I was pleasantly surprised by a lot of the parts of the introduction (or rather, postscript?) this week. I like how Albert talked about how his ideas changed over time, and acknowledged some of his previous assumptions that were harmful. To me this made his writing feel more authentic. It’s one thing to acknowledge the shortcomings of your perspective from the place you are now, but I think it shows more self awareness about your place in the issues you are writing about to talk about your journey to where you are now.
Additionally, apart from Albert’s own thoughts about his place and perspective as they relate to this book, there were some objective facts that Albert pointed out in this section that gave me a bit more trust in the narrative of the book. For example, the fact that Davi Kopenawa was the one who proposed the book, is listed as first writer (relevant to our discussions a few weeks ago about Burgos and Menchú) and asked Albert if he would write it. I also appreciated the discussion of the transparency of the editor-author relationship. Previously I hadn’t thought much about the importance of defining this, but after reading Albert’s thoughts I see why it is important to do so.
One specific thing that Albert said in the chapter about writing the book that stood out to me was about how he essentially had to come up with the narrative of the book before he wrote any of it because of the type of translating he was doing. This definitely seems like it would pose a challenge to Albert in producing an authentic text. It kind of reminds me of when you are writing a paper at the last minute and don’t really have time to undergo a proper thorough research process, so you decide on your argument and then look only for sources that support what you want to say. I think in Albert’s case it is different, because he did the ‘research’ ahead of time in compiling the interviews and recordings, but it still begs the question of how to properly determine what narrative the story will follow, and how to disclose the process of determining that in an authentic way to the readers (if at all).
One last thing that struck me was Albert’s frequent usage of the terms “ethnographic” and “ethnography.” I’m sure these are common terms in the field of anthropology, but without knowing a formal definition myself I have to wonder what he means when he uses these.
Hi there,
I totally agree that it’s really refreshing to see an editor be so self aware about the sort of book he is producing. I also think that its an interesting choice where he decided to include this information, that being at the end of the book not the beginning.
I also found it really interesting that Davi was the one who proposed the book rather than the other way around like so many of the other books studied.
I think the section where Bruce talks about his shortcomings in the past was well-placed, but I still struggled to fully be able to believe him while reading the text (after having some time away from it, I feel less skeptical, however). Andrew also brings up a good point in the comments about how it is interesting that Davi proposed the book, rather than the other way around like in the last two texts we’ve read of a similar nature (I, Rigoberta Menchu and Our Word is Our Weapon).
I find Albert’s conversation about ethnography and ethnographic techniques interesting too! I took FNIS 100 last year, and we talked a lot about ethnography, which we just defined as describing a group of people in their own environment. It’s interesting because Albert tries so hard to distance himself from anthropology’s connection to settler colonialism, but ethnography as a practice, too, is heavily connected to settler colonialism.
I like how you mentioned that the ending piece is about Alberts self awareness and journey. It really was a journey that Albert went on. The collective ending with all this detail about his relation with Davi shows how much thought and time he spent to prepare, analyze and write this book.
Isabella F