This week’s reading, though difficult in content, was a deeply engaging read. The an auto ethnographic style is very interesting. As Rigoberta points out her culture is illiterate and knowledge is passed down through an oral tradition. On the one hand, the auto ethnographic mode is true to this tradition in that the story and knowledge is being transmitted as told verbally. But on the other, by writing it down and making it permanent many central features, for example its continually changing nature, are removed. The knowledge is concreted or ‘Westernised’ some might argue. Also dangerous to the oral tradition is the wide distribution of the work. Oral tellings mean that knowledge can rarely be widely distributed, especially without change of adaptions to the context they are in.\u00a0 Arguably this adaptability is one of the most valuable parts of the tradition. This is why I think that Rigoberta’s secrecy surrounding some customs is not only motivated by them being secret to the community but also out of respect for the oral tradition. She acknowledges that perhaps permanent print of one (her own) version does not do the knowledge justice.<\/p>\n
Although I agree with the lecture that all autoethnographies exist in dialogue with colonisers and colonialism, I take issue with the word “conqueror” because Rigoberta’s story exists in resistance to potential ‘conquerors’ and denies their success in their attempts. Another note i have on the lecture is that I disagree that the inclusion of the cultural customs disrupt the book’s direct politicicism but I would argue they heighten it. Without these the story becomes, although she denies this, more about Rigoberta’s personal experiences of hardship. Although political, they (tragically) do not stand out in the sea of existing stories of discrimination, poverty and war. The customs place these within a culture with distinct and real practices under attack. The insistence on the existence of the culture simply by telling of it is what politicises this text the most to me.<\/p>\n
My favourite character in the work is Candelaria. She acts as a sort of microcosm role model for Rigoberta by teaching her how to rebel from within the system. Her being fired also mirrors Rigoberta going into exile but leaving behind a legacy with her sisters as Candelaria does with her in the landing house.<\/p>\n
Question: Do you think the oral tradition is respected or maintained by the book? Why? Why not?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This week’s reading, though difficult in content, was a deeply engaging read. The an auto ethnographic style is very interesting. As Rigoberta points out her culture is illiterate and knowledge is passed down through an oral tradition. On the one hand, the auto ethnographic mode is true to this tradition in that the story and …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":95388,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[50],"tags":[51,56,52,55,54,53],"class_list":["post-35","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-manchu","tag-candelaria","tag-customs","tag-ethnography","tag-knowledge","tag-oral-tradition","tag-politicicism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/span312qst\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/span312qst\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/span312qst\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/span312qst\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/95388"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/span312qst\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/span312qst\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/span312qst\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35\/revisions\/37"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/span312qst\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/span312qst\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/span312qst\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}