A Thrice-Told Tale: Feminism, Postmodernism, and Ethnographic Responsibility

Rating:
Summary: an ethnography of integrity
Review: In this book an anthropologist looks at what seems to be the shamanic possession of a Taiwanese woman from three angles: the field notes she took at the time, an essay, and a work of short fiction. You really get a feel for how different the situation can be viewed through these three lenses...and for the courage required to present it in innovative and subjective prose not typical of acceptable scholarly "social science."

I found myself put off a bit by what I perceived to be a steady note of defensiveness throughout the book, a tone that felt partly assertive and partly self-justificatory, even in those places where the author emphasized that feminist writers of social science need not accept the academic standards of their male colleagues and critics. "We don't need no stinking postmodern graybearded men," it seemed to say in different ways. At times the sarcasm directed at these critics was quite open, and it distracted me from the excellent content of the author's arguments.

I would ask male readers of this book, which I recommend for its fine critiques of the postmodern anthropological tendency to condemn all field research as oppressive colonialism, to bear in mind its context: namely, thousands of years of patriarchy which we've yet to see any end to, particularly in academia. And to reflect that we can't dismiss such books as mere axe-grinding, political or otherwise, because while entirely personal bitterness ought to be dealt with personally, this sort affects half of us directly and the other half through collective complicity. If anything, these axes need to be even sharper.

Rating:
Summary: Ethnographic irresponsibility
Review: The author, an anthropology professor at the University of Iowa, did not speak or understand the language of the people she writes about. Although Wolf makes a fanciful case that Taiwanese women's identities are obliterated by not using their names, she herself appropriated the work of the Taiwanese woman who did the research on a woman who was judged to be crazy rather than possessed by any deity and obliterated the name of the researcher.

Wolf's ignorance extends beyond ignorance of the language her subjects spoke (Holo/Hokkien) to ignorance about basic anthropological conceptions (terms of address in contrast to terms used in reference to a person, spirit mediums in contrast to shamans). There are no shamans in Taiwan. There are spirit mediums. Previous literature documented that some Taiwanese spirit mediums were female.

Wolf did not gather any data on Taiwanese criteria for recognizing true spirit possession, but even her inadequate 30-year-old fieldnotes provide ample material contradicting the "conclusions" (actually, a priori beliefs about female victimization) she presented.Instead of criticizing postmodernists, a better tactic, given her failures of scholarship and ethnography, would be to embrace it and abandon empirical claims altogether.

Rating:
Summary: Academically sensitive approach is thought-provoking
Review: Wolfe takes a very sensitive approach having put thought of the highest anthropological calibur into the meaning of this ethnography and the meanings of ethnographies as a whole. The author's focuses include systems of power differential, voice and inclusion. Everything Wolfe writes is put in perspective through culture and situation so as not to mislead or overstate. This approach can be sharply contrasted to that of Napoleon Chagnon in his work, The Yanomamo. Her feminist voice is refreshing and appropriate but struggling in a male dominated field. Very interesting ruminations and aproaches to a story. Author is not academically ignorant in the least.