To be a bit pedantic though I thought those 1980s critiques actually quite liked the personal narrative – if memory serves Mary Louise Pratt’s chapter in Writing Culture makes some argument that they are a nice way of mediating between the subjectivity of the ethnographer and the objectivity of the ethnography. Put that way what I wrote is almost the opposite – that they are a disguised claim to authority, like an image that generates confidence. But whatever, I really would hate it if there was a return to representational angst…I feel a bit ill just thinking about it.

Speaking of ill-ness and 80s fashion though – what I find weird is lecturing to students dressed like me when I was 13. The synaesthetic associations of those colours and forms make the whole experience … odd.

I don’t know about ‘visual’ but there are probably lots of ‘textual’ ones. Like the supporting informant quote (SIQ) f’rinstance – because if a Native said it, it must be true.

A lesser claim of authority is made in the very tired device of the Arrival Narrative. Whereby the innocent buffoon ethnographer simultaneously deprecates themselves, talks up the hardship, notes how long they spent in the field and how quickly they learnt the language, offended everyone but made lifelong friendships, and yet despite their newbie status perceptively noticed a crucial passing incident on that first day which sums up the entire worldview of the Natives and reaffirms in miniature the theoretical purpose of the ethnography in question…and which nevertheless will not prevent the author from subsequently reiterating that same point with great prolixity in the ensuing chapters.