Abstract
In this chapter we present an ethnographic allegory. We define an ethnographic allegory as a literary device meant to share a moral, insight, or lesson by way of replacing a subject of ethnographic research with a different subject without revealing who or what the original subject is, why the replacement took place, and what the “true” connection with ethnological reality is. The purpose of an ethnographic allegory is to mean one thing but say another. The point in doing so is to present a complex reality, allow the readers to more closely relate to ethnographic subjects, and lead readers to re-envision a reality they previously took for granted. Drawing from fieldwork conducted in Los Glaciares National Park, Argentina, we make glaciers and their visitors the subject of our allegory. In light of this, we view the literary genre of allegories as an experiment intended to enliven our data, to emplace ethnographic material, and to inspirit more-than-human geosocial assemblages. An allegory is a simple and well-recognized literary trope that allows non-human characters to speak, act, and feel in human-like ways. In this sense an allegory is a simple way to enliven more-than-human lives, to present an alternate and subjunctive reality. Allegories are unique affective “experiments” whose genesis is characterized by a recognition of failure. Allegories, in fact, are narratives driven not so much by the will to explain, but rather by a will to leave something unexplained. So, whereas a conventional scientific report conceptualizes, interprets, and explains, an allegory metaphorizes, leaves open to interpretation, and reveals the limits of explanation. In this sense an allegory is not so much a transgression, but a regression to a world self-conscious of its limitations, and a regression to a world unafraid of consuming knowledge not so much to satisfy its quest for certainty (the “what is”), but rather to satisfy its pursuit of possibility (the “what if”).
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsReferences
Berkes, F. (2012). Sacred ecology. Routledge.
Clifford, J. (1994). On ethnographic allegory. In S. Seidman (Ed.), The postmodern turn: New perspectives on social theory (pp. 205–228). Cambridge University Press.
Cohen, J. (2015). Stone: An ecology of the inhuman. University of Minnesota Press.
Cruikshank, J. (2007). Do glaciers listen? UBC Press.
Deleuze, G. (2001). Pure immanence: Essays on a life. Introduction by Rajchman, J. Zone Books.
Despret, V. (2016). What would animals say if we asked the right questions? University of Minnesota Press.
Greenhough, B. (2010). Vitalist geographies: Life and the more-than-human. In Anderson, B. & Harrison, P. (Eds), Taking place: The promise of non-representational theories (pp. 37–54). Routledge.
Haraway, D. (1997). ModestWitness@Second_Millennium. FemaleManⓒ_Meets_OncoMouseTM. Routledge.
Hinchcliff, S. (2010). Working with multiples: A non-representational approach to environmental issues. In Anderson, B. & Harrison, P. (Eds), Taking place: The promise of non-representational theories (pp. 303–320). Routledge
Kimmerer, R. (2013). Braiding sweetgrass: Indigenous wisdom, scientific knowledge and the teachings of plants. Milkweed Editions.
Kirksey, E. & Helmreich, S. (2010). The emergence of multispecies ethnography. Cultural Anthropology, 25, 545–576.
Kohn, E. (2013). How forests think: Toward an anthropology beyond the human. University of California Press.
Little Bear, L. (2012). Traditional knowledge and humanities: A perspective by a Blackfoot. Journal of Chinese Philosophy, 39, 518–527.
Ogden, L., Hall, B., & Tanita, K. (2013). Animals, plants, people, and things: A review of multispecies ethnography. Environment & Society, 4, 5–24.
Pálsson, G., & Swanson, H. (2016). Down to Earth: Geosocialities and geopolitics. Environmental Humanities, 8, 149–171.
Schmidt, J., & Dowsley, M. (2010). Hunting with polar bears: Problems with passive properties of the commons. Human Ecology, 38, 377–387.
Singh, N. (2018). Introduction: Affective ecologies and conservation. Conservation and Society, 16(1), 1–7.
Stewart, K. (2007). Ordinary affects. Duke University Press.
Thrift, N. (2004). Summoning life. In Cloke, P., Crang, P., & Goodwin, M. (Eds.), Envisioning human geography (pp. 81–103). Arnold.
Van Dooren, T., & Rose, B. (2016). Lively ethnography: Storying animist worlds. Environmental Humanities, 8, 77–94.
Vannini, P. (2015). Enlivening ethnography through the irrealis mood: In search of a more-than-representational style. In Vannini, P. (Ed.), Non-representational methodologies: Re-envisioning research (pp. 112–129). Routledge.
Vannini, P., & Vannini, A. (2020a). What could wild life be? Etho-ethnographic fables on human-animal kinship. GeoHumanities, 6, 122–138.
Vannini, P., & Vannini, A. (2020b). Attuning to wild atmospheres: Reflections on wildness as feeling. Emotion, Space & Society, 36: 1–14.
Vannini, P., & Vannini, A. (2021). Wildness: The vitality of the land. McGill-Queen’s University Press.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2022 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Vannini, P., Vannini, A. (2022). The Tombstones that Cried the Night Away: An Allegory. In: Timm Knudsen, B., Krogh, M., Stage, C. (eds) Methodologies of Affective Experimentation. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-96272-2_13
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-96272-2_13
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-96271-5
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-96272-2
eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media StudiesLiterature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)