Reshaping Ancestry - Revealing What Has Been Hidden.


 

THE SARAWAK MUSEUM JOURNAL
VOL LXX NO.91 DECEMBER 2012
 
 
Title : 
Reshaping Ancestry - Revealing What Has Been Hidden.
Author : 
Valerie Mashman
Abstract:
“...Anthropology should not only be demystified ...people-oriented and popular, it should be representative and reciprocal” (Wazir, 1996: 135). For anthropology to be “reciprocal” as Wazir puts it, the people studied should derive as much benefit from the anthropological encounter as the anthropologist. Further to this, Wazir states that it should be participatory, equitable and accessible to southern (or indigenous) scholars and audiences. This echoes Peacock’s plea for anthropology to be relevant to wider publics (1997: 9), which is supported by Lassiter (2005: 83). In addressing these issues, I have opted to embrace the notion of collaborative ethnography. This is defined as “the collaboration of researchers and subjects in the production of ethnographic texts, both fieldwork and writing” (Lassiter, 2005: 84). Collaboration is not new in fieldwork. It is a result of its antecedents, the notion of rapport, espoused by the reflexivity of the 1980s and the notion of dialogue, promoted by interpretative ethnography. Collaboration has, as Lassiter claims, moved from the background to the fore with the development of critical ethnography. Ethnography today involves a critical and reflexive process whereby ethnographers and their interlocutors regularly assess not only how their collaborative work engenders the dialogic emergence of culture (and the verity of their shared understandings) but also the goals and audiences of the ethnographic products these collaborative relationships produce (2004: 93).
DOI:
XXXX
How to cite:
Valerie Mashman. (2012). Reshaping Ancestry - Revealing What Has Been Hidden. The Sarawak Museum Journal, LXX (91): 21-38
References
  1. Barker, Graeme, Huw Barton, Daniel Britton, Ipoi Datan, Ben Davenport, Monica Janowski, Samantha Jones, Jayl Langub, Lindsay Lloyd-Smith, Borbala Nyiri and Beth Upex. 2008. The cultured rainforest project: the first 2007 field season. The Sarawak Museum Journal Vol. XV No. 86: 121-190.
  2. Carsten, Janet. 1995. The Politics of Forgetting: Migration, Kinship and Memory on the Periphery of the Southeast Asian State. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute (N.S.) 1: 317-335.
  3. Fox, James. 1996. Introduction. In James J. Fox and Clifford Sather (eds.): Origins and Ancestry and Alliance. ANU Canberra, pp. 1-17.
  4. Guerriero, Antonio J. 1987. The Lahanan: some notes on the history of a Kajang group. Sarawak Gazette Vol. CXlll No. 1500: 17-28.
  5. Lassiter, Luke Eric. 2005. Collaborative Ethnography and Public Anthropology. Current Anthropology Vol. 46, No. 1: 83-106.
  6. Lawson, Stephanie. 1997. The Tyranny of Tradition: Critical Reflections on Nationalist Narratives in the South Pacific. In Ton Otto and Nicholas Thomas (eds.): Narratives of Nation in the South Pacific. Routledge London and New York. Pp. 15-31.
  7. Marcus, George E. 2009. Introduction: Notes toward an Ethnographic Memoir of Supervising Graduate Research through Anthropology’s Decades of Transformation. In James D Faubion and George E Marcus (eds.): Field work Is Not What It Used to Be- Learning Anthropology’s Method in a Time of Transition. Cornell University Press. Ithaca and London. Pp. 1-34.
  8. Ngau Jalong, Philip. 1989. The Ngurek. The Sarawak Museum Journal Vol. XL No. 61 : 157-167.
  9. Owen, D.A. 1919. A visit to unknown Borneo. Sarawak Gazette, 49: 78-79,89-90,106-108,121-123,141-145.
  10. Peacock, James L. 1997. The future of anthropology. American Anthropologist 99: 9-20.
  11. Rousseau, Jerome. 1988. Central Borneo: a Bibliography. The Sarawak Museum Journal Special Monograph No. 5, Vol. XXXVIII No. 59 (New Series).
  12. Thambiah, Santhi. 1995. Culture as Adaptation: Change among the Bhuket of Sarawak, Malaysia. PhD Thesis. University of Hull.
  13. Wazir Jahan Karim. 1996. Anthropology Without Tears: How a ‘local’ sees the ‘local’ and the ‘global’. In Henrietta Moore (ed.): The Future of Anthropological Knowledge pp. 115-138.
  14. Yahya Talla. 1979. The Kelabit of the Kelabit Highlands, Sarawak. Provisional Research Report No. 9. Universiti Sains Malaysia.

 

 

 
 

Copyright © 2021 Sarawak Museum Department
Last Updated On 20 Nov 2024

Operating Hours (Main Office)

Monday - Thursday
8.00am to 1.00pm & 2.00pm to 5.00pm

Friday
8.00am to 11.45pm & 2.00pm to 5.00pm

Saturday, Sunday, Public Holiday
Counter Closed
SARAWAK MUSEUM DEPARTMENT
JALAN P RAMLEE
93400, KUCHING, SARAWAK

TEL: +6082-548181 (Main Office)
TEL: +6082-548215 (Borneo Cultures Museum)
FAX: +082-548282
EMAIL : museum@sarawak.gov.my
image image
Open Data Privacy Policy Complaints and Feedbacks Copyright Notice Disclaimer Sitemap
image Calendar
image Polls
image Announcement
Facebook
Youtube