Reflexivity Redux: A Pithy Polemic on "Positionality"

Author(s): Jennifer Robertson

Source: Anthropological Quarterly, Vol. 75, No. 4 (Autumn, 2002), pp. 785-792
Published by: George Washington University Institute for Ethnographic Research
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SOCIALTHOUGHTAND COMMENTARY

Reflexivity Redux: Pithy A

Polemic on "Positionality"
Jennifer Robertson
Universityof Michigan

t is now taken for grantedthat a good ethnographyshould be "reflexive." But

what exactlydoes that mean?Mostbasically,reflexivitydescribesthe capacity
of any systemof signification,includinga human being-an anthropologist-to
turn backupon or to mirroritself.Twentyyearsago,JayRuby'sedited volume,A
Crackin the Mirror: ReflexivePerspectivesinAnthropology
(1982),confirmedthe ar-
rivalof reflexivityin our discipline,althoughthe concept itself was not entirely
novel. In their jointly authored introduction,Rubyand BarbaraMyerhoffre-
countedthe "ancient"historyof reflexivethinking,citingthe case of storiesabout
storytellerstellingstories,and drewattentionto some of the "early"experiments
in reflexiveapproachesto ethnography,such as ElenoreSmithBowen'sReturnto
Laughter(1954)1and GeraldBerreman'sBehindManyMasks(1962).
Twentyyearsago, reflexivitywas proposedas a correctiveto a mode of ethno-
graphicwritingin whichfactualmaterialwas presentedby an omniscientyet in-
visibleauthor-narrator whose methodsof fieldworkand data collectingwere not
alwaysmanifest,and who did not addressthe effectof heror his presenceon oth-
ers, much lessthe variouseffectsthat othersmay have had on heror him.Twenty
yearsago, there were no establishedconventionsfor writinga single manuscript
reflexively,as opposed to a factual ethnographyfollowed by a more diary-like

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REFLEXIVITY
REDUX:A PITHYPOLEMICON "POSITIONALITY"

"confessional" text.Sincethen, manymodesof reflexivewritinghavebeen explored

and reflexivelexiconsintroduced.Twentyyearsago, it may have been premature
to question the excesses of the nascent concept of reflexiveanthropology,but
now that "reflexivity" is a commonplace,it is time to revisitthe conceptand to ini-
tiate a criticalbut hopefullysalutaryappraisalof its manyusesand guises,begin-
ning with a considerationof the relationshipbetween reflexivethinkingand
mirroring.Whatfollows are some informallypresented thoughts, or "talking
points,"aboutreflexivity and itsconceptualoffshootsprovokedand quickenedover
the yearby ideas,insights,and concernsgleanedfroma broadrangeof booksand
articlesas well as fromworkingwith graduatestudentsof anthropology.2
The word "mirror"-boththe noun and the verb--was frequentlyencoun-
tered in anthropologicalcircles,whether as partof a title or as a descriptionof
didactictechnique,well beforethe publicationof A Crackin the Mirror.InClyde
Kluckhohn'sMirrorfor Man (1949), anthropologicalinquirywas likened to a
mirrorheld before us to allow and encourage a better understandingof our-
selves throughthe studyof others. However,a mirroris not an inertdevice and
can be deployedto containor controldifferencesand oppositions.Thus,in The
Chrysanthemumand the Sword(1946), written during WW2,Ruth Benedict's
mirrorrenderedJapanese nationalcharacterintelligibleas Americannational
characterthe otherwayaround.Inorderto makeAmerica's"mostalien enemy"
appear more human, BenedictpositionedJapaneseand Americansas the mir-
rorimage of each other: "[t]hearc of life in Japanis plotted in opposite fashion
to that in the UnitedStates"(Benedict1946:253-4;see Robertson1998).However
humane her anthropologicalmotives, Benedict made getting to know Japan
too easy, and the Japanshe profiledwas all too knowable,a legacythat Japan
anthropologistscontinue to grapplewith in differentways.
The potentialof mirrorsto createthe conditionsfor both solipsismand reifi-
cationshould be obvious. Moreover,an anthropologist'smetaphoricmirrorcan
renderher or him the defacto ethnographicsubject,and turn the self into the
A laud-
fieldsite.Egocentrismis one of the pitfallsto avoidin exercisingreflexivity.
able theoryabout epistemology,reflexivityis also a method for conductingfield-
workand constructingethnographies.A reflexiveanthropologistintentionallyor
self-consciouslyshares (whetherin agreement or disagreement)with her or his
audiencesthe underlyingassumptionsthat occasiona set of questions.Thosein-
teractionsin turnguide the ways in whichanswersto those questionsare sought
and that ultimatelyshape the narrativeform in which both the questions and
answers are posed, interpreted,and analyzed (cf. Ruby1980). However,self-
consciousness can also become an end in itself. Because autobiographyand

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 JENNIFERROBERTSON

the first-personnarrativeare usuallythe modes in which one expressesor con-

veys self-consciousnessto others, there is alwaysthe possibilitythat an ethnog-
raphercan become preoccupiedwith self-representation.
Considerautobiography,for example.Oneof the reflexivetechniquesutilized
by some anthropologists,autobiographyis a distinctiveliterarymode and not
simply any form of self-expressionor self-representation.An autobiography
presentsa version, myth, or metaphorof the self and is also retrospective,and
thus mustself-consciouslycontrasttwo selves,the writing"I"and the one located
(orcreated)in the past.Varioustropesof originare invokedin an effortto locate
or create a beginning.A populartrope among autobiographersis that of child-
hood, in whichselectiveexperiencesare remembered-that is, re-membered,as
in reconstituted-for the purposesof a "real-time"argumentor interpretation.
The role of childhood in autobiographyis to furnish a point of departure,a
way of beginninga narrativeemplotment of one's life togetherwith all the oth-
er lives in which one is implicated.Incorporatedinto ethnographies,stories of
one's childhoodare often told as a type of personaltestimony,an "Iwas there"
stamp of authentic, if ex postfacto and anachronistic,authoritativeexperience.
By the same token, ethnographershave often characterizedthemselves as
children,ostensiblybecause at the outset of fieldwork(despiteyearsof prelim-
inaryresearch),they say they have felt likechildren,awayfrom home and wan-
dering within a confusing welter of partially comprehended images and
encountersthat they have not yet learnedto negotiate.Thetrope of childhood
is also sometimesemployedas a blatantlyliterarydeviceto invertor level (on pa-
per at least)the presumed"powerrelationship"between the ethnographerand
the (implicitlyless powerful)people among whom she or he lives and works.
These uses of the trope of childhood by ethnographersdifferin content and in-
tention from stories told and retold-or reciprocated-in the course of re-
sponding to unprompted questions by others about one's upbringing and
youthfulexperiences.
A personal anecdote at this point will help elaborate my argument. I re-
member being puzzledwhen a reviewerof my firstbook (on affectivecity plan-
ning and local-placeconsciousnessin Japan)seemed to thinkthat the inclusion
of stories based on memories of my childhood in KodairaCitywould have im-
proved my historicaland contemporaryethnographyof that Tokyosuburb.3
The reviewer'simplicationwas that such stories spun from my memories of
childhoodwere somehow equivalentin valueand usefulnessbothto the archival
and field data I had carefullycollected, translated,and interpretedover a two-
year period,and to my accountsof personalencounterswith Kodairaresidents

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 REDUX:A PITHYPOLEMICON "POSITIONALITY"
REFLEXIVITY

and civilservants.In what way storiesfrom my childhoodwould have made a

qualitativeor even a rhetoricalimprovementto the book, and where in my
narrativethey would have been relevant,was not made clear;that they would
have been relevantwas taken to be self-evident.
I am not at all suggestingthat stories about childhood have no place in an
ethnography,but ratherthat their inclusionshould be more than a gratuitous
gesture towardthe latest academic derniercri, regardlessof relevance.By the
same token, confidence in one's authorial"voice"ought not to lie in genealog-
icalclaimsor childhoodexperience,but in the assiduousfieldworkand archival
researchnecessaryto generate historicallyresonant,thickdescriptionsand sub-
tly evocative interpretationsof people's lives in all their messy complexity.I
would be the last personto dismissthe advantagesto an ethnographerof the
profoundfamiliaritythat long-termresidence in a place can afford. However,
such familiarityis most effectivelyconveyed not by superficialclaimsto "insid-
er"status, but in the thoughtfulchoice of ethnographicsubjectand the caliber
and subtletyof researchundertakento elucidate it.
An emergenceof a newertrope of originemployedto conveyan author'sre-
flexive"voice"parallelsthe corporatizationof Americanuniversities,where affir-
mativeactioncan be respunas a type of "nichemarketing"informedby identity
politics.4Affirmative actionwas introducedto the academyin the wakeof the civ-
il rightsmovement and throughfeminist activism.Overthe past two or three
decades,personsrepresentinga hithertounderrepresented sex, gender,sexuality,
ethnicity,disability,religion,socio-economicstatus,and so forth,collectivelyand
steadily have complicated,thankfullyand for the better,the social texture of
Americaninstitutions.Recently,however,buffetedby marketforces,those same
identity-categories have been packagedas "readyto wear"consumablesguaran-
teed to clarifyone'slocationor positionwithinthe undulatingacademiclandscape.
Invokingthe clunkyterm"positionality," anthropologiststodayoften begina man-
uscriptwith the words, "writingas a [name the category]."The operative as-
sumptionis that "positionality" Butis it really?
is a conditionof and for reflexivity.
A majorproblemwith "writingas a [name the category]"is that the ethnog-
rapher'spositionalityeither precedesthe fieldworkexperienceor is deployedaf-
ter the fact, during the write-up phase, to locate oneself in what might be
termedthe "topophilic" academy.Thesecategoriesare the "readyto wear"prod-
ucts of an identitypoliticsthat has been especiallyendemic to Americanuni-
versities. Wearingthese categories as if self-evident does not reveal but can
insteadactuallyobscureone's unique personalhistory,even as these categories
impartan illusionof self-consciousidentityformation.Anotherpersonalanec-

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 JENNIFERROBERTSON

dote may be illustrativehere. A reviewerof my second book, on the sexualand

colonial politicsembodied by Takarazuka,the popularJapaneseall-female re-
vue founded in 1913,5 wonderedwhy I had not "positioned"myself in the book
as an "academic,white,Westerner, woman."Iwas amazedand distressedby how
someone I had never met-but who perhapshad seen me from a distanceat a
conference-felt perfectlyserene about namingthe specific identity-categories
to which I apparentlyshould have loudlypledgedallegianceat the outset of my
book. These generic, fixed categories effectively efface the complexityof my
personaland professionallives,not to mentionmyfamily'shistories.Bythe same
token, the revieweralso assumed that the people I was workingand socializing
with and Iwere mirrorimages (thatis, opposites)of each other,and that our re-
lationshipcould only have been defined by unequal power plays.A more care-
ful and patient readingof my densely layeredbook would have yielded much
about the multiple and shifting ways in which I both presented myself, ap-
pearedto, and was consciousof appearingto the variouspeople I had livedand
workedamong for over a decade.
as practicedbyanthropologists,is premisedon ever morespecific
Positionality,
categoriesof identitythat can invokea kindof culturalrelativity.Positionalityis
also a key component of the so-calledWesternself-critique."So-called" because
criticalappraisalsof anthropologyand the colonialencounterso often, in their
critiques,retainan asymmetricalrelationshipbetween "theWest"and "theThird
World."Althoughneither"theWest"nor "theThirdWorld"existsas an internally
coherent entity,there is a tendency to treat both as singularand homogeneous
formationsdefined in terms of their experienceof colonialismand imperialism,
where "theWest"is the supreme change agent and "theThirdWorld"the irre-
versiblychanged reactant(cf.Ahmad1986). Moreover,this binaristformulaig-
noresthe historiesand present-daycircumstancesof multiplenon-Euro-American
colonizersand imperialistregimes,as well as new forms of colonialismspear-
headed by multinationalcorporations, whetherheadquarteredin the Netherlands
or in SaudiArabia,not to mention religiousfundamentalistsall over the world.
Not only can positionalitybecome a form of self-stereotyping,it can also ef-
fectivelystereotypeothersin a waysimilarto mirroring: as "theself"the otherway
around.Bywriting"asa [name the category],"an ethnographerproceedson the
basisof two problematicsets of assumptions.Thefirstis that ethnographers,mul-
ti-sensoryhuman beingswith unique personalhistories,are reducibleto, or uni-
versallyintelligibleas, one or several"readyto wear"identities.Thesecond set of
assumptionsis that the peopleamongwhom ethnographersliveand workare ca-
pable only of reactingto the ethnographers'presencewhich, in turn,irreversibly

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 REDUX:A PITHYPOLEMICON "POSITIONALITY"
REFLEXIVITY

alterstheirlifeways.Theimplicationis that peopleeverywhere,regardlessof every

possibledistinguishingvariable,are susceptibleto the whimsof puissantethnog-
raphers,whetherthey are doingfieldworkin "theirown"countriesor elsewhere,
or among remoteherdersor urbanwhite-collarworkers.Inthis connection,Iwas
most bewildered, when, during a seminar devoted to discussing my book,
Takarazuka: SexualPoliticsand PopularCulturein ModernJapan(2001 [1998]),a
graduatestudent,who wasa supporterthe anti-sweatshopmovement,opinedthat
mycriticalcharacterization of the powerful,multinationalHankyO Corporation,was
a "actof colonialism."HankyOis the despoticowner of, among other things,the
all-femaleTakarazuka Revue,and, duringthe firsthalfof the 20thcentury,colluded
in the state'sempire-buildingproject.Thestudentfelt that my refusalto regurgi-
tate HankyO's ahistorical"officialstory,"as told in its publicrelationsbrochures,
deprivedthe corporationof its "voice!"
Few would disagree with the observationthat the world (whetherfirst or
third)was nevernot transcultural.Culturalencountersand their effects are the
sine qua non of human life, whetherthat life is lived by a New Guineahilltribe
or Japaneseyuppies.Ofcourse,one must neverforgetthat there have been im-
balances, often large, associated with "the crossingof cultural borders:con-
quest, colonialism,imperialism,tourism,or scholarlyinterestall involvechoice
and requirepower,even if only buyingpower"(Taylor1991:63).Howeveruneven
or unequal in poweror degree, culturalencountersare "shiftingprocesses"and
do not constituteunidirectionalteleologies.Allpartiesto and involvedin the en-
counterare affectedand modifiedby it, often with verydifferentconsequences
(Robertson2001 [1998]:291, n. 23).
Writing"as a [name the category]"may serve to position or locate an an-
thropologistwithinthe academy'spaint-by-numberlandscape,but going to do
fieldwork"asa [name the category]"is an a prioripositionthat can effectively
render an ethnographerimperviousto intellectual,aesthetic, and emotional
transformationsand challengesfrom new encounters,acquaintances,and ex-
periences.Yetthese are just the sortof encountersand epiphaniesthat are cen-
tral to generating reflexivity. Ironically,the trope of "positionality"can
recapitulatethe problem that reflexiveanthropologyaims to help solve; of-
fered as a solutionto self-complacency,the politicsof locationcan containwith-
in it the problem it was to have resolved. Familyhistory,ethnicity,sexuality,
disability,and religion,among other distinctions,can be usefullywoven into an
ethnographicnarrative,but only if they are not left self-evidentas essentialized
qualities that are magicallysynonymous with self-consciousness,or, for that
matter, with intellectual engagement and theoretical rigor.Their usefulness

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 JENNIFERROBERTSON

must be articulatedand demonstratedbecause such distinctionsare not fixed

points but emerge and shift in the contiguous processesof doing and writing
about fieldwork.6
Finally,it has been my own experience,living,working,and playingin Japan,
SriLanka,Germany,Israel,England,Korea,Egyptand elsewhere,that not only do
American-madeidentitieslackcachetoutsideof U.S.universities,but that "wear-
ing"them in the field as a self-consciouspositioningdevice is pointlessbecause
most people in most placesare quite proficientat assigninglabelsand creating
positionsof their own for others and themselves."Arm-chair theorists"may not
realize,or may sometimes forget,that ethnographersare not the only wielders
of mirrors.Theoriescan only be developed and modified by engagingwith an
ever-expandingbody of tangible information,lest they lose their value as theo-
ries and become frozen as formulaicexplanations(Vance1985:18; Robertson
2001 [1998]:24).Thus,likea barometer,a reflexiveanthropologistwill recordthe
labelingand mirroringpracticesof others and be attentiveto how such contin-
genciesshape her or his project.Twentyyearsago JayRubybeganto examinethe
cracksin the anthropologicalmirror.Is it not time to renewour effortsto under-
stand, self-consciously,the peoples and places behindall those othermirrors?

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would liketo thank ProfessorRichardGrinker,the editorof Anthropological for
Quarterly,
invitingme to contributean essay on a topic of my choice to the SocialThoughtand
Commentarysection and for offeringconstructivesuggestions.By the same token, I owe
thanksto SoniaRyangforinvitingme to serveas the discussantforherAAA2001 panel.Those
remarksbecamethe coreof thisessay.Heartfeltthanksto CelesteBrusatiand Alexandra Stern
fortheirmanycriticalreadingsof differentdraftsof this essay.I benefitedenormouslyfrom
theirsage advice.

NOTES
'The nom de plumeof LauraBohannon.
21wrotethe first,veryroughversionof this essayas discussant's
commentsforthe AAApan-
el, "GoingNativein Asia"(29 November2001),organizedby ProfessorSoniaRyang,
3Nativeand Newcomer:Makingand Unmakinga JapaneseCity(Berkeley:Universityof
CaliforniaPress,1994 [1991]).
41thankAlexandraSternforthe expression"nichemarketing." See also Robertson(1998)for
an elaborationof the effectsof corporatization
on academicdepartmentalpolitics.
STakarazuka: SexualPoliticsand PopularCulturein ModernJapan (Berkeley:Universityof
CaliforniaPress,2001 (1998)).
6Fieldwork here is broadlydefinedto includearchives.

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 REDUX:A PITHYPOLEMICON "POSITIONALITY"
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