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The Outsider
Author(s) -
Balaswaminathan Sowparnika
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
anthropology and humanism
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.153
H-Index - 17
eISSN - 1548-1409
pISSN - 1559-9167
DOI - 10.1111/anhu.12269
Subject(s) - narrative , sociology , ethnography , gender studies , everyday life , intersectionality , anthropology , subject (documents) , hinduism , interpreter , epistemology , religious studies , art , literature , philosophy , library science , computer science , programming language
Summary The practice of ethnography relegates the anthropologist to an interstitial space of belonging, even when the anthropologist is of the community. This experience is not unique to anthropology, as anyone living a life of intersectionality faces competing claims of communal membership, but what is it about the act of observing with distance that turns us into outsiders? This story is inspired by this intersectionality, twice framed, centered on Kathir, a man who belongs between several worlds: the village and town, Hindu and Muslim, dreams and lethargy, youth and adulthood. That he is also the interpreter and the assistant to an anthropologist appends an additional layer of interstitiality, because such middlemen technicians are often elided in the ethnographic narrative. Consequently, this fictional narrative explores themes of belonging and intersectionality, both in terms of anthropology as well as the subject of anthropology, everyday life.