Ethnographic Sincerity Summary

Jolie Zaki
Professor Throop
Anthropology 09
Paper Assignment 1
27 October 2015
Sincere Ethnography When it comes to ethnography, anthropologists get too concerned about authenticity rather than sincerity and pure deliverance of emotions. There is a fine line between authenticity and sincerity, for the distinction requires more than just a report, or some data, but deep thought and sensation. The journals, “Ethnographic Sincerity” by John Jackson and How Did It Feel for You? Emotion, Narrative, and the Limits of Ethnography by Andrew Beatty share a common emphasis on the relevance of emotions to produce a sincere ethnography. Without emotion, there would be no sincerity, and without sincerity, there would be no validity. However, the methods

Anthropologists must keep balance between being involved in people’s lives and emotions so they would be able to sufficiently write about them, but also not fall into a trap of losing oneself in the process. However, it is very clear that emotions are an essential aspect of ethnography and without the inclusion of emotions, there would only be inhuman authenticity(Jackson 2010:283). Though,ethnographers must have hope at all times, a hope to see reality and present life issues, and especially a hope to make a difference(Jackson 2010:280). Eventually, a sincere ethnography would not occur without emotions, and emotions would only be displayed through a passionate anthropologist that seeks to know human beings and live among them appreciating their values and traditions that might be exotic at first, but through experience turn out to be familiar(Throop, Lecture, 09/29/15). However, anthropologists must also be careful and make sure to combine all the elements, including emotions, that would lead them to a sincere

I searched for “articles about ethnographic sincerity”, then it lead me to different articles that were not really related to my topic. However, through this path I was led to American Anthropologist and that is when I started looking for keywords from the assigned article. Then I found my article, “How Did It Feel for You? Emotion, Narrative, and the Limits of Ethnography” and the fact that it had the word emotion attracted me to read the abstract and once I started reading the first sentence I found several connections to the assigned article. None of the other articles were appealing to me because their topics were not really related to ethnography, they were related more to race, and emotions, but nowhere near the context of ethnography. After I chose this article, I read a little bit into it and I found even more connections, then I emailed one of the TAs that are assigned to grade Topic A to ask her about it. She said it was a good choice. I also went to the research help center in YRL after to make sure that I went about the right looking for my article, and to confirm that the article I chose was written by a cultural anthropologist and