De Certeau: Ethno-graphy
At the end of his essay on Ethno-graphy --certainly dated but also a refined examination of the paradigm of anthropological knowledge-- Michel de Certeau writes
Anthropology emerges out of a double bind. On one hand writing, on the other speech (= poetry --here De Certeau calls it "distorition, "rapture" but in the essay itself this rupture refers to the moment of "ravishment" the missionary Lery felt upon hearing Tupi songs) a poetry which is not signifying for itself but establishes the conditions for writing.
To put it slightly differently, on one hand a movement of codification, on the other a desire, whose presence can only be codified in terms of a lack.
The impossible but necessary reconciliation of these two aspects seem to constitute the conditions of possibility of anthropology.
The problem with this formulation is precisely the line of partition drawn between a senseless rupture and a codifying gesture. Even if only heuristic, and even if only described to show the inestricable connection between the elements, such line of partition cuts in half a process of signification which cannot but be at once desire and codification.
Anthropology emerges out of a double bind. On one hand writing, on the other speech (= poetry --here De Certeau calls it "distorition, "rapture" but in the essay itself this rupture refers to the moment of "ravishment" the missionary Lery felt upon hearing Tupi songs) a poetry which is not signifying for itself but establishes the conditions for writing.
To put it slightly differently, on one hand a movement of codification, on the other a desire, whose presence can only be codified in terms of a lack.
The impossible but necessary reconciliation of these two aspects seem to constitute the conditions of possibility of anthropology.
The problem with this formulation is precisely the line of partition drawn between a senseless rupture and a codifying gesture. Even if only heuristic, and even if only described to show the inestricable connection between the elements, such line of partition cuts in half a process of signification which cannot but be at once desire and codification.
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