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Barawa and the Way Birds Fly in the Sky
Smithsonian Series in Ethnographic Inquiry
One of the most interesting features of this work by a New Zealand poet-anthropologist is that it exists at all. Its venerable publisher has never before brought out a novel, even an "ethnographic novel," as this is subtitled; it's the first volume in the new Smithsonian series in Ethnographic Inquiry. Jackson wrote it to express gratitude and esteem for the Kuranko people of Barawa, among whom he lived and worked, to impart to a wider public than academic scholars his own hard-won knowledge and profound affection. The result is scarcely fiction at alleven the guise of fiction is abandoned in sections given over to detailed history of the colonial beginnings, of expeditions into the interior in the early years of the 19th century and the rapid historical survey of later decades. Jackson in his own name comes to the Barawa country to learn its language and culture, customs and myths, religion and institutions. His success in this admirable venture is exemplary; but only in a superficial sensea veneer of character, dialogue, situationcan the book he produced be called a novel. Illustrations.
One of the most interesting features of this work by a New Zealand poet-anthropologist is that it exists at all. Its venerable publisher has never before brought out a novel, even an "ethnographic novel," as this is subtitled; it's the first volume in the new Smithsonian series in Ethnographic Inquiry. Jackson wrote it to express gratitude and esteem for the Kuranko people of Barawa, among whom he lived and worked, to impart to a wider public than academic scholars his own hard-won knowledge and profound affection. The result is scarcely fiction at alleven the guise of fiction is abandoned in sections given over to detailed history of the colonial beginnings, of expeditions into the interior in the early years of the 19th century and the rapid historical survey of later decades. Jackson in his own name comes to the Barawa country to learn its language and culture, customs and myths, religion and institutions. His success in this admirable venture is exemplary; but only in a superficial sensea veneer of character, dialogue, situationcan the book he produced be called a novel. Illustrations.
160 pages, Hardcover
First published April 17, 1986
About the author
Michael D. Jackson
50 books46 followersMichael D. Jackson (born 1940) is a post-modern New Zealand anthropologist who has taught in the anthropology departments at the University of Copenhagen and Indiana University and is currently a professor of world religions at Harvard Divinity School. He holds a BA from Victoria University of Wellington, an MA from the University of Auckland and a PhD from Cambridge University.
Jackson is the founder of existential/phenomenological anthropology, a sub-field of anthropology using ethnographical fieldwork as well as existential theories of being in order to explore modes of being and interpersonal relationships as they exist in various cultural settings throughout the world. In this way he creates an interdisciplinary approach that attempts to understand the human condition by examining the various ways in which this condition manifests itself cross-culturally. In so doing, he concentrates on concrete, individual, lived situations and attempts to recreate and explain these situations as they are perceived and experienced by the other. For example, rather than looking at what mythology or ritual may mean for a group of people, he looks at what mythology or ritual means for an individual existing in the group. In this way he is able to examine "being-in-the-world", a concept fundamental to the field of existentialism. This approach also allows him to address the problem of intersubjectivity, which has as a goal the understanding of the other in terms of the other's individual lifeworld. In this way the other's relationship with the world around them is explained in a manner not previously seen, and is fundamental to the project of understanding intersubjective existence (or the relation between two individual subjects).
A large part of Jackson's methodology is also his account of personal experiences he acquired during his fieldwork. This method of reflexivity is indicative of the current postmodern trend in the field of anthropology, which seeks to contextualize the ethnographer as a subjective participant in the field. This methodology allows him to explain very accurately his relation with the world around him, referencing frequently existential theories in the process.
His influences include: Jean-Paul Sartre, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Martin Heidegger, Claude Levi-Strauss, Hannah Arendt, Theodor Adorno, Pierre Bourdieu, William James, John Dewey, Edmund Husserl, Bronislaw Malinowski, Richard Rorty, Paul Ricoeur, Marcel Mauss.
He is in no way related to the famous singer, also named Michael Jackson.
Jackson is the founder of existential/phenomenological anthropology, a sub-field of anthropology using ethnographical fieldwork as well as existential theories of being in order to explore modes of being and interpersonal relationships as they exist in various cultural settings throughout the world. In this way he creates an interdisciplinary approach that attempts to understand the human condition by examining the various ways in which this condition manifests itself cross-culturally. In so doing, he concentrates on concrete, individual, lived situations and attempts to recreate and explain these situations as they are perceived and experienced by the other. For example, rather than looking at what mythology or ritual may mean for a group of people, he looks at what mythology or ritual means for an individual existing in the group. In this way he is able to examine "being-in-the-world", a concept fundamental to the field of existentialism. This approach also allows him to address the problem of intersubjectivity, which has as a goal the understanding of the other in terms of the other's individual lifeworld. In this way the other's relationship with the world around them is explained in a manner not previously seen, and is fundamental to the project of understanding intersubjective existence (or the relation between two individual subjects).
A large part of Jackson's methodology is also his account of personal experiences he acquired during his fieldwork. This method of reflexivity is indicative of the current postmodern trend in the field of anthropology, which seeks to contextualize the ethnographer as a subjective participant in the field. This methodology allows him to explain very accurately his relation with the world around him, referencing frequently existential theories in the process.
His influences include: Jean-Paul Sartre, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Martin Heidegger, Claude Levi-Strauss, Hannah Arendt, Theodor Adorno, Pierre Bourdieu, William James, John Dewey, Edmund Husserl, Bronislaw Malinowski, Richard Rorty, Paul Ricoeur, Marcel Mauss.
He is in no way related to the famous singer, also named Michael Jackson.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
August 24, 2010
...But then I found
myself describing them with words
they would not use, and could not
the way the drummers
held the line
that moved, hoeing and chanting,
down the further slope, or how
the old man sowed the seed, and how
the pitch of women's voices flowed
across the valey as they closed the
earth. These gestures are
like rain. The crops will grow
out of these acts. There is no
book in it, no facts, no line
that leads to some result;
but it holds good like any truth
and I have learned to write as
they might sow, scything the grain
against the downhill wind. We
do not make it grow, we point the way.
In this I go along with them.
Some deeper malaise was sapping his energies. He kept thinking about the contradictions in his position there. Occasionally, like a few nights ago, dancing with villagers outside Morowa's house, he felt completely at home and could slip into the rhythm of things with an almost somnambulent carelessness. But most of the time he was irritated by the clamour, the jostling bodies on verandahs, the strange language that enveloped him, which he strained to hear, and he wanted only to escape the solitude of his room and hide under the gauze tent and read a book. He wanted to shuck off his skin, yet also to take refuge in it. The painful thing was to realize that as long as he kept up this kind of separation between himself and the villagers, he would be passive in contrast to their activity, which made it inevitable that they would seem a threat to him.
myself describing them with words
they would not use, and could not
the way the drummers
held the line
that moved, hoeing and chanting,
down the further slope, or how
the old man sowed the seed, and how
the pitch of women's voices flowed
across the valey as they closed the
earth. These gestures are
like rain. The crops will grow
out of these acts. There is no
book in it, no facts, no line
that leads to some result;
but it holds good like any truth
and I have learned to write as
they might sow, scything the grain
against the downhill wind. We
do not make it grow, we point the way.
In this I go along with them.
Some deeper malaise was sapping his energies. He kept thinking about the contradictions in his position there. Occasionally, like a few nights ago, dancing with villagers outside Morowa's house, he felt completely at home and could slip into the rhythm of things with an almost somnambulent carelessness. But most of the time he was irritated by the clamour, the jostling bodies on verandahs, the strange language that enveloped him, which he strained to hear, and he wanted only to escape the solitude of his room and hide under the gauze tent and read a book. He wanted to shuck off his skin, yet also to take refuge in it. The painful thing was to realize that as long as he kept up this kind of separation between himself and the villagers, he would be passive in contrast to their activity, which made it inevitable that they would seem a threat to him.
Displaying 1 of 1 review