Rannie (Rannveig Sigurvinsdottir)

I found the point of ethnography as literature quite an interesting point. In the book, Viswewaran argues that the only real difference between ethnography and literature is that they both construct a believable world, but one is accepted as factual and the other is not. We could probably say that this idea could be extended beyond just ethnography and into other forms of research.

I’m studying psychology, the mainstream of which is definitely post-positivistic, meaning that it assumes the existence of an objective and measurable reality. This can then be captured (usually imperfectly) using various methods of data collection and analysis. The fact that certain phenomena exist is not debated, we presume that even though we cannot see certain things, such as intelligence, they do exist in the real world.

In this sense, the discussion of literature and fiction as being a part of anthropology is completely foreign and quite unacceptable to most psychologists. We are describing things that are real, not imagined or fictional. Some psychologists, such as those who practice community psychology, would argue that reality can indeed be quite subjective and that people construct different meanings and concepts from the world around them. Even though these academics may see reality as having multiple different meanings and representations, I have never heard any of them describing their work as fiction or literature. They believe they are studying things that are real. They may not be real to everyone, all of the time and in all situations, but on some level they are real and not imagined. However, when these researchers undertake ethnographic research, it might be useful to think about constructing people’s realities in ways that are not so different from fiction. At the same time, emphasizing the creativity and subjectivity of the undertaking would very likely result in these researchers and their conclusions not being taken seriously by others. But this also begs the question, do these researchers actually do this and not realize it? Or they just don’t talk about it?

However, there is one way in which I have heard narratives and stories referenced in psychology, and that is when results are written up. Often times when people do not understand your paper or feel that the writing is unclear, they say something like “What’s the story here?” This sentence clearly implies that you are supposed to take your results and frame them into some sort of compelling narrative for people to understand them. Implicit in the question is also that you must construct meaning out of what you are presenting for the reader. We may present our findings in one way or another, but at the end of the day, we are still presenting something that is grounded in reality.