  of  everyday  life  (see  also  Hermes  1993).  Additionally,  

since  individuals’  interactions  with  media  texts  are  not  limited  to  the  time  and  

space  of  “decoding,”  the  project  of  elucidating  the  interaction  between  

individuals,  televisual  texts  and  the  “fabric  of  everyday  life”  should  also  be  

followed  outside  of  the  living  room,  and  explored  across  the  rich  variety  of  

instances  where  people  engage  in  the  sense-­‐making  practices  which  weave  this  

fabric.  In  other  words,  we  are  all  audiences  of  media  texts  and  carriers  of  media  

“traces”  which  we  activate  (both  consciously  and  not)  as  we  go  about  our  

everyday  life,  whether  we  are  carrying  out  an  ethnography  or  any  other  task.  

Believing  that  media  texts  represent  an  essential  dimension  of  the  everyday  we  

seek  to  account  for,  I  suggest  that  we  can  no  longer  exclude  their  presence  

from  whatever  practice,  social  psychological  dynamics  or  biography  we  are  

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trying  to  “verstehen”  -­‐-­‐  including  our  own  (see  especially  Agger  1992;  

Baudrillard  1993,  1990,  1983,  1981,  1970;  Clough  1996;  Gergen  1996,  1991;  

Pfohl  1992;  Thomas  1993).    

  I  have  included  multimedia  interruptions  in  my  ethnography  of  Las  Vegas  

simply  because  the  contemporary  everyday  has  become  unthinkable  without  

them.  A  little  like  channel-­‐surfing,  such  a  move  evokes  the  commonplace  

practice  of  switching  between  the  local  and  the  global,  the  serious  and  the  

entertaining,  the  “real”  and  the  simulated.  At  the  same  time,  while  the  practice  

of  channel-­‐surfing  refers  to  one’s  rapid  and  disconnected  mental/emotional  

movement  across  TV  screens,  the  excerpts  below  evoke  “live”  channel-­‐surfing:  

a  practice  or  condition  which  suggests  rapid  movements  across  both  the  media  

screens  and  an  already  compromised  everyday:  

Given  that  by  that  early  age,  my  socialization  had  already  been  “inFORMed”  (Pfohl  1992)  by  constantly  circulating  electronic  texts,  I  could  very  well  imagine  what  she  was  talking  about.  I  could  at  will  project  into  consciousness  silent  black-­‐and-­‐white  images  of  anonymous  skeletons  bulldozed  into  mass  graves  ...  These  pictures  are  never  far  away  from  my  consciousness  and  sociological  subjectivity.  But  I  could  also  mobilize  with  equal  ease  Technicolor  images  of  smiling  and  healthy  GIs  driving  their  green  jeeps  through  some  scorched  European  town,  handing  out  peppermint  gum  and  cigarettes,  candy  bars  and  promises  of  a  free  future  through  unlimited  abundance.  America  ...(198-­‐199).      A  fortyish  former  Black  Panther  turned  priest-­‐with-­‐a-­‐social-­‐mission,  Bob’s  visible  fear  and  refusal  to  get  out  of  the  car  spoke  more  eloquently  than  many  statistics.  “Here  we  just  look  around,  but  we  stay  in  the  car.  It’s  too  dangerous”  he  said.  “Even  for  you?”  I  asked,  mentally  flashing  on  1970s  televised  images  of  Black  Panthers  proudly  parading  through  the  streets  of  Oakland,  fists  raised  high  in  the  air,  singing  about  revolution  (205).      

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Watching  the  broadcast  of  The  Dunes’  implosion,  I  cannot  help  but  screen  in  my  mind  other  televised  images  of  fireworks,  spectacular  flames  and  falling  buildings.  Are  those  TV  images  of  Bosnia?  Beirut?  Baghdad?  I  can’t  recall  (211-­‐212).      During  a  commercial  break,  the  show  America’s  Most  Wanted  is  interrupted  by  the  (real)  news  of  the  kidnapping  of  Steve  Wynn’s  daughter.  How  sad  but  ironic!  Do  real-­‐life  events  mimic  TV  programs  or/and  is  it  vice-­‐versa?  Or  was  this  a  re-­‐run?  (219).        How  long  before  footage  of  the  real  destruction  unleashed  in  various  high-­‐tech  wars  becomes  digitally  encoded  on  GENESIS  video-­‐game  disks?  Switch  On,  Plug  In,  Space  Out.  For  a  very  affordable  price,  one  will  then  be  able  to  strategize  and  partake  in  the  virtual  elimination  of  other  nations.  Night  after  night,  in  Technicolor,  on  a  high-­‐resolution  screen,  and  with  sensurround  sound.  After  all,  such    programs  would,  interactively,  reproduce  the  logic  of  other  televised  spectacles  simulating  the  colorful  destruction  of  gigantic  hotels  in  Las  Vegas.  Or  did  it  really  happen?    (222-­‐223).              

The  excerpts  above  both  call  the  reader’s  attention  to  the  rapidly  fading    distinction  

between  televisual  events  and  “real”  ones,  and  also  evoke  the  fragmented,  blasé,  

and  -­‐-­‐  some  would  say  -­‐-­‐  schizophrenic  consciousness  such  a  fading  distinction  may  

promote  (Baudrillard  1981;  Frosh  1991;  Gitlin  1989;  Jameson  1984;  Kaplan  1987;  

Kellner  1995;  Levin  1987;  McCannell  1992).  At  still  another  level,  the  very  structure  

of  the  text  itself  also  evokes  the  rapidly  fading  distinction  between  the  real  and  the  

simulated.  Starting  in  a  desert  which  seems  real  enough  (“Access  to  Excess”)  the  

ethnography  proceeds  (“Americanth”)  onto  the  Strip  and  its  casinos  which  incarnate  

the  logic  of  spectacles,  fantasies,  and  simulations.  In  these  first  segments,  

therefore,  televisual  interruptions,  moments  or  flashbacks  increasingly  destabilize  

the  real.  The  trajectory  throughout  the  Strip  and  its  casinos  then  leads  the  reader  to  

“Implausion”  -­‐-­‐  the  segment  on  the  Dunes’  implosion.  Evoking  an  event  which  

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occurs  simultaneously  in  real  time  and  on  TV,  this  segment  marks  a  shift  in  the  

ethnography,  a  reversal  where  the  televisual  now  comes  to  dominate  over  the  real.  

From  this  point  on  (“Enter  TV”),  the  segments  now  focus  on  televisual  texts,  and  are  

in  turn  interrupted  by  “real”  events  whose  distinction  from  simulated  ones  

becomes  increasingly  problematic.  Thus,  while  in  the  first  few  segments,  “real”  

events  are  interrupted  by  media  texts,  in  the  following  ones,  media  texts  are  

interrupted  by  “real”  events.  The  ethnography  ends  by  bringing  the  reader  to  an  

environment  where  the  distinction  between  real  and  simulated  has  effectively  

collapsed.  In  both  structure  and  content  therefore,  the  ethnography  seeks  to  

articulate  a  postmodern  logic  or  consciousness  which  is  characterized  by  this  

collapse  in  the  distinction  between  real  and  simulated,  and  the  dispositions  such  a  

collapse  might  promote.    

AUTHORITY  AND  VOICE:  INTERVENTIONS  BY  MULTIPLE  OTHERS  

One  of  the  first  pieces  of  local  knowledge  I  learned  in  Las  Vegas  -­‐-­‐  and  after  five  

years,  I  still  hear  it  frequently  -­‐-­‐  is  that  this  site  does  not  encourage  enduring  and  

deep  relationships.  Explanations  for  this  phenomenon  vary.  Some  individuals  refer  

to  an  old    Native-­‐American  curse  dooming  this  site,  less  spiritually-­‐inclined  others  

point  to  the  extreme  transience  of  the  Las  Vegas  population,  and  more  cynical  ones  

state  that  a  great  deal  of  money  is  the  prime  requirement  for  any  kind  of  

“meaningful”  relationship  in  a  place  encoded  by  the  promise  of  instant  wealth  and  

material  pleasures.  Although  not  dismissing  the  spiritual  and  materialist  accounts,  

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my  own  experience  makes  me  opt  for  the  demographic  one.  Over  the  years,  many  

individuals  I  was  slowly  developing  relationships  with  would  leave  town  

permanently  before  they  could  become  trusted  friends.  Quite  a  few  small  business  

owners  I  felt  some  loyalty  to  would  disappear  overnight  to  be  replaced  by  new  

faces.  Over  the  years,  I  have  seen  numerous  political  organizers  embracing  a  variety  

of  causes  appear  one  fine  day  to  drum  up  activism,  plan    marches,  and  collect  funds  

only  to  unexpectedly  depart  to  destinations  no  one  is  really  sure  of.  Informants  

would  suddenly  relocate  before  I  could  explore  with  them  issues  that  interested  

me,  and  colleagues  who  seemed  to  have  developed  solid  roots  in  Las  Vegas  would  

vanish  without  a  word.  An  average  of  five  to  six  thousand  people  move  here  every  

month,  most  of  whom  have  probably  no  intention  of  staying  for  longer  than  

necessary,  and  a  new  phone  book  is  printed  in  Las  Vegas  every  six  months.  

Immigration,  emigration  and  growing  touristic  tides  make  for  a  very  unstable  

population,  and  investing  emotionally  in  constant  nomads  seems  at  times  difficult.

  These  demographic  circumstances  already  carry  consequences  for  the  kinds  

of  ethnographic  rapport  one  can  develop  here  as  compared  to  doing  ethnography  

in,  say,  Eau  Claire,  Wisconsin  or  other  places  characterized  by  a  relatively  more  

permanent  population.  The  transience  of  the  Las  Vegas  population  is  interestingly  

also  articulated  in  the  constantly  changing  urban  landscape.  Implosions  of  “old”  

hotels/casinos  seem  to  have  become  a  new  popular  form  of  entertainment  in  Las  

Vegas,  and  neighborhoods  and  structures  (dis)appear  faster  than  one  can  really  

digest:      

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 Although  I'll  also  admit  that  on  more  than  one  occasion,  when  I  was    lost  at  night  in  dark  and  unfamiliar  sections  of  Las  Vegas,  I  would  immediately  remind  myself  to  stop  the  car  and  search  the  sky  for  the  Luxor  beamlight.  When  all  other  coordinates  have  been  lost,  I  trust  its  permanence,  its  powerful  and  reassuring  presence.  Until  further  notice  (216).          

In  such  conditions,  intensive  and  continuous  fieldwork  with  the  same  people  

seem  difficult  and  perhaps  unwarranted,  as  the  Las  Vegas  “structure  of  feeling”  

seems  to  be  importantly  informed  by  constant  flows  of  people  who  come  from  

everywhere,  stay  for  indeterminate  periods  of  time,  and  then  unexpectedly  

leave  to  anywhere,  rarely  to  be  heard  from  again.  In  order  to  communicate  this  

condition,  my  Las  Vegas  ethnography  also  contains  spontaneous  conversations,  

unstructured  interviews  with  and  interventions  by  a  wide  variety  of  individuals  

encountered  in  Las  Vegas.  Belonging  to  “veteran”  residents,  French  tourists,  

hippie  shopkeepers,  East  Coast  exilés,  peace-­‐and-­‐environment  activists,  

construction  workers,  rabbis,  priests,  body-­‐builders,  artistes  manqués,  high-­‐

school  teenagers,  cab  drivers,  and  others,  these  voices  are  not  “representative”  

of  some  larger  population  but  articulate  different  experiences  of  Las  Vegas  and  

its  logic.  But  field  conditions  constitute  only  one  reason  explaining  my  decision  

to  incorporate  these  voices.  Following  various  criticisms  raised  against  a  

traditional  ethnography  grounded  in  naive  realism  and  authorized  by  an  

author’s  monovocal  and  privileged    position  (see  Ellis  and  Bochner  1996;  

Denzin  and  Lincoln  1994;  Rosenau  1992;  Van  Maanen  1988),  such  a  move  also  

allows  me  to  explore  two  interrelated  problems  not  sufficiently  addressed  by  

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postmodern  criticisms:  the  access  Others  have  to  our  texts  and  the  access  our  

texts  have  to  Others.  First,  it  seems  that  “interacting  people”  -­‐-­‐  the  subjects  of  

our  discipline,  the  Others  of  ethnography  -­‐-­‐  should  be  invited  to  speak  and  

participate  in  our  texts  about  the  issues  which  concern  them  in  qualitatively  

different  ways  than  has  traditionally  been  the  case.  Such  a  participation  cannot  

be  reduced  to  strategically  inserted  quotes  which  support  this  or  that  point,  but  

as  theorizing  voices  which  guide  the  very  construction  of  the  knowledge  we  

produce  about  their/our  experiences  (see  also  Lather  1991;  Reason  1994;  

Richardson  1995;  Thomas  1993).  As  Fontana  (1994,  209)  remarks,  

“Ethnography  should  not  be  based  on  the  researcher’s  understanding  (which  

places  him  or  her  in  a  privileged  interpretive  position)  but  on  a  ‘dialogue’  

between  the  researcher  and  the  natives,  in  which  both  participants  in  the  

dialogue  are  an  integral  part  of  the  study.”  Such  a  position  requires  that  we  

circulate  our  status  of  “participant-­‐observer”  with  them  in  a  more  purposeful  

manner  so  that  they  become  active  “participants”  rather  than  accommodating  

“informants.”  By  incorporating  these  voices,  I  attempt  to  sensitize  the  reader  to  

the  often  invisible  interactive  process  which  constitutes    ethnography,  a  

process  where  informants  are  more  active  and  influential  than  they  are  usually  

given  credit  for.  Some  of  these  voices  confirm  my  perceptions,  others  deny  

them,  many  guide  the  questions  I  attend  to  and  try  to  answer,  and  others  make  

me  rethink  what  I  am  understanding.  The  following  excerpts  illustrate  this  

move:  

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 “It’s  organized  crime,  sir”  says  Jeff,  a  cab  driver  while  explaining  the  roots  of  the  exploitative  conditions  he  faces  daily  in  Las  Vegas.  Dismissing  outright  my  pseudo-­‐Marxist  scenario  of  workers  organizing  and  struggling  for  better  conditions,  Jeff  was  intent  on  explaining  how  the  system  really  works.  “Listen  so  that  you’ll  understand,”  he  says,  stopping  the  car  in  a  gas  station,  letting  the  engine  run  but  clicking  the  meter  off  (202).    

 “It’s  going  to  be  a  pretty  cool  show”  he  said.  I  don’t  think  so.  Debra,  a  Las  Vegas  native  and  waitress  in  a  local  deli,  told  me  that  she  and  several  friends  will  rent  a  suite  at  The  Bally’s  (the  hotel  facing  The  Dunes)  in  order  to  experience  this  spectacular  destruction  “in  style,”  as  she  says  with  a  certain  noblesse.  Rick,  a  worker  for  a  cable  company  and  homesick  for  his  native  Colorado  is  not  impressed,  “this  is  what  Las  Vegas  has  always  been  about.  New  stuff  replacing  old  stuff  all  the  time”  he  scoffed.  Should  I  go?  (210-­‐211).      

Thus,  the  cab  driver  dismisses  my  pseudo-­‐Marxist  explanations  of  his  exploitative  

working  conditions,  forces  me  to  acknowledge  different  sources,  and  makes  me  

look  at  The  Frontier  workers’  strike.  By  taking  me  to  a  part  of  Las  Vegas  I  would  

have  probably  never  accessed,  Bob  (the  former  Black  Panther)  forces  me  to  pay  

more  attention  to  social-­‐economic  inequalities.  Importantly  also,  such  interventions  

force  me  to  self-­‐reflect  about  my  understandings  and  perceptions  from  the  point  of  

view  of  my  informants,  and  thus,  to  increase  the  visibility  of  my  subjectivity.  Dan,  

Debra,  TV  voices,  and  the  crowds  attending  the  Dunes’  implosion  challenge  my  

cynical  outlook.  By  intervening  at  the  “Hurricane”  bar,  an  informant  reminds  me  

that  the  spectacle  of  destruction  I  am  watching  with  blasé  eyes  is  in  fact  

outrageous,  and  encourages  me  to  take  a  second  look  at  similar  spectacles  in  Las  

Vegas.  By  incorporating  these  intervening  voices  -­‐-­‐  what  Foucault  (1994,  41)  calls  le  

savoir  des  gens  (popular  knowledge)  -­‐-­‐    I  have  tried  to  increase  the  informants’  

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active  presence  in  the  text,  to  evoke  their  points  of  view,  to  acknowledge  their  

participation  in  the  development  of  this  story,  and  to  somewhat  attempt  to  reduce  

the  authority  of  my  own  voice,  perceptions  and  understandings.  At  the  same  time,  I  

realize    that  my  voice  and  perceptions  are  still  dominant,  that  I  still  control  the  

Others’  presence  in  the  text,  and  that  there  exist  more  democratic  ways  of  

increasing  their  participation  (see  especially  Reason  1994).    Second,  and  relatedly,  if  

Others  have  traditionally  been  granted  limited  participation  and  voice  in  the    texts  

which  “represent”  them,  it  seems  no  less  problematic  that  our  texts  have  had  

limited  access  to  these  Others.  Three  decades  ago,  Mills  (1963,  226)  remarked  that  

“We,  the  cultural  workmen  [sic],  do  not  have  access  to  the  means  of  effectively  

communicating  images  and  ideas;  others  who  own  and  operate  the  mass  media  

stand  between  us  and  our  potential  publics.”  But  is  this  failure  to  access  the  public  

solely  explainable  in  terms  of  political-­‐economic  barriers  or  does  it  also  result  from  

disciplinary  practices?  It  seems  that  human  beings  have  always  endeavored  to  

produce  stories  about  themselves,  their  social  existence  and  experiences  in  a  

language  which  would  make  sense  to  them,  in  a  language  which  would  enable  the  

sharing  of  stories  with  other  tribe  members.  As  the  recent  self-­‐appointed  story-­‐

tellers  of  human  affairs,  we  seem  to  be  producing  tales  which  are  intelligible  to  only  

small  coteries  of  initiates,  but  only  rarely  to  those  we  write  about.      

  To  Richardson’s  (1992,  131)  suggestion  that  most  sociological  writing  is  

“skimmable”  or  “dreary,”  I  would  add  that  most  is  also  obscure  to  non-­‐sociologist  

Others  (Seidman  1994).  And  while  discussions  about  the  problematics  of  “speaking  

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for”  the  Others  abound,  it  is  ironic  that,  because  of  unnecessary  mystification,  these  

Others  we  hesitate  to  speak  for  would  probably  not  understand  what  it  is  about  

them  that  we  cannot  say.  Although  debating    such  problematics  is  undeniably  

important,  we  all  too  often  seem  to  overlook  the  possibility  -­‐-­‐  the  imperative  -­‐-­‐  of  

speaking  to  8  the  Others,  let  alone  of  speaking  with  them.  Beyond  this  idea  that  our  

writings  fail  to  communicate  with  those  we  write  about  (or  hesitate  to  speak  for),  

we  should  acknowledge  that  these  Others  are  also  frequently  the  producers  of  the  

raw  material  (information)  we  shape  into  finished  products  (texts).  Given  that  the  

production,  accumulation  and  circulation  of  such    products  can  be  exchanged  for  

academic  goods  (promotion,  recognition,  titles,  tenure),  the  denial  of  active  

participation  to  these  Others  in  the  production  of  our  texts  is  an  alienating  practice,  

and  as  Pfohl  (1992)  suggests,  a  parasitic  one.  When  those  Others  cannot  even  

recognize  what  we  have  written  about  them,  our  textual  practices  also  constitute    a  

rip-­‐off.  Increasing  informants’  active  participation  in  the  ethnography  (both  as  

process  and  text)  is  invaluable  on  at  least  five  grounds.  One,  it  will  orient  

ethnographic  questions  around  what  is  most  relevant  to  informants.  Two,  it  will  

encourage  the  ethnographer’s  self-­‐reflexivity  and  raises  his/her  awareness  of  

multiple  subjectivities  both  as  ethnographer  and  individual.  Three,  it  will  force  the  

ethnographer  to  re-­‐assess  his/her  authority  claims  -­‐-­‐  an  important  criterion  in  

postmodern  writing/thinking.  Four,  it    will  provide  multiple  perspectives,  and  will  

thus  broaden  and  deepen  one’s  evocation  of  a  phenomenon.  Five,  finally,  

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increasing  Others’  access  in  our  text  will  hopefully  increase  the  access  of  our  text  to  

them,  and  will  potentially  transform  their  relation  to  it  and  to  us  as  sociologists.  

CONCLUSION:  FACTION  

I  discussed  and  gave  examples  of  five  methodological  moves  I  developed  in  a  

postmodern  ethnography  in  order  to  concretize  epistemological,  methodological  

and  political  challenges  raised  by  the  postmodern  turn.  By  utilizing  self-­‐reflexivity,  I  

attempt  to  concretize  the  postmodern  displacement  of  the  realist  “omniscient  and  

absent”  voice  and  its  rejection  of  objectivity  claims.  By  utilizing  “drifts”  in  specific  

places,  I  emphasize  the  importance  of  site  for  self-­‐reflexivity,  perceptions,  

attention,  emotions,  interactions,  and  the  necessity  to  develop  methods  of  

observation  which  are  attuned  to  sites  and  their  logic.  Drifts  in  particular  sites  also  

concretize  the  postmodern  preference  for  local,  tentative  and  contextualized  

truths.  By  aiming  at  evocation  rather  than  description,  I  acknowledge  the  

postmodern  crisis  of  representation,  and  its  challenge  to  claims  of  totalizing  

accounts.  Rather  than  suggesting  that  my  stories  represent  the  “finished”  or  “whole  

truth”  about  Las  Vegas  or  its  postmodern  characteristics,  I  insist  that  they  are  

inevitably  subjective,  partial,  ambiguous,  and  open  to  revisions  and  multiple  

interpretations.  By  integrating  televisual  interruptions,  I  seek  to  concretely  address  

the  implications  of  the  permanent  circulation  of  multimedia  texts  in  everyday  life,  

consciousness,  and  ethnographic  practice.  By  incorporating  spontaneous  

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conversations  and  interventions  by  non-­‐sociologist  Others,  I  aim  to  both  decrease  

my  authority  claims  and  to  increase  the  active  presence  of  these  Others  in  the  

production  of  my    stories.  In  so  doing,  I  also  attempt  to  engage  them  in  a  dialogue  

where  they  both  challenge  and  agree  with  my  understandings  of  the  postmodern  

aspects  of  Las  Vegas.  Of  course,  these  strategies  do  not  constitute  final  answers  to  

the  five  postmodern    challenges  I  started  with,  but  represent  temporary  attempts  

to  come  to  grips  with  them.    As  a  whole,  then,  the  text  is  not  only  an  ethnography  

about  a  particular  site  and  its  culture;  it    also  explores  methodological  possibilities  

and  provides  a  cultural  critique  -­‐-­‐  however  partial  and  biased.      

  The  postmodern  recasting  of  ethnographic  and  other  truths  as  effects  of    

“textual  production”  (Denzin  1994b,  505)  has  greatly  problematized  the  fact/fiction  

dichotomy  and  the  realist  genre  characteristic  of  traditional  ethnographies.  

Following  Richardson’s  (1995,  203)  idea  that  “How  we  are  expected  to  write  affects  

what  we  can  write  about,”  this  recasting  has  also  encouraged  a  flurry  of  new  

experimental  texts  which  claim    different  locations  on  the  fact/fiction  continuum,  or  

which  collapse  their  distinction.  Recognizing  the  realist  genre  as  one  specific  and  

overall  stifling  code  for  ethnographic  writing,  experimentation  with  new  textual  

forms  have  attempted  to  emancipate  writing  and  expand  its  possibilities.  Various  

authors  have  decided  to  creatively  utilize  language,  narrative  structures  and  media  

in  order  to  communicate  their  work.  Texts  are  still  read  and  written  in  traditional  

prose,  but  many  others  are  also  performed,  sung,  recited  in  poetic  forms,  presented  

as  drama,  comedy,  satire,  mixed  genres  (Richardson  1994),  and  combined  with  

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various  technologies.  Similarly,  many  texts  are  overtly  fictional,  others  mix  

conscious  thoughts  with  unconscious  digressions,  blend  real  dialogues  with  

imagined  ones,  are  polyvocal,  and  purposefully  problematize  the  fact/fiction  

dichotomy  (see  Ellis  and  Bochner  1996;  Pfohl  1992;  Reinharz  1992).  

  The  framing  of    my  ethnography  as  a  “critical-­‐postmodern”  one  and  my  

attempt  to  address  the  five  postmodern  concerns  outlined  above  have  led  me  to  

lean  towards  a  writing  genre  defined  by  Agar  (1995,  117)  as  “faction”  or  “creative  

nonfiction”  -­‐-­‐  a  text  which  is  “fiction  in  form  but  factual  in  content.”  Thus,  the  text  

utilizes  strategies    characteristic  of  the  fiction  genre  such  as  scenic  method,  plot,  

authorial  presence  (Agar  1995,  118),  dramatic  recall,  strong  metaphors,  images,  

subtexts,  allusions,  flashbacks,  alternative  points  of  view,  tone  shifts,  dialogue,  and  

internal  monologue  (Richardson  1994,  521).  Paying  attention  to  narrative  structure,  

I  have  purposefully  organized  the  ethnography  as  a  “journey”  through  sites,  

interactions,  moments  and  events  which,  to  me  at  least,  articulate  a  postmodern  

logic.  The  text/author  speeds  through  a  silent  and  harmonious  desert,  encounters  

Las  Vegas  culture,  is  both  seduced  and  disturbed  by  it,  and  proceeds  into  an  

impossibly  ambiguous  and  fragmented  postmodern  predicament.  Following  

Marcus’  (1994,  567)  suggestion,  the  text  does  not  seek  to  resolve  these  ambiguities.  

It  ends  with  the  “No  Conclusions”  segment  and    insists  on  an  open-­‐endedness,  an  

incompleteness,  and  an  uncertainty  about  how  to  draw  a  text/analysis  to  a  close.  

Such  an  open-­‐endedness  often  marks  a  concern  with  an  ethics  of  dialogue  and  

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partial  knowledge  that  a  work  is  incomplete  without  critical,  and  differently  

positioned,  responses  to  it  by  its  (one  hopes)  varied  readers.      

The  “factual”  part  is  more  problematic.  Given  that  “the  truth  of  a  text  cannot  

be  established  by  its  verisimilitude”  (Lincoln  and  Denzin  1994,  580),  I  have  opted  for  

a  version  of  “deconstructive  verisimilitude”  -­‐-­‐  a  text’s  “ability  to  reproduce  and  

deconstruct  the  reproductions  and  simulations  that  structure  the  real.”  Still,  

following  Agar’s  (1995,  117)  remark  about  creative  nonfiction,  “the  contract  with  

the  reader  is  that  all  this  actually  happened.”  Thus,  the  Dunes  imploded  on  the  date  

indicated  in  the  ethnography,  the  Strip  billboards,  casinos,  slot  machines,  and  

commercials  do  communicate  the  mottoes  reproduced  in  the  text,  etc.  At  the  same  

time,  I  have  self-­‐reflexively  selected  these  events  among  others,  have  organized  

them  according  to  a  certain  logic,  and  have  unavoidably  (re)created  them  through  

language.  Offering  no  conclusions,  the  text  simultaneously  points  outward  to  a  

cultural  landscape  and  inward  to  its  own  subjective  construction,  tentativeness  and  

situatedness  (Agar  1995,  123).  It  purposefully  blurs  temporal  and  spatial  

boundaries,  and  questions  the  distinctions  among  the  real,  the  televised,  and  the  

imagined.  

FINAL  NOTE:  THE  GROUND(S)  OF  ETHNOGRAPHY  

All  landscapes  ask  the  same  question  in  the  same  whisper,  “I  am  watching  you  -­‐-­‐  are  you  watching  yourself  in  me?”  (Durrell  1971,  quoted  in  Devall  1988,  65)  

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The  environment  which  matters  most  is  not  a  social  construction  (Roszak  1992,  296).  

Whereas  the  increasingly  audible  “voices”  of  once-­‐marginalized  racial,  

sexual,  ethnic,  class,  national,  gender,  and  age  groups  have  significantly  contributed  

to  the  development  of  alternative  and  resisting  discourses  (Seidman  1994),  we  have  

remained  rather  autistic  to  the  ecological  voice  and  its  radical  implications  for  

ontology,  epistemology,  methodology,  ethics,  and  politics.  At  the  risk  of  sounding  

cliché  -­‐-­‐  or  worse,  essentialist  -­‐-­‐  it  seems  rather  obvious  that,  however  silenced,  

marginalized  and  repressed  (Roszak  1995,  1992;  Searles  1960;  Shepard  1992),  this  

ecological  voice  precedes  all  others,  informs  them,  and  contains  an  enormous  

potential  for  new  approaches  to  ethnography.  As  Thomashow  (1995,  18-­‐19)  

remarks,  

Ecological  consciousness,  ecosophy,  the  ecological  self,  the  ecological  unconscious:  these  are  just  a  few  of  the  metaphorical  terms  that  have  been  used  to  formulate  an  epistemology  of  mind  and  ecosystem  ...  In  other  words,  they  offer  a  new  synthesis  of  knowledge,  based  on  a  comprehensive  reappraisal  of  various  normative  views  of  the  world.  

As  it  is  used  here,  the  “ecological”  does  not  simply  refer  to  the  environment  one  

moves  through,  inhabits,  or  studies  but  importantly  also  encompasses  (a)  a  

biocentric  rather  than  an  anthropocentric  position,  (b)  attention  to,  respect  for,  and  

empathy  with  ecological  processes  (the  “eco-­‐logic”),  (c)  an  awareness  of  one’s  

relationship  to  the  nonhuman  environment,  (d)  an  experience  of  selfhood  informed  

by  such  relationships,  and  (e)  acknowledging  the  epistemological,  ontological,  

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methodological,  political  and  ethical    implications  of  the  above.  Although  these  

different  aspects  of  the  ecological  cannot  be  developed  in  this  chapter,  they  point  

at  some  important  new  questions  for  the  conduct  of  ethnography.  For  example,  are  

there  ecologically-­‐informed  subjectivities  and  “ways  of  knowing”  whose  “truths”  

would  be  no  less  compelling  than  the  ones  currently  celebrated  in  the  postmodern  

discourses?  If  so,  how  to  activate  them?  What  happens  when  the  ethnographer’s  

verstehen  extends  beyond  the  human  to  encompass  the  nonhuman?  How  to  apply  

one’s  understanding  of  the  “eco-­‐logic”  to  the  field  which  is  always  constituted  by  

the  reciprocal  relationships  binding  self,  Others,  and  environment?    

As  odd  as  these  questions  may  sound,  Roszak  (1992,  81)  reminds  us  that  

“When,  in  obedience  to  a  narrow  reality  principle,  we  make  the  nonhuman  world  

less  than  it  is,  we  also  make  ourselves  less  than  we  are.”  Synthesizing  findings  

generated  through  a  variety  of  experiments,  therapeutic  encounters,  pedagogical  

practices,  theoretical  reflections  and  research,  scholars  associated  with  the  

ecological  turn  advance  that  an  ecologically  informed  shift  in  the  

definitions/experiences  of  selfhood  often  produces  radical  changes  in  subjectivity  

and  promotes  very  different  ways  of  interacting  with  and  interpreting  human  and  

non-­‐human  Others  (Fox  1990;  Naess  1989).  Characterized  by  mutuality,  reciprocity,  

complementarity,  empathy,  permeable  boundaries  between  inner  and  outer  

processes,  the  implications  of  such  “ways  of  knowing”  for  the  practice  of  

ethnography  seem  far-­‐reaching.  For  example,  beyond  the  obvious  necessity  to  be  

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attentive  to  site  and  its  effects  on  what  we  perceive,  an  ecologically-­‐informed  

ethnography  would  also  be  guided  by  an  outlook  which  emphasizes  interrelations  

rather  than  independence,  interaction  rather  than  observation,  reciprocal  effects  

rather  than  causality,  mutual  growth  and  nurturing  between  participants  rather  

than  power  and  detachment,  fluid  boundaries  rather  than  sharp  distinctions.  

Although  such  approaches  are  already  visible  in  some  postmodern  and  feminist  

ethnographies,  they  remain  unfortunately  restricted  to  relationships  between  

human  participants.  Paying  more  attention  to  and  incorporating  the  ecological,  

ethnographies  would  highlight  the  complex  relationships  between  the  human  and  

the  nonhuman,  would  promote  a  different  understanding  of  this  relationship,  

would  develop  a  biocentric  rather  than  an  anthropocentric  perspective,  and  would  

radically  reorient  the  ethnographer’s  self-­‐reflexivity,  subjectivity,  practices  and  

politics.  If  it  is  by  now  recognized  that  subjectivities  informed  by  race,  gender,  

sexuality,  age,  ethnicity,  and  class    matter  in  all  aspects  of  knowledge-­‐production,  

an  ecological  turn  in  ethnography  is  long  overdue.  It  could  perhaps  introduce  the  

seventh  moment  in  ethnography’s  unfolding  history.  

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FOOTNOTES  

1.  See  especially:  Clough  (1990),  Dawson  and  Prus  (1993),  Denzin  (1993a),  Dickens  and  Fontana  (1996),  Ellis  and  Bochner  (1996),  Fontana  (1993,  1994),  Greer  (1990),  Hollinger  (1994),  Lather  (1993),  Maines  (1996),  Richardson  (1995,  1992a,  1992b),  Saunders  (1995),  Schwalbe  (1993),  Reinharz  (1992),  Rosenau  (1992).  

2.  Of  course,  the  precise  location  of  this  point  has  not  yet  been  determined,  and  it  is  doubtful  that  it  ever  will.  See  Bauman  (1988)  and  Rosenau  (1992),  Dickens  (1995b).  

3.  For  other  important  postmodern,  feminist  and  postcolonial    critiques  of  traditional  ethnography,  see  also  Agar  (1995),  Atkinson  (1990),  Atkinson  and  Hammersley  (1994),  Balsamo  (1990),  Brown  (1995,  1987),  Clifford  (1994,  1988),  Clifford  and  Marcus  (1986),  Clough  (1997,  1992,  1990),  Dickens  (1995a),  Ellis  and  Bochner  (1996),  Ganguly  (1990),  Lather  (1993),  Manning  (1995),  Marcus  (1994),  Marcus  and  Cushman  (1987),  Marcus  and  Fisher  (1986),  Pfohl  (1990,  1992),  Richardson  (1992b,  1994,  1995),  Rosaldo  (1994),    Wolcott  (1995).        4.  In  some  cases,  of  course,  a  self-­‐ethnography  can  serve  as  a  powerful  and  artful  tool  to  understand  social  processes,  social  categories,  cultural  patterns,  etc.  (see  the  essays  in  Ellis  and  Flaherty  1992  and  Ellis  and  Bochner  1996).  Whether  a  self-­‐ethnography  will  accomplish  the  social  project  of  ethnography  must  be  assessed  by  its  readers.    5.  Thus,  the  main  feature  of  the  first  1994  Time  Magazine  issue  was  devoted  to  Las  Vegas,  calling  it  “The  New  All-­‐American  City.”  Just  a  month  earlier,  the  L.A.  Times  (Dec  1993)  also  carried  a  lengthy  section  discussing  the  rising  importance  of  Las  Vegas  in  national  and  international  consciousness.  Simultaneously,  an  increasing  number  of  popular  movies  are  also  increasingly  located  in  Las  Vegas  (Rain  Man,  Leaving  Las  Vegas,  Casino,  Show  Girls,  Bugsy,  Honeymoon  in  Vegas,  Mars  Attack,  Indecent  Proposal,  etc.)  

6.  See,  for  example,  Cahalan  (1995),  Devall  (1988),  Devall  and  Session  (1985),  Dickens  (1992),  Fox  (1990),  Greenway  (1995),  Harper  (1995),  Sewall  (1995),  Shepard  1992,  Thomashow  (1995),    Zimmerman  (1994).  

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7.  See  especially:  Agger  (1992),  Baudrillard  (1988),  Clough  (1992),  Denzin  &  Lincoln  (1994),  Denzin  (1993a,  1992),  Fiske  (1994,  1990),  Gottschalk  (1997,  1995a,  1995b,  1993),  Hall  et  al.(1981),  Hartley  (1992),  Morley  (1992),  Pfohl  (1992,  1993),  Silverstone  (1989,  1993,  1994).  

8.  “Speaking  to”  as  in  “appealing  to,”  “resonating  with,”  “striking  a  chord.”    

9.  The  “field”  metaphor  seems  especially  useful  in  the  development  of  an  ecological  approach  to  ethnography.  

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