Mobius strip. Retrieved from Wikimedia, original by David Benbennick.
Beyond close methodological examination, letter-writing can be valuable as a pedagogical tool: an exercise in composition and creative writing, and active responsive reading. As Suzanne Scheld (2009) points out, by lending a proximity to the field, an informal and open-ended prose, as well as a sense of being addressed directly, letters incite a feeling of culpability, responsiveness, and agency in their readers in a way that is often absent in academic texts. Letters can serve as a way of connecting students to authors that otherwise might remain abstract intellectual figures. Scheld proposes that letter writing to anthropologists as a pedagogical strategy reminds students that they are valued and valuable by affirming that they are “legitimate members of an academic community” (2009: 66). She also describes that letters from anthropologists about their own work and publishing process ‘underscore[s]’ writing as an imperfect, ‘on-going’ process that requires ‘patience’ (2009: 67).
In Improvising Theory: Process and Temporality in Ethnographic Fieldwork, Allaine Cerwonka and Liisa Malkki (2007) emphasize the value of an extended e-mail exchange between the authors—an at-the-time novice ethnographer and her mentor, Malkki—during Cerwonka’s fieldwork in Melbourne, Australia. In this sense, letters also serve as a valuable pedagogical tool between researchers and their supervisors. Indeed Mead wrote to Boas; and Malinowski requested that his student, Camila Wedgwood, write to him. Cerwonka’s exchanges with Malkki provide a platform for their thoughts, emotions, and methodological choices. Their correspondence reveals many anxieties and uncertainties inherent in fieldwork, such as her concerns about the appropriateness of her field sites and the ethical dilemmas she faces. This reflexive process also helps clarify the researcher’s positionality and the impact of their presence in the field. Their correspondence documents the research process, emotional experiences, and intellectual developments in real-time and offers a unique perspective on the ethnographic method. Malkki subsequently used the letters to teach ethnographic methods, demonstrating the challenges and decisions faced by fieldworkers. This approach provides students with a practical understanding of ethnographic research that goes beyond theoretical instruction, emphasizing the dynamic and improvisational nature of fieldwork.
Moreover, letters facilitate an ongoing dialogue that bridges disciplinary boundaries. In Cerwonka and Malkki’s case, their interdisciplinary correspondence between anthropology and political science enriched their respective approaches and highlighted the benefits of integrating multiple perspectives in ethnographic research. This dialogue underscores the collaborative nature of knowledge production and the value of diverse academic influences in shaping robust ethnographic insights.
In another interdisciplinary dialogue, Charles Briggs (2014) writes a letter to write to Sigmund Freud, contextualizing his ethnographic experience in the Delta Amacuro rainforest of Venezuela through the lens of psychoanalytic interpretations of mourning. By addressing Freud directly, Briggs takes the act of putting authors in conversations more literally; this playful tactic is useful to situate different perspectives and conceptual developments, imagine how they might respond to one another, and lend transparency over his process of reading observations through a Freudian interpretation. The letter—seemingly expectant of a response—provides many points of analysis couched in a speculative, open-ended prose. It also occasions Briggs to reveal his rethinking of the role of anthropology—as ‘the work of mourning’, he proposes—highlighting some of the strengths of both interdisciplinary dialogue and meta-reflection.
Works Cited
- Briggs, Charles. (2014). Dear Dr. Freud. Cultural Anthropology. Vol 29, No. 2: 312–343.
- Cerwonka, Allaine. Malkki, Liisa H. (2007). Improvising Theory: Process and Temporality in Ethnographic Fieldwork. University of Chicago Press.
- Scheld, Suzanne. (2009). Letter Writing and Learning in Anthropology. The Journal of Effective Teaching, Vol. 9, No. 3, 2009, 59-69