Home > Sample essays > Exploring How Identity is Not Binary with “How Native Is a ‘Native’ Anthropologist?

Essay: Exploring How Identity is Not Binary with “How Native Is a ‘Native’ Anthropologist?

Essay details and download:

  • Subject area(s): Sample essays
  • Reading time: 6 minutes
  • Price: Free download
  • Published: 1 April 2019*
  • Last Modified: 15 October 2024
  • File format: Text
  • Words: 1,654 (approx)
  • Number of pages: 7 (approx)

Text preview of this essay:

This page of the essay has 1,654 words.



Identity is multifaceted and is not always binary. For many people, society tries to label or place individuals in a box, however, identity does not operate on society’s terms.  In the reading entitled “How Native Is a ‘Native’ Anthropologist?”  anthropologists  Kirin Narayan challenges an anthropological ‘ society’ and redefines the meaning of identity. General anthropology usually classifies an individual, commonly ethnographers conducting research about certain group or community, as either an insider [define insider] or as an outside[define outsider], leaving out an important gray area of individuals whom may not holistically fit into either category but may embody characteristic from both categories. For example within Ralph’s Renegade Dreams: Living through Injury in Gangland Chicago, which discusses [ briefly summarize the book] that the roles of an outsider or insider ethnographer are necessarily binary. Although,  general  anthropologists would deem him as an insider  due to his characteristic of being a Black/African-American who has lived in Chicago for a substantial amount of time, and has strong bonds with people within the community, those anthropologists also fail to recognize the various aspects of his identity that set him apart from that community is as well. In agreement with Narayan that the categories outside/insider are not binary, may intertwine based on the context, author Abdi M. Kusow states in his book Beyond Indigenous Authenticity: Reflections on the Insider/Outsider Debate in Immigration Research researcher roles of an  insider or outsider roles are simply products of a certain situation or context of their fieldwork and not from the status of the researcher.

  Within the Narayan reading, she makes a claim against the binary categories of an anthropologist as either an insider or outsider and instead argues for that “we might more profitably view each anthropologist in terms of shifting identifications amid a field of interpenetrating communities and power relations”(Narayan, 1993, 671).  In other words, Narayan states that general anthropology should instead take the main focus away from one’s cultural background that may yield one to become a stereotypical insider or outsider but, instead general anthropology should account for the various dynamics  of an anthropologists identity amid the array of power dynamics and the diverse, interdependent unities (Narayan 671). Narayan claims that anthropology should also take into account the idea that there are multiple aspects to one’s identity such as an individual’s “age, [level of] education, gender, sexual orientation, class, race, or sheer duration of contacts” that may at different times of interaction, outweigh one’s cultural background (Narayan ,1993,672). Narayan debunks the general anthropological claim that one’s cultural background that may categorize one as an insider or outsider, but instead states that an individual’s identity can not be summed up into two basic categories, but consists an individual’s identity is shaped by multiple parts that may outweigh the conventional insider and outsider categories.

  While conducting research in India, though she was deemed a native by general anthropolists she found her sonstanly speaking about the differnt aspects of her identity with the Indians she was researching. On several occassions, she was ask questions such as “Are all Americans savages” so on. Wihtin her reserach in India he constanly found different spectrums of her idenity intertwining with her reserach, although general anthropolgy does not recogniz those aspectd of her.

 

  Within the book, Ralph as an ethnographer captures the heartbreaking realities in his neighborhood and is forced to where both caps, an insider, and an outsider.  Since he is conducting research within his community and can relate to personal sentiment and hardships of the ‘natives’, in this case, the Chicagoans. However, the roles as Narayan states are not so binary, in which there are various dynamics within an individual’s identity which can not be summed down to either two roles. In Ralph’s case, though he is from Chicago and has personal relationships with many people he may be using to conduct his research, several factors such as his education, age, and interests may set him apart from many in his neighborhood, therefore he can also be deemed as an ‘outsider’. The terms insider and outsider may be tentative based on context.

  While Ralph spent time in Chicago he was able to build and maintain various relationships within the neighborhoods. Within Ralph’s time spent in Chicago learned that in order“ to be an anti-violence activist (or an ethnographer) in …[Chicago he] had to position [himself] within a community rife with social problems ” which is what he did as an ‘insider’ ethnographer, as he worked with a Chicago native named Justin who offered him valuable advice on how to conduct research within Eastwood (Ralph, 8).Though Ralph was able to successively wear his ‘insider’ cap in order to conduct his search, due to the different aspects of his identity who was also an ‘outsider’. During a meeting with government officials and residents,  due to their preferred methods of communication, he struggles to efficiently communicate with them. Most individuals were fond speaking above one another without allowing an individual to fully finish or voice their opinions.Though that type of communication may be usual for Chicagoans, this greatly frustrated Ralph.In this context, due to Ralph’s preference of communication, he found himself in an odd position, separate from his stereotypical role as an ‘insider’ within Chicago. This experience like many other reconfirms Narayan’s claim in which the insider/outsider role is are not binding in which it may be outweighed other components of one’s identity.

In relation to Narayan’s claims of the falsity of the conventional insider/outsider roles, seen evident in Ralph’s text, author Abdi M. Kusow also reaches a similar analysis of the anthropological insider and outsider categories. In Kusow’s work Beyond Indigenous Authenticity: Reflections on the Insider/Outsider Debate in Immigration Research,  as a “native ethnographer amongst Somali immigrants to Canada he  furthers the [insider/outsider] anthropological argument by [showcasing] the insatiability of categories such as native ethnographers and that the insider/outsider roles are products of the particular situation or [context] of a given fieldwork takes place and not from the status characteristics per se of the researcher” (Kusow 591).  Kusow acknowledges, like Narayan, that the roles of insider/outsider cannot simply be formed based off of status characteristics, such as cultural background, but other dynamics play a key role in the ethnographer’s identity which may affect the interaction and connection made between the ethnographer and the community or groups of people being studied.

  Like his fellow native anthropologist Narayan, Kusow highlights the other dynamics of an individual’s identity that affects the interaction between the ethnographer, such as socio-economic status, gender, the level of education, religion, and nationality work. Kusow uses an example explain how gender may affect research in a heavily gender segregated Somalia. While looking at a male native ethnographer and a female who is culturally an outsider, mostly likely the native male ethnographer may be considered an outsider while the female who is culturally an outsider would be considered an insider due to the basis of how gender operates within Somalia’s society (Kusow 597). In explanation, Kusow claims that research relationship built between the research and the community being studies is something that the community members continuously negotiate and locally decipher for themselves, in which the relationship between the researcher and community is not something that can be easily preconceived. In certain cases, a researcher may be perceived as an insider, while in another case the researcher may be perceived as an outsider. Therefore a researcher’s characteristics are not indelible, nor solely determined by their insider/outsider status (Kusow 597). Instead, a researcher’s status of understanding is established by the interaction between the researcher and the participants as well as the context of interaction, such as the socio-political climate of the area of research.

 

 

V. Solution

  In the solution to an anthropological issue of one’s cultural backgrounding deeming one as either an outsider or insider, based on the community of a group of people being studied, Narayan and Kusow both other interesting takes. Narayan states that anthropologists should focus their attention on the quality of relations with the communities and groups of people one is studying and whom will be included in the researcher’s future their personal works. Anthropologists should question whether or not the community being studied is being depicted negatively, as inferior uncivilized people or are the people adequately represented and acknowledged as individuals with opinions, voices, unified through a common motive or struggle, and whom may possibly be critical of the presence of unknown anthropologists and researchers in their safe space (Narayan 672). Narayan also states the anthropology should not only rethink those polarizing terms insider/outsider but also melt down the walls of division. This melt of division can form by acknowledging one’s personal experiences along with the acknowledgment of one’s professional concerns to create a hybrid of “personal, professional, and cultural domains” (Narayan 682).

  In relation to Narayan, Kusow agrees that the binary insider/outsider categories should not be predetermined roles based on the cultural background but instead, Kusow claims that the role should be a result of the type of research taking place. For example, based on the type of research being conducted,  “the status characteristics and biographical [specifities] of both the researcher and the participant(s) should be accounted for, [as well as] the local conditions in which the field- work takes place” (Kusow 598). The overall degree degree of “outsiderness”-lack of familiarity or common ground, or the degree of  “insiderness”-presence of sentimental  familiarity and knowledge of a common experience, should  emerge via  a process that connects the researcher and the participants in a collaborative, cohesive “ process of meaning-making (Holstein and Gubrium 1995)” where the [insider/ outsider] roles of the researcher as well as of participants are not simply summed down to minimal external nor internal factors during  specific  moment of  fieldwork (Kusow 598).

About this essay:

If you use part of this page in your own work, you need to provide a citation, as follows:

Essay Sauce, Exploring How Identity is Not Binary with “How Native Is a ‘Native’ Anthropologist?. Available from:<https://www.essaysauce.com/sample-essays/2017-5-2-1493706126/> [Accessed 09-02-25].

These Sample essays have been submitted to us by students in order to help you with your studies.

* This essay may have been previously published on EssaySauce.com and/or Essay.uk.com at an earlier date than indicated.