In this collection of short essays-"How Native Is a 'Native' Anthropologist," by Kirin Narayan, "Breaching the Wall of Difference," by Kamala Ganesh, and "Shared Blessings as Ethnographic Practice," by Ann Grodzins Gold-each author discusses a different issue as an anthropologist, yet there are common threads among them. Narayan's essay subtly argues for tearing down the walls between "inside" and "outside" anthropologists, pointing out why in many cases the distinction is a moot one, while Ganesh points out that even for those in the upper castes, their caste limits and inhibits them, and Gold emphasizes the sense of community among women in the Indian society she studies and is part of. Separately, they address different issues peculiar to their own individual experience as anthropologists. Together, these three writers' experiences seem to meld together in expressions of larger issues that transcend anthropology, such as women's rights, the power of community, and the inevitable irrelevance and phoniness of labels and class distinctions.
Narayan's article evidences the faulty logic in ascribing the terms "inside" (native) and "outside" (non-native) to anthropologists. Narayan (23) distinguishes what is meant by inside and outside anthropologists and then posits that instead of setting up this dichotomous framework, "we might more profitably view each anthropologist in terms of shifting identifications amid a field of interpenetrating communities and power relations." She notes that there are multiple factors involved and that these are "in flux" (Narayan 23). Her insight highlights the fact that traditionally, anthropologists think and work as though civilizations were all dead ones in which nothing changes and social mores and other societal features are fixed. In such an unrealistic environment, there might have been an advantage in being an insider-native. However, in th
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