Anthropology/Travel/Writing: Strange Encounters with James Clifford and Nicolas Rothwell

Abstract

Attempts to distinguish between travel writing and ethnography (or, more generally, anthropology) have become a staple of the debates surrounding both since at least the mid 1980s, at roughly the time that travel writing studies was beginning to establish itself as an academic field.¹ It is possible to track these debates through a series of key books and articles, including — to cite just a few examples, presented in chronological order — Valerie Wheeler, ‘Travelers’ Tales: Observations on the Travel Book and Ethnography’ (1986); Mary Louise Pratt, ‘Field work in Common Places’ (1986); Peter Crawford and David Turton, Film as Ethnography (1992); James Clifford, Routes: Travel and Translation in the Late Twentieth Century (1997); Patrick Holland and Graham Huggan, Tourists with Typewriters: Critical Reflections on Contemporary Travel Writing (1998); Jan Borm, ‘In-Betweeners? On the Travel Book and Ethnographies’ (2000); Joan Pau Rubiés, ‘Travel Writing and Ethnography’ (2002); Peter Hulme and Russell McDougall, Writing, Travel and Empire: In the Margins of Anthropology (2007); and, most recently, Ivona Grgurinovic, ‘Anthropology and Travel: Practice and Text’ (2012).²