This paper examines how Anna Tsing and E.E. Evans-Pritchard would approach each other's ethnographic subjects if their methodologies were applied in reverse. It considers how Tsing, author of In the Realm of the Diamond Queen, would analyze the Nuer people of Sudan by foregrounding colonialism, nationalism, gender, and globalization rather than focusing on structural lineage alone. Conversely, it explores how Pritchard's methods from The Nuer, when applied to the Meratus of Indonesia, would strip away historical and political context in favor of kinship structures and social organization. The comparison illuminates fundamental differences between positivist structural ethnography and feminist, postcolonial approaches, revealing how the researcher's methodology shapes what is seen, recorded, and ultimately represented.
The paper employs a counterfactual comparative analysis — imagining what each scholar would produce if placed in the other's research context. This technique is effective for isolating the role of methodology itself as an independent variable, making it clear that the subject alone does not determine the ethnography; the researcher's theoretical framework does. This approach demonstrates critical engagement with both texts rather than mere summary.
The paper opens by framing the thought experiment and identifying areas of overlap between the two scholars (kinship, economics, gender). It then dedicates two sections to Tsing's hypothetical Nuer study, covering her broader political framing and her feminist-postcolonial methods respectively. Two parallel sections follow on Pritchard's hypothetical Meratus study, covering structural isolation of culture and then kinship and economic institutions. The conclusion briefly synthesizes the comparison and reflects on the role of methodology in shaping ethnographic output.
If Anna Tsing, author of In the Realm of the Diamond Queen, were to apply her methodologies, theories, and approaches to ethnography to the Nuer people, the result would be a far different book than E.E. Evans-Pritchard's (1969) The Nuer. Flipping the perspective would completely alter Tsing's goals in the research and the view the researcher takes on the appropriate role of the ethnographer in providing context and meaning to the work.
Both Tsing and Evans-Pritchard would remain concerned about issues like kinship, lineage, and basic socio-political structures. Both would also include explication of economic institutions and processes, and might mention gender roles, norms, and hierarchies as well. However, Tsing would bring multiple dimensions to a Nuer study that Evans-Pritchard misses. By contrast, applying Evans-Pritchard's methods to the Meratus people of Indonesia would produce an equally divergent account — one stripped of historical and political context in favor of structural description.
Tsing starts her analysis of the Meratus people by describing how they are perceived not by the foreign ethnographer, but by the modern nation-state in which they find themselves: Indonesia. Applying this initial point of reference to the Nuer would mean that Tsing would first place and describe the Nuer in terms of their being a part of Sudanese culture and society.
Tsing would find ways of describing the role of the traditional cattle-based economy within the framework of globalization, and would show how colonialism, nationalism, urbanization, and population migration have all impacted the Nuer before devising methods of describing kinship and social organization. Tsing might say about the Nuer something similar to what she says about the Meratus: that the Nuer might find themselves engaged in complex negotiations with a nation-state establishment that does not recognize or acknowledge the legitimacy of alternative worldviews, social orders, or economic institutions. The Nuer people of South Sudan, like the Meratus, occupy a politically marginal position relative to the dominant state apparatus, making them a fitting subject for Tsing's analytical lens.
Tsing could not ignore the issues of colonization and cultural hegemony that impact Nuer life. Like Evans-Pritchard, Tsing might choose to remain an observer rather than engage fully in participant-observation. However, Tsing would apply rich, layered feminist critical theory to the location of the Nuer within twentieth-century Sudanese society, discussing the means by which social relations may need to be re-negotiated. Rather than focusing on structures and lineages alone, Tsing would take into account other expressions of society and culture. She might introduce storytelling, shamanic ritual, and non-linear methods of understanding the Nuer. Evans-Pritchard's photography provides one means of gathering data, and Tsing would add to that by providing surveys and interviews as well.
Working within the alternative framework of cultural relativity, Tsing would note the ways that acculturation to the dominant Sudanese societies would impact the worldview and individual self-concepts of the Nuer. The impact of globalization, oil, and other economic forces on the Nuer would need to be addressed within a critical framework. There would also be express derision for systematic oppression. Just as the Meratus have been marginalized, so too were the Nuer, and Tsing would point out that ethnology does not describe a culture in a vacuum at one singular point in time. Rather, the ethnographer must consider a broader historical and socio-political framework. Issues related to power, subjugation, and the legitimacy of authority need to be taken into account when addressing the tools and objectives of the anthropologist.
Nuer women would also be re-located within the society, viewed not just in terms of their relationships with men but independently. This would require interviews, surveys, and potentially a shift into the participant-observer stance. However, Tsing would acknowledge the limitations of the participant-observer stance in offering anything approaching authenticity, as the observer inevitably changes that which is being observed.
Applying the tools, techniques, goals, objectives, and methods used in The Nuer to the Meratus would leave a totally different impression on the reader. The ethnographer would remove the Meratus from their position within the historical, cultural, social, and economic context in which they are found. They would be viewed in isolation from these external elements, in an attempt to discover some purity of cultural expression — such as how kinship lineage and social structures have evolved internally within Meratus society. An observer but not necessarily a participant, Evans-Pritchard might choose to enhance the narrative with photography and surveys, but would not rely on interviews, storytelling, or other methods of Meratus narration.
The objective would be to analyze Meratus culture from Evans-Pritchard's Eurocentric perspective, not to tell history from the perspective of the Meratus themselves. Moreover, the author would not need to discuss the impact of colonization, imperialism, or other factors that might bear on the evolution of Meratus migratory patterns. It would also be unnecessary to employ comparison or cultural relativity, because Evans-Pritchard's aim is to present the Meratus only on their own internal terms. This approach reflects what structural functionalism prioritizes: the internal logic of a social system rather than its external political entanglements.
Tsing, A.L. (1993). In the Realm of the Diamond Queen. Princeton University Press.
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