The Nature of Ethnographic Fiction : A Further Inquiry

Abstract

The stimulating essay, "Fact, Fiction and the Eth-nographic Novel," by L. L. Langness and Gelya Frank that appeared in the Anthropology and Hu-manism Quarterly (1978) raises more questions about ethnographic fiction than it answers. The pur-pose of this essay is to continue the discussion of what is ethnographic fiction and its place in anthro-pology. The additions that I can make to the discus-sion are related to my research on African fiction and the contexts in which fiction is utilized in an-thropological analysis. Anthropologists with different research interests and geographic foci can extend the discussion in other directions. There are two primary questions raised by Langness' and Frank's essay. The first is: what is ethnographic fiction? The second is: what are the contexts in which anthropologists have analyzed and can analyze ethnographic fiction? I will address each of these questions by discussing points made by Langness and Frank and raising additional related inquiries. I will also supplement their bibliography to include types of fiction and types of anthropo-logical analysis of fiction which they have ignored, although I do not intend to provide a comprehensive bibliography. I will not answer either of the major questions because as will soon become clear, with-out a clear definition of ethnographic fiction and a clear delineation of the contexts in which this fiction is created and read throughout the world, these questions cannot be answered. Langness and Frank imply that ethnographic fic-tion is written by anthropologists about a culture other than their own, as most of the novels they discuss and include in their bibliography are of this type. However, there are a few exceptions such as Achebe's Things Fall Apart (1958) and Wilson's Crazy February (1966). These exceptions are quite significant for they represent two vast areas of fiction that fit Langness's and Frank's general definition, but are not written with anthropological considerations in mind. First, there is fiction by creative writers about their own culture in the past (eg. Achebe).