Thin Description: Ethnography and the African Hebrew Israelites of Jerusalem

by John L. Jackson Jr.

The African Hebrew Israelites of Jerusalem are often dismissed as a fringe cult for their beliefs that African Americans are descendants of the ancient Israelites and that veganism leads to immortality. But John L. Jackson questions what "fringe" means in a world where cultural practices of every stripe circulate freely on the Internet. In this poignant and sophisticated examination of the limits of ethnography, the reader is invited into the visionary, sometimes vexing world of the AHIJ. Jackson challenges what Clifford Geertz called the "thick description" of anthropological research through a multidisciplinary investigation of how the AHIJ use media and technology to define their public image in the twenty-first century.

Moving far beyond the "modest witness" of nineteenth-century scientific discourse or the "thick descriptions" of twentieth-century anthropology, Jackson insists that Geertzian thickness is an impossibility, especially in a world where the anthropologist's subject is a self-aware subject--one who crafts his own autoethnography while critically consuming the ethnographer's offerings. Thin Description takes as its topic a group situated along the fault lines of several diasporas--African, American, Jewish--and provides an anthropological account of how race, religion, and ethnographic representation must be understood anew in the twenty-first century lest we reenact old mistakes in the study of black humanity.

Genres: Anthropology, Ethnography

404 pages, Hardcover

First published November 1, 2013

About the author

African-American anthropologist, author and filmmaker who lives in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Jackson is the Richard Perry University Associate Professor of Communication and Anthropology in the Annenberg School for Communication and the Department of Anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania.

Jackson is currently conducting an ethnographic project examining Global Black Hebrewism, as well as completing a book on the philosophy of qualitative social science research. He is also working on a documentary film about contemporary conspiracy theories in urban America, Novus Ordo Seclorum.

Reviews

[Gabby R · Rating 2 out of 5]

Admittedly, I mainly read the first half and skimmed the rest because it just wasn’t interesting. I am not sure if I agree with Jackson’s argument for thin description. His critique of thick description is also questionable, as Geertz even recognized the limitations of the anthropologist when doing this type of social analysis.

I found this text was too choppy (45 short chapters is a lot!) and it could have easily been divided into two texts - one grappling with ethnography, fieldwork, and the Writing Culture era of anthropology, and one about the community he follows/studies. His writing at times is great, but this would have been better as a movie/short film. In short, I don't recommend this book.

[Scottie Johnson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Jackson uses his research and our curiosity about the African Hebrew Israelites of Jerusalem (AHIJ) to examine the methods of ethnography in the modern age of where technology has given everyone not only a platform to speak, but to see and hear what is said about ourselves. In this “searchable black hole” (p. 151) of infinite information Jackson argues the case that "thick description" is a impossible, flawed and/or misleading construct that gives a false sense of validity and scientific method. Jackson says the book is not to prove or disprove the teachings of the AHIJ but describes, in carefully chosen small and modest words, that he only hopes to “capture a bit”, “make some small sense” of the Kingdom (p. 12). This he does, but a great deal of the book is spent not looking out at the AHIJ but reflecting back on the practice of ethnography and research.
Jackson divides his book into 45 relatively short and punchy chapters. He flits back and forth through time and topics. We discover at the end, the significance for him about the number 45. At some point he became fixated on the number 45 and remembered it as an ever-present thread through the AHIJ culture. “Almost a kind of mantra. It was a reference to the exact length of Ben Ammi’s visitation from Angel Gabriel back in 1966.” (p.321). Jackson recalls repeated, sustained and numerous references to the number. Yet, when he went through his codified, filmed or recorded data the number was barely there. Certainly, not anywhere near the level and importance he had ascribed to it. He reveals this mistake, like many other personal moments to bolster his view that while everything is ethnography, all ethnography is thin. As such the chapter becomes, like most that preceded it, less about the rituals, habits, views and practices of these people and more about ethnography and his practice of it.
The phrase “thick description” had been used to describe the immersion of the researcher and the depth of data that upon collection and subsequent analysis would give meaning and context to what was being studied. Jackson takes this defense head on, describing for the reader the ideas of Clifford Geertz and his example from Gilbert Ryle of the different views of the closing of an eyelid. Jackson does not refute that the outsider may not be able to understand the “stratified hierarchy of meaningful structures” (p. 13) but rather in our ever expanding universe the thought that we ever could achieve a thick level of data is misleading and naïve, “imagined ethnographic thickness to be far thicker than it actually is.”(p. 14). His own work would seem by most evaluations to be very thick. Jackson has spent more than a decade documenting, observing and interviewing the people of AHIJ and similar groups. He has interviewed more than 250 people of all levels of involvement and connection with the organization/community. So his argument is not a defense of academic laziness. Rather it reminds me of the Calvinists, who were simultaneously convinced in the impossibility of human perfection or a life without sin and yet consumed with striving to achieve it. But just as a step is no more (or less) substantial than a thousand miles when compared to the infinite, neither is a decade of research able to understand every meaning in the blink of an eye. This doesn’t mean we should put our foot out, just that we must accept the value in what we can perceive and not confuse such goodness with omnipotence.
This is especially true in a world that is digitized and mass accessible. Jackson points that when the Internet makes it faster to reach across the oceans than to walk out one’s own front door, unlike early ethnographies there is no division between the research site and the home of the researcher. The world may have become smaller but that means that complete understanding of any group would have to be understanding of all groups because they are so many connections.
This connectedness also affects how the subject of the research interacts with the work and with the researcher. A simple Google search can reveal what we really think or at least what we have written or said aloud. At one time academics spoke and wrote in Latin, and our Founding Fathers closed the shutters to Constitution Hall so that the public that they served would not hear anything but that which had been created specifically for their consumption. These elite were able to speak freely without having to suffer the consequences of their “honesty”, while we, as the modern academic elite are answerable to many and almost instantly. Is the new transparency a good or bad thing though? Is this why Jackson seems to always use an intermediary when describing something negative about the AHIJ? If he is writing and publishing while continuing to do field work and maintaining a relationship with his subjects, did he worry offending them would cut off his access if he spoke “off script”? He describes Ahmahlyah as a “complicated Insider with a formal academic pedigree” (p.80) but could as well, it seems to me, to be describing himself.
Perhaps most honest and yet most troubling in this vein is Jackson’s assertion that he can and should keep some things secret. The author is always the gatekeeper so is Jackson just being more pragmatic by stating it baldly? He says that he wished to protect the AHIJ. I know that one reason I use pseudonyms in my research is to protect my teachers from any retribution by administrators. They however are not doing anything illegal and the implication is that some of the saints have. Is it the researcher’s place to keep such things from the reader; conversely is it the researchers place to reveal them? If not, then why have Jackson at all and not just swallow what it served by the AHIJ straight?
For the power of the Internet also is explored in its democratization of information production. Throughout the book Jackson refers to the films, pamphlets, museum exhibits, websites and so on produced by the AHIJ to create and manage their public persona and identity. “YouTubification is an important part of the AHIJ story, one subset of an expanded universe.” (p. 89). They have taken advantage of strides in editing and production technology to create a story that in its use of established models and style confers an implied establishment and mainstream quality on the group. They can pick and choose who is in center frame and whose voices are heard and who is silenced.
Especially because this is a reading for our women and gender studies class I find it troubling that the role and status of women is treated in such as abbreviated way in Jackson’s book. “a woman can be anything… except a man” (p. 257). Yet, men seem to have all of the positions of power and privilege, while women seem to be left with responsibility, servitude and toil. The priests want women with skills and independence but only to harness for their own purposes. That women support it within this hegemonic patriarchy is not surprising but in Jackson’s telling would we even hear them? Can we trust a man who feels overwhelmed and burdened by putting on his children’s swimsuits? (p.95). He may frequently look reflectively, but that mirror doesn’t seem to have a feminist frame.

[Melanie · Rating 2 out of 5]

I am glad I had the taste of this work. I got to read what thin description looks like but it suffers the same way what geertz did with his thick description. He also offers no clear methodology on how to do it and leaves the reader to just invent one. But everyone who wants to do comparative research like Hartigan or who have come across this reference cites him. I think it's really useful but this work would be better if the author is transparent about why this is necessary (his tenure position, his children, etc.) or the journal writing style he's using (FBI watchlist threat?). All this unspoken details hurt the reflection on his own research decisions and proposed method. Granted, I never read his previous work but I think if he did this it strengthens his argument and will guide more students on how to do it. There are a lot of helpful reflections on anthropological methods scattered in several chapters. I really appreciate the footnotes and further references to classic works and that's really helpful.

I am not keen on reading race and religion (heavens, the combination of both) and this was something new. If you were expecting a traditional ethnography, you'd be hard pressed to enjoy this as it was written to have no ending. Just an ongoing series of entries that lacks focus and cohesion and is unhelpful for readers to understand why we should care about this group. I'm glad to get a sense of a cited work but I'm pretty sure scholars just read chapter two.

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a 4.5 star book. I love Jackson’s intervention of thin description—the rejection of the totalizing imagination of ethnographic thick description. I also like that this methods book is wrapped up in an ethnography itself. I appreciate that some of the format of the ethnography reflects the slow immersion that Jackson may have experienced, which is to say that I thought this book was a little slow. I think this 300+ page book could have easily been condensed into 150 pages.