Jason Pine’s article on Aesthetics of Engagement is a difficult one to approach for the obvious across-the-table reasons but more because this article uses theory to move through academic paradigms kind of like a check list so that it can entertain style of engagement. The issue at hand is not theoretical approach (which seems to be in order) but on-the-fly verbal communication design. Before moving on, regarding our class discussion in class about personal vs. academic form: this article didn’t need personal pronouns. Easily translatable either way. Emotion does not heavily factor into the study- on paper anyway.
As for the study, it’s cool. I don’t have much context for Neopolitan culture personally but the cultural reactions to video reminded me of a number of the affects employed in popular American rap/hip hop. Specifically, I’m thinking about Ole Dirty Bastard collecting welfare checks on MTV or staged gun fights/beefs or whatever public show connects artists with the “street.” Proving your hustle by selling your music legally and illegally simultaneously. To be (un)willing to be (anti)industry or the (anti)man. There could have been a lil more explanation as to how the undercover academic as music video producer became unmasked and accepted but this ties into the question of style…
This study is suggesting an approach or methodology required to adequately engage a given subject. Pine seems to want to make explicit what would be a part of all interview situations: personalities. I totally agree. Tactful engagement is how things get done in and out of academics. A problem arises from an academic prospective though… aesthetics is a question of taste. Not at school so no OED but Merriam-Webster defines as: pl. a branch of philosophy dealing with the nature of beauty, art, and taste and with the creation and appreciation of beauty. This pulls us in a philosophical debate that is never ending. But to stay away from pure philosophy, what if Pine did not of the moxie to engage Antonio? Or the correct respect of irony? His personality allows him to engage these particular subjects… Now allow me some generalities, please. I lived in Italy for a while, granted not Southern Italy, and men were very sexually forward with the women I was with- And from the description of Antonio and his associates they fit the stereotype of the macho, hyper heterosexual Italian. For our purposes, we’ll say they do… Had Pine been a woman, this interaction would have taken an entirely different course. Maybe to the same end- can’t be sure but we can say that the on-the-fly engagement would be vastly different. How does one prepare? Can one? You can’t teach funny. Or tact. Or discretion. Tis a question of poetics. Is a drastic methodological shift, which I applaud generally but for anthropology am not convinced it is appropriate.
October 10, 2008 at 6:02 am
I don’t understand your critique Chester. First, you seem to try to draw some binary between the personal and the academic, as if they only act independently…as if there’s no room for the two to mix, mash, combine. I think Jason’s work is excellent in the way it draws method to demonstrate how to bring a subject to being, to like you said (which I agree with), engage them. But I’m unclear as to the point your trying to make on the proper way to make that engagement. Sure, if he were a woman, or a Martian, interaction would take on a different course. But I don’t think that’s the point of Jason’s research. He’s focusing more on the presence of a technology (i.e. a digital video camera) facilitates and problematizes interactions with ethnographic subjects. In the end of his paper, he makes a case for how the technology can even draw a mafia boss. I think you’re on to something, but your ideas shift from point to point, its hard to make any kind of cohesive argument. Again, I’d love to hear this critiques in class.
October 10, 2008 at 6:03 am
I don’t understand your critique Chester. First, you seem to try to draw some binary between the personal and the academic, as if they only act independently…as if there’s no room for the two to mix, mash, combine. I think Jason’s work is excellent in the way it draws method to demonstrate how to bring a subject to being, to like you said (which I agree with), engage them. But I’m unclear as to the point your trying to make on the proper way to make that engagement. Sure, if he were a woman, or a Martian, interaction would take on a different course. But I don’t think that’s the point of Jason’s research. He’s focusing more on how the presence of a technology (i.e. a digital video camera) both facilitates and problematizes interactions with ethnographic subjects. In the end of his paper, he makes a case for how the technology can even draw a mafia boss. I think you’re on to something, but your ideas shift from point to point, its hard to make any kind of cohesive argument. Again, I’d love to hear this critique in class.
October 10, 2008 at 6:32 pm
I think that if a woman had to do the research, she would have to find her own way of negotiating that particular environment. As an Italian woman, which knows something of how to deal with highly testosterone charged Italian man, I might try to play the blonde and wonder around the big boss with high heels, fishnets and an always switched on camera in my hands. No one would feel threathened because no one would think a sexy and mindless woman can be harmful.
Infact I would have an advantage over Jason as no one would notice me and my video camera… they would be hypnotized by legs and clivage…. like in a state of deep trance.