From Postmodern Anthropology to Deconstructive Ethnography

Abstract

The social sciences have recently exhibited renewed interest in ethnography while traditional anthropology has been struggling with the challenges of postmodernism. This paper considers the theoretical implications of the potential convergence of these strands, with particular reference to the ethnography of organizations. Postmodernism is seen to affect ethnography by problematizing the processes of description, reference, and the establishment of authority in ethnographic texts. It offers, rather than a "scientific" model, a "literary" model of such texts in which description is an active construction rather than a neutral recording of the other's world. Ostensive reference becomes displaced by evocation, the single authorial voice by the "heteroglossia" of many contributing voices. Unfortunately, there is a tendency for the processes of interpretation to be abandoned to a free play of unlimited signification in which any and all meanings are possible, which jettisons rigor and with it critical acerbity. This paper argues for the development of deconstructive ethnography grounded in the work of Jacques Derrida. This ethnographic praxis would demystify social and organizational actions by revealing their inevitable and ever-present internal contradictions without resorting to an externally contrived theoretical or moral standard. It would realize its emancipatory potential through "self-deconstruction."