Indigenous Self-Representation in Ethnographic Writing: theoretical elements to the consideration of ethnographic intertextuality

Abstract

This work focuses indigenous self-representations in ethnographic writing and debates on how the process of apprehension/representation of others’ cultural difference can be viewed. It also interrogates the extent to which anthropology, anthropologists and its techniques are thought of and used by native interlocutors to express themselves as singular individuals to restrict or wider audiences. The emphasized argument is that anthropologists do not register in their ethnographies a previous native culture which is verbalized by the native interlocutor, but a dynamic dialogical culture, renewed during the ethnographic encounter. For the development of the argument the article debates Marcel Mauss, Maurice Leenhardt and Roberto Cardoso de Oliveira’s approaches to the notions of “person” and “self”. The work is concluded with the analysis of a speech registered during fieldwork that illustrates how ethnographies can be mediatized for indigenous self-representation.