“I’m not saying anthropology isn’t fiction….but fiction’s more fun. It lets you look inside people’s heads in a way you wouldn’t dare to do if you stuck to anthropology.”

An interesting question, then, is what then are you stuck with if you stick to anthropology?

I must confess that my keen appreciation of Clifford Geertz’s argument that the symbols that comprise culture are public phenomena is rooted in the personal experience of fieldwork.

When my wife Ruth and I set out to do fieldwork in Taiwan, my language preparation included a couple of years of modern Mandarin, a year of classical Chinese, and a few weeks of Hokkien, the Chinese language spoken by the majority of Taiwanese. Ruth and I were, to the best of our knowledge, the first non-native anthropologists to do fieldwork in Taiwan in Hokkien. Intensive study during the first six months of our two years in the field brought us to a reasonable level for fluent everyday interaction.

We enjoyed the privilege of free time and the ability to ask questions whose ignorance was forgivable only in foreign devils and small children. We had theories to direct our attention to selected portions of the blooming, buzzing confusion going on around us and an all too rudimentary training in research methods to keep us focused where data could be systematically collected.

Was this, however, enough, when combined with elementary language skills, to understand what was going on in the heads of the people among whom we did our fieldwork, when we hadn’t grown up in Taiwan, hadn’t lived Taiwanese lives, and were freed by our grants from the demands of work and family that shaped those lives, in the highly personal ways that growing up in particular positions in particular families in particular circumstances creates? The answer can only be “No.”

We could understand some things, even notice some things of which Taiwanese friends seemed unaware. We could contribute to a growing body of knowledge about Taiwan and, using Taiwan as a touchstone for comparisons with other materials, China and East Asia as well. But to claim that we were getting inside peoples’ heads, that we could speak for them from a native’s point of view. Absurd.

isn’t it a bit late?