The Anthropology of Experience.

edited by Victor W Turner and Edward M Bruner, with Epilogue by Clifford Geertz. University of Illinois Press (Urbana & Chicago), 1986.

These are mainly developed conference papers, tied together by the phrase 'anthropology of experience', which revealed the term 'experience' to be very pliable, or in Geertz's words, 'elusive' and 'the asses' bridge all must cross' [374]. The anthropologist/ethnographer needs to uncover people's authentic 'experience' by patiently 'scratching surfaces' (Geertz again). Turner includes a paper on 'Dewey, Dilthey, and Drama' [33-44]. Social drama, whether ritual or 'its progeny', theatre, helps to dismember, reconstruct, and refashion experience. He distinguishes between  indicative mood (the description of what is) and subjunctive mood (glimpse of what might be): the latter is liminal, reflexive, experimental, focusing on and renewing meaning.

Anthropology is the study of humanity and the human condition. What people do is easy to observe and describe. How to study people's experience is more tricky. The experience of being a woman is one example, and is the basis of feminist research, normally written by women. The anthropologist rarely writes about himself or herself, but about 'other', so investigating the experience(s) or these 'others' is challenging. The ethnographer can be 'native' (i.e. an insider) but then there is no guarantee that one individual will experience life as others do. So to find the experience of 'others', much scratching the surface needs to be done (and then can we ever escape our own horizons?).  Anthropology of experience focuses on authenticity, how ethnological description is 'real' to experience, whereas outsider observation is complexly filtered.

We could look therefore at instances where anthropologists focus on life as experienced, as frail, oppressed, in power or under power. There has been an emphasis on the world as experienced locally. Ethnomusicology - the study of ethnic music. Ethnogeography, place as understood locally. Ethnomathematics - maths as experienced locally. Ethnobotany, medicinal plants as understood locally. We could add new categories: ethnoreligion - religious belief as locally held. Ethnohistory - history through local eyes.

For Turner, performance (social drama) was part of the picture. How is/was social life experienced? With what tensions, strategies for power and rebellion? How is change carried out? Their solutions may be flawed, but we can ask, can we research today how life is experienced? Using in depth interviews, insider accounts, focused observations?

One historic solution was to use phenomenology, the study of how we assume life to be (the term means 'study of appearances'). We might not know but we construct our world view, and construct what we think experience means. We may be mistaken, but it is all we have. We can improve our conclusions by triangulation - that is by drawing on the opinions of others as well as ourselves. We may try this way to step into someone else's shoes and experience life as they did. But of course we may be fooling ourselves.

We might use fiction to distance ourselves from the action. Construct a scenario in which human experience (or animal experience for that matter) can be examined and explored, creating results that are generalisable to all (that is everyone can identify with it. We are here entering into creative and controversial methodological methods. We may have to eventually admit that experience cannot be understood. If we find it hard to be clear and accurate about our own experiences, being equally clear about other people's experiences is possibly impossible. Nevertheless, the task of studying subjective experience is worthwhile, as since this is where personal meaning is found. Qualitative methodologies have been developed to add rigour to how we personally deal with the chaos of our world.