Accidental Ethnography

[Arguments against introspective writing, continued]

Tony Dokoupil in the New Partisan is commenting on a negative review of Norah Vincent's Self-Made Man. The review is written by memoirist Ann Marlowe who asks for more introspection in Norah Vincent's pages and encourages Vincent to write more about her own world than about that of the men she's investigating.

This makes Dokoupil rail against "Me Books" in general and the memoir - "arguably the most unambitious genre" - in particular:

Me Books are distinguished by the fact that the first-person voice is the only voice in the text, and “I-I-I” is tacitly believed to be the only seat of authority from which to report the world. [...] They want to pretend that what they publish is more than eloquent journal writing; that it’s cultural commentary; that their accidental adventures in addiction, divorce, death, and disease can be activated into episodes of accidental ethnography. Because, after all, we’re all cultural observers, we all have a story to tell, and all our personal opinions are valid by virtue of being lived. This, plainly enough, is buncombe.

Harsh words about the first person perspective (and not uncommon) - but what is it, then, that qualifies some first person accounts to count as valuable pieces of cultural commentary? How to avoid this 'ethnographic fallacy'?

Tony Dokoupil's own praise of Norah Vincent provides some answers, as Vincent is recognized for her way of making room for other voices in her text (which I too really appreciate about it) and for basing her story on actual field investigations ---in stead of, say, opening her heart at a given point in history, personal column (or personal blog) style, and writing a memoir based exclusively on her own particular personal history. But it's getting harder and harder to distinguish between genres like this and harder to define what's appropriate, valid and valuable in terms of giving a personal account of events.

I insist, of course, that the quality of the personal accounts remains more than a question of individual taste among readers, so---- I'll leave the blog for now and go work on my proposal to the research council. More about the latter matter later.