Anthropology and the Politics of Representation

8. Performing Music, Silence, Noise, and Anthropology in Yucatan, Mexico

8 Performing Music, Silence, Noise, and Anthropology in Yucatan, Mexico GabrielaVargas-­Cetina Representation,in­clud­ing self-­representation,is a necessary tool for everyday communication. It is important to keep in mind that all categories, in­ clud­ ing representational ones, are contingent and subject to contextual change. Indigenous, white, black, or Yucatecan can only be understood his­ tori­ cally and contextually; anthropology has to map these referential categories and also, especially,the contexts and processes that make them intelligible.Anthropologist is also a category of self-­ representation, and when combined with local, as when anthropologists do fieldwork in their own societies, it needs to be constantly redrawn.This is the general field to which this chapter is seeking to contribute. This account is based on my fieldwork among trova musicians in Merida, Mexico, since De­ cem­ ber 2001. (Trova is a type of music con­ sist­ ing mainly of romantic songs and written mostly during the twentieth century .) Here I explore the way in which ethnographic representation touches specifically on performance, in­ clud­ ing performance in the field and in the anthropological milieu.Through notions of music,noise,and silence,I delve into my own ethnographic and representational practices to explore these politics and their implications in anthropology as a whole. Ethnography as Performance The sys­ tematic description of cultural practices we call ethnography is one of the main components of anthropology. The anthropologist’s manner of collecting information leading to ethnographic texts is highly idiosyncratic, considering the methods of other disciplines: we take part of everyday life in our chosen research site and become familiar with others’ information sources, in­ clud­ ing texts and other results of memory inscription, to then transform the whole into yet new texts that package and convey this information to others.It is because of this double movement of apprehension (which Performing Music, Silence, Noise, and Anthropology / 141 mostly takes place during fieldwork) and inscription (which mostly takes place during write-­up) that Johannes Fabian (1988) speaks of ethnography as performance, since it all happens having a pub­lic in mind. Each of these types of performance, in turn, is subject to different forms of evaluation. First, we are judged by locals in the places where we conduct fieldwork as having—or not—successfully understood and embodied local conventions and codes. Participant observation is the process of acquiring experience , knowledge, and understanding in and pertinent to local life. It requires complex interpersonal negotiations whereby anthropologists and locals become acquainted.Research,especially when anthropologists engage directly in expressive culture productions, involves cultural performance subject to local norms and standards. Most anthropologists have to find their place in the localities where they carry out field research, but this is particularly exacting for those of us doing fieldwork as musicians, dancers, and theater performers ; we must achieve acceptable dexterity so as to become part of local bands, troupes, and productions and thus must measure the success of our fieldwork performance by the appreciative judgment of local performers and their public. The negotiations leading to ethnographic writing are arguably more complicated when the anthropologist is established in the locality where he or she is conducting fieldwork.Whereas some might think that access to information is facilitated by one’s prior relationships on site, this is not necessarily the case, since any locality will have a wide variety of networks and groups. Also, once the anthropologist negotiates access to the group or groups of his or her interest,the fact that he or she is there to stay can complicate the situation because of one’s particular loyalties and viewpoint. Second, anthropology has its own codes and conventions, and a successful anthropological career has to conform to the expectations of our peers. Ethnography has to meet established disciplinary standards, both in content and in the manner of arranging and discussing what we gather in the field. Most anthropology research leads to textual production in the form of conference papers, academic articles, and theoretically informed ethnographies and other types of books. Also, teaching feeds off fieldwork and theoretical ideas spurred and supported by it, while taking place within parameters established by the larger academic context of the university and research centers . In the case of practicing anthropologists, their reports and presentations also have to meet standards set out by the funding and research agencies and firms for whom the anthropologists work. All of this sounds like seamless process, but, in fact, every step is the result of complex negotiations and...