Dialogues - anthropology and literature

At a Glance

Metadata	Details
Publication Date	2024-03-19
Journal	Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute
Authors	Siddratul Muntaha Jillani, Kiran Nazir Ahmed, Liliana Colanzi, Jessica Sequeira, Elisa Taber
Institutions	Novelis (Canada), Quaid-i-Azam University
Citations	1
Analysis	Full AI Review Included

Executive Summary

This document presents a collection of three academic dialogues exploring the theoretical and practical intersections between anthropology, literature, translation, and creative writing. The core value proposition lies in redefining methodological boundaries and exploring alternative forms of knowledge production in the humanities.

Interdisciplinary Focus: The dialogues emphasize the renewed theoretical energy in collaboration between writers and anthropologists, focusing on translation, creativity, care, and particularity.
Dual Nature of Practice: Fiction writers are characterized as “half-anthropologists” (focusing on baathin—the inner landscape), while anthropologists are “half-fiction writers” (witnessing zaahir—the outer, visible reality).
Decolonial Translation: The second dialogue uses Sara Gallardo’s novel Eisejuaz to analyze “defiant translated fiction” and the creation of an “invented tongue” as a means to transcend colonial linguistic structures and represent non-Western cosmologies.
Language as an Agent: The third dialogue, focusing on Navajo ethnopoetics, posits language as an externally alive entity with its own life and breath, challenging the Western view of language as merely a tool controlled by the individual speaker.
Methodological Innovation: Participants advocate for flexible, flow-based interviewing and “dialogical ethnopoetics” to capture the rhythm and inherent direction of a story, rather than imposing predetermined academic frameworks.
Audience and Ethics: Discussions address the ethical challenges of representation, the role of the audience (academic, community, popular), and the necessity of “unconditional love” for the story being told.

Technical Specifications

The following table summarizes the conceptual parameters and contexts derived from the dialogues, as the document does not contain material science or engineering data.

Parameter	Value	Unit	Context
Core Research Domain	Humanities (Anthropology/Literature)	N/A	Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute
Dialogue 1 Context	Urdu/Sindhi Fiction and Ethnography	N/A	Pakistan (Jillani & Ahmed)
Dialogue 1 Conceptual Split	Zaahir (Outer/Visible) vs. Baathin (Inner/Affect)	N/A	Defining disciplinary limits
Dialogue 2 Context	Spanish-Wichi Translation/Fiction	N/A	Argentina/Bolivia (Colanzi, Sequeira, Taber)
Dialogue 2 Key Text	Eisejuaz (Sara Gallardo)	N/A	Example of “invented tongue” and decolonial writing
Dialogue 3 Context	Navajo Ethnopoetics and Multilingualism	N/A	Navajo Nation (Jim & Webster)
Language Status (Navajo)	Alive, External, Flexible, Fluid	N/A	Contrast to Western logical perspective
Translation Difficulty (D3)	Fluctuates between Deficiency and Exuberance	N/A	Poetic language is the hardest to translate

Key Methodologies

The participants describe several innovative approaches to research, writing, and translation, emphasizing collaboration and openness to the subject matter’s inherent dynamics.

Flow-Based Interviewing (Kiran Nazir Ahmed): Instead of using predetermined questions, the anthropologist follows the flow and direction the respondents (fiction writers) wish to take, providing “flexibility, that space.” This is likened to a mother naturally guiding her children’s responses.
Attunement and Unconditional Love (Siddratul Muntaha Jillani): The writer must “attune to the rhythm of the story” and love it unconditionally, allowing the narrative to go in its own direction rather than exploiting it for personal status or adhering to a rigid framework.
Cultural and Literary Translation (Liliana Colanzi, Jessica Sequeira, Elisa Taber): Translation is viewed as a “mystic process of nearness” and intimate connection. The practice involves rendering cultural concepts and linguistic structures (like Spanish-Mataco or Jopara) that transform the reader, moving beyond mere linguistic equivalence.
Audición Entre Lenguas (Auditioning Meanings): This method involves existing between linguistic worlds (e.g., Spanish and Guaraní) and using sites of discomfort or incoherence in a text to guide the understanding of altered meanings and decolonizing possibilities.
Dialogical Ethnopoetics (Rex Lee Jim & Anthony K. Webster): This collaborative method involves situated talk between the verbal artist and the anthropologist, making visible how knowledge about verbal art is generated through ongoing conversation and mutual editing.
Multilingual Poetic Interweaving (Rex Lee Jim): Creative writing involves experimenting with languages, allowing phrases to remain in the language where they “sound good” (e.g., English, Navajo, Spanish, Japanese) to create a multilingual poem that captures the full range of expression.

Commercial Applications

The provided document is a collection of academic dialogues focused on anthropology, literature, and translation theory. It does not discuss material science, engineering, or technology development.

Industry/Application	Relevance to Document Content
Academic Publishing	Direct application: The dialogues contribute to critical theory regarding ethnographic writing, literary analysis, and interdisciplinary methodology in the social sciences.
Literary Translation	Direct application: Provides theoretical frameworks for translators working with culturally complex or decolonial texts, emphasizing the need for cultural context and the challenges of translating poetic language (deficiency/exuberance).
Creative Arts & Media	Relevant application: Insights into narrative structure, character development (inner vs. outer life), and the creative process are applicable to novelists, screenwriters, and journalists.
Linguistics & Language Revitalization	Relevant application: The discussion of Navajo language as an “alive” entity and the analysis of hybrid languages (Jopara, Spanish-Mataco) inform studies on language structure, use, and cultural preservation efforts.
Material Science / Engineering	None: The document contains no data, methodologies, or discussion related to physical materials, synthesis, or technical product development.

View Original Abstract

The relationship between anthropology and literature has attracted renewed theoretical energy in recent years (Brandel 2020; Debaene 2014; Fassin 2014; Reed 2018; Wulff 2016), developing and deepening connections with, for example, anthropological theories of art (Reed 2011), religion (Furani 2012), subjectivity (Olszewska 2015), and ethics (Bush 2017), as well as with allied fields and traditions, including postcolonial theory (Sadana 2012), Bourdieuan sociology (Dalsgård 2021), media theory (Rosen 2022), and ordinary language philosophy (Brandel 2023). Among the most fruitful trends in current research has been a revitalized emphasis on the possibilities for collaboration between writers and anthropologists, which has generated critical debate on the ethical and political limits of conventional methodologies (Schielke & Shehata 2021). The following set of conversations reflect and refract these trends in different ways, while proposing further openings for future work, particularly around questions of translation, creativity, care, and particularity. Each of these dialogues took place between anthropologists and writers with long-standing relationships, as members of collaborative research teams, co-authors, companions, mentors, and fieldwork interlocutors. Their differences in form reflect their range of commitments and approaches to the study of creative language practices. Participants were provided with an initial set of orienting questions and provocations, including about what brought the groups together, about the basis for the comparisons they draw between their work, and a reflection on whom they write for and why. They were edited and assembled with the help of one of the editors, Adam Reed. This series of conversations took place over the phone and voice messages between fiction writer Siddratul Muntaha Jillani, from the village Noora I Sharif in Sindh, and Kiran Nazir Ahmed, an anthropologist, from the city of Islamabad, Pakistan. They became friends when Kiran was doing her fieldwork in 2013, thus they know each other well. This conversation explores questions such as what are the parallels and contrasts between fiction writing and ethnographic writing? Who does each write for and why? Ahmed translated this series of conversations from Urdu into English and edited it for clarity of thought, checking the final product for Jillani’s approval. Siddratul Muntaha Jillani (SMJ) Kiran Nazir Ahmed (KNA) When you asked me to ponder these questions, my first thought was I’d take a week or so, and respond. But then I realized that when we do that, we end up doing everything else, and not that thing that we’re supposed to do. We unconsciously push it aside, thinking we’ll do it later in a much better way. But the questions and answers have their own dynamic; the more spontaneous thoughts are, the better it is. It is messy, of course, but there is a beauty in it and we can clean it up later. So, I’m going to give you bayhungam [disorderly] answers [laughing]. Let’s start with how you compare anthropologists and fiction writers? What do you see as the parallels or contrasts? Anthropologists study people, the knowledge of humans, and so do fiction writers, because fiction writers write stories about people. So fiction writers are half-anthropologists too, because they are writing about humans and anthropologists are half-fiction writers, because they are a witness, they witness stories. So, while anthropologists are not kahani nigaar [story writers], they are naazirs [witness or observers]. Like you noted (in one of our earlier conversations) that an anthropologist writes what he sees but the fiction writer is free. So the fiction writer writes about the inner (landscape), while the anthropologist is limited in a way. The anthropologist will write about the facial expressions, etc., but the bonds of feelings (and affect) - that is the domain of the fiction writer, which is something the writer has with her characters. In other words, you can divide zaahir [apparent, outer, visible] and baathin [internal, inner]. The first one is zaahir and the other is baathin. This is why these two disciplines can have very strong connections with each other. I remember, during my fieldwork, when we went to the shrine of Lal Shehbaz Qalandar [a Sufi saint], we both saw a man dancing the dhamaal [a form of dance particular to South Asian Sufis]. Looking back, that moment showcases what you’ve brought out. To me it was captivating as I witnessed his joyful self-abandon. You, on the other hand, weaved this into your character and wrote about how he must be feeling as he danced with such abandon. To me that’s a good example of the anthropologist as naazir and writer as the kahani nigaar. In this context, the anthropologist Didier Fassin comes to mind. He delineates between truth and reality as ‘concepts in profound and permanent tension’ rather than interchangeable or equivalent notions.1 The real is essentially what has happened or exists in actual life, whereas the true is that which has to be retrieved and reclaimed from convention. Thus, reality is horizontal because it exists on ‘the surface of facts’, and truth is vertical because it can only be discovered ‘in the depths of inquiry’.2 So, while there is a gulf between the two - fiction writers have creative licence to create whatever story they want; anthropologists are limited to what they witness - the gulf is not that wide. Even anthropologists assemble, create from what they see. Some interviews are given more space to highlight certain aspects; others never make it past the transcription file. So in this sense this is an assembling too, a subjective telling of what you witness. An anthropologist’s creativity is definitely a part of their work. Like with a doctor, the medicine they give is usually the same but some are better healers than others. So the anthropologist also looks at things through their own lens. Like one time I had to write about a city in America. And I was told that Tarar [an Urdu fiction and travelogue writer] has written about that area in his travelogue, and I said Tarar might have looked at it, but he would have looked at it through his own vantage point, his favourite corner. Maybe I would have been more attentive to the market, and maybe he to the park. So each writer and creator may be writing about the same thing, but their vision and their khayal [imagination/thought] are always a little different, and the vantage point you choose, that is through your creativity. So for anthropologists, we’ve already decided that an anthropologist is half-fiction writer too: the information they gather is stories about lives, and that’s a part of fiction, so this is why anthropologists are half-creators too. A fiction writer also is sometimes not a complete creator. Let’s talk about our own work now. I’ll start with the first meeting, our first encounter. You know the first stage of any relationship is through words, and in the second stage you start to feel and sense, and you talk through what you are sensing and words can’t really encompass that. Your emotions and feelings are far beyond words, so you can express them through words but those words are just the beginning, it’s just the entry way, like a doorway has opened but the home inside that door, you can’t express that through words, you can only sense and feel. If you develop an understanding with a person, so that you feel you can be an open book in front of them, this way you can let them enter with ease. So I let you enter my story, and not just enter it, but also open the entire book before you. That means a lot to me. When I began my fieldwork with fiction writers, I was very unsure. There was no particular place or space where I could approach them collectively. But the first phone conversation with you and the playfulness of it acted as a gravitational anchoring of sorts. I just followed the path as it appeared and somehow all of our conversations became a book. Once before too, I said that your work has a story, it doesn’t read like a research but like a story. So for me, as a writer, it’s a big thing. One thing I really liked about you as an anthropologist is that when people conduct interviews, they’ll usually ask predetermined questions. But you went with the flow that the respondents wanted to go with. It was almost like you invited them and said, come, let’s sit together. I’ll give you your favourite chair and then you answer my questions. Because you knew that if you force them into your favourite chair, they would not respond freely. So you gave people that flexibility, that space. So sometimes, when I saw you having those conversations with writers, it seemed to me like you were asking people, run in any direction you want and let me see where you go. I think this is something intrinsic within anthropology as a discipline, and the credit goes to you as a person too. In a sense, the question is the mother and the responses are the children, and you as a mother did it very naturally. In the context of your own work, I was wondering how you convey its esoteric aspect and the alternative realities it addresses. When a person is writing something, like the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) said once, the first decision is that of the heart, and it’s the right decision. Because the writer knows what they’re writing, is it complete fantasy or is it not. So the creator knows this, but because they don’t have sensory evidence for it, they get confused. Like with some things, the creator may say, this just can’t be, it’s not possible. Like if I say that the sky has a certain chair above it. The sky is not my ground, it’s not my base, so I’m not in a position to say this, a scientist is. So the creator knows, and when I was writing this novel [Ik Jahan Aur Hai], there were some events that I had experienced myself or had been experienced by the people around me. But there were some events for which I wanted evidence, but yet, at another level, I knew this can happen on this earth, in this existence. Because when you believe in a person’s power and you know physics, etc., Hawking and Einstein, they are all from this world, this earth. And when a human has all the minerals, they have this power, the biggest one is that they can contradict (and critically examine) their own view. So there are always possibilities, like if our spirit leaves the body during sleep and if your body and spirit are different, like we have examples of Hindu sadhus who could fly. So there were events whose evidence I wanted, but I knew it’s possible, rare and not common but possible. Let’s move on to what anthropology can learn from creative writing, as a form of writing and as a form of knowledge making about the world. And what can creative writing learn from anthropology? See, anthropologists can learn from fiction writers, because anthropologists look at things that they observe, what they can see, how this community lives by the sea, what kinds of clothes do they wear, what is the colour of the earth over there, their ways of living, language, ways of looking at the world, it’s all fine. But there are other aspects that only a fiction nigaar can understand. Like their desires - anthologists don’t write about desires, they’ll write about the ways of living and being but not the inner desires. Fiction writers relate to what people dream of, how they feel their hasrathain [deprivations]. The sensitivity to their past, the hopes they have for their future, so all this is written through stories by fiction nigaar. Fiction nigaar have a different way of relating to humans: they try to go within them. The fiction nigaar tries to enter that inner door. Fiction writers can learn about the outer from anthropologists, culture, language, ways of living, ways of being, past, present, how changes have affected them, how they passed through something. So these zameeni haqaaiq [earthly facts], this is something that fiction nigaar can borrow from anthropologists. The human mind is such that whichever work or profession you adopt, it starts to flow and focus on that direction/path. Just this morning, I was telling someone, you know, the human body it’s under your control; if you don’t use it, it will stay still. But the human mind is not in your control; if you don’t use it (focus it), it will go in the direction it wants. And usually it’s the direction that is your weakness or what you fear. And it will become a problem for you. So it’s best if you give work to your mind (to focus on). So when a human wants to write, to write a story, the mind helps you write it and slowly the person starts to accept that, yes, I am a writer, and I think and write about people, so that’s the first chapter or first stage. But then you have to move to the second stage, which is beyond words. See, we forget that language is not just the one you learn from hearing other people around you who speak it, but there is also another one that you learn from your observation - the one you learn by reading faces with your eyes - and both these languages give you the ability to express yourself. Reading and writing can be very beneficial in this. Reading and seeing/observing. Your eyes will find new people, new stories, they grasp at them, and then the second thing is your own parhath [reading, learning]. This parhath introduces you to new entry points, new doorways, and as your vocabulary increases, your expression grows richer. This parhath is the same as anthropologists’ research to observe and work. Parhath is a kind of research, and writing is the expression of that research. This way characters emerge, they open up before you. The deeper you go into them, the more meherbaan [generous/beneficent] they become for you. On the other hand, if you ignore them, or are not attentive, characters can fade like old memories. They don’t disclose their aspects and you can lose them. So writing stories is a matter of great attunement and sensitivity; and requires a great commitment. You said once, if you try to trick the story, manipulate it or contrive it, the story will trick you back. So it’s important to attune to the rhythm of the story and where it wants to go. This really resonated with me in my work as an anthropologist. To let the ethnographic ‘story’ go where it wanted to and take the form it wanted to take. And once you let go, and stop trying to follow a framework or a predetermined pathway, it really does take you in an authentic direction. In a sense, it changes from ‘my work’ to ‘work coming through me’, but then there is the question of audience. I mean, at one level, we write for personal reasons. Each quest, whether its ethnographic or fictional, is about some personal question or quandary. So it is a personal trajectory, but at the same time we create to share these stories with others. So, why do we write these stories, and whom do we write them for? In other words, how do you see the role of the audience? Do you have that in mind when you’re writing? When I write for digests, I do have the digest reader in mind, and I think that this reader will like this story or not relate to that one. Or that there is a readership that will like this character or not the other one. So when I am writing I do have it in mind, and it’s actually a lot of fun to go against it. So I’ll be thinking to myself, they are going to hate this character of mine, but I’m still writing it. But when I write for the literary magazine, I have the literary circle in mind. Similarly, when you’re writing a television script, you have that viewership in mind, the content department will say this, or the channel will try to bring this in, but the viewer will like this part, so, it’s true we write stories for ourselves, but we show and tell them to others. But I would add that we also write them for others too, and we want that attention, that our story should be read and heard, the character we are presenting should be ‘seen’. Basically, that the way we see the world should be seen by others too, this is our wish. Someone once asked me, can you write a scene in your story about a certain place, if you were to read a travelogue about it? I said, yes, I could write it, but the problem is that the side of the building that the travelogue writer liked may not be the one I would like. I might be more focused on how it feels to be inside that building, or I might be more absorbed in the fencing outside and the travelogue writer on the furniture, so each set of eyes is drawn to a different aspect (of the same thing). So each person has a particular way of looking at things and describing them. Like when someone comes to my village, they each look at it differently. Like when Shagufta (another writer) came to Islamabad, said, but there in this just and don’t we have this in I so I said never been to Islamabad, but I like it for different reasons. And said, I don’t know why you like it, the is as as it was in I’m going on a but each person looks at things in their own way and each person wants to show their their vantage point, to others. This question is always in the mind of the that what will the think of this, will they be to relate to this or not. This is but a lot of we write things that people most people may not relate But each character has at one reader who can a relationship with that the some characters have more and some but no character is any I think the biggest for a writer is to not think if the reader will want to read it or not. The thing is for the writer to say, with me, let me tell you about this too, this can also not to write what the reader wants to read sometimes, but if you get in this, then you can only write what will become - you have to write the of how it will be me, at its level, I my in mind when I But at another level, there are different that you have to to a anthropologist writing in there is the the one in or the South Asian and then the community that you have to you each has its own and its own the is to the story in you feel would be in the you are writing but to not let go of the rhythm and flow of the story you have to be true to your story. one truth is that which you see as You try to your work, and it, but you should only it to a certain I believe that that is spontaneous is the has its as well as but the have their own so you have to your story, which way does it want to go. your to and if the story is going in its own direction by then let it go. And this can only happen when we to the rhythm of the story, and its is always good and If we want to our story in a sense, take of it, and are only about of what it will be for how it will our in a certain - in other words, if we are trying to use the story as a means to an it in a way - then we will not get You to your story the relationship has to be I think both anthropologists and fiction writers try to bring about ways of being ways of the of being human and alternative realities that for each of This is what me to work on fiction writers who write for Each seemed to be a different expression of both what it means to be a realities if you and the possibilities of this I think both anthropology and fiction writers have the same of to bring ways of being and when you look at it, as humans we our lives telling stories, and when we we become a story. And maybe all of human is a story. Let’s end with that Urdu that it Let’s we from a place of true we’re Let’s these are both let’s all this is just This between literature and anthropology on translated that what is by both and they as well or of, literary to and between while they real people, and events into them by them the of a story, they also the of those with such that they be of the An example of such a translated fiction is which the story of a upon by the to a to in by in this is one of the first written by a from the of an his or his The of the to this into the between writing, translation, and to and a in a world other to her own into a fiction that the ways of being in, and that to its The real person that the of the novel can be from The story of was on in to the The people, and in the the and in the leaves her of the of a in open to further a me he is the story of of his to up and up his people, of how ‘my entire and I was It doesn’t on this the to the with a focus on a at the collaborative through which the and her his into a and his language and the it through and have passed how they wrote this novel a means through which we and our writing, translation, and practices. This from a of the novel and its to think about the of and is the English of of and world, that was by which edited in and is with into We will our and the theory that them to the limits between these disciplines and the of on our work. we are between English and we began in on in and and by the into The of our and and that of their English translation, as of in was written in a which to the and by a with to Thus, the role of and in while the possibilities this still also an for as the of The is not between the characters but between the real and to and was by language, and for to the that they are in Because this novel within it does not to this of the as and of a I ask to did this real person and place, as well as the events that their life, into a and we can to how their way of I might reflect on this It to me something and which exists at the of our in writing, and The between literature and anthropology so because the study of the human which exists at the of both disciplines is so There is something like a about just as the is only in its maybe we the human only where it an or where it to reflect and and starts a This is where the of become something or In other words, let’s get to the to the person in the book to their own in ways, and also from things we might think of as is with or and the voice for beyond the of the outside of what would of course, the at this time is to the So, one starts to ask - What are these in the far should one or believe in them, in the in much to in the reality how much in the world inside a writer and I am with being for in my own and find in with the of others through the written their into other I have to that the between the and to me. did who was by the ethnographic world of the far from it by her own up with the particular voice of her I don’t know the and can only of all that it was in the character was also a of her mind. The to the of by the voice of the person to the of the of and Maybe the voice was a product of and But maybe it was an of her own her The is and wrote in a to which also in the The always between first and person, about the he should take from his own and from the man he is to me the of the creator - between their own and those of other people, and in a relationship between the and the which in reality part of the same great of into the of another being than whether through translation, or the is at the of literary but it is so to lose the way - or there was never an to with. What to do with this I don’t with others about it, I is to me because up all of these through a character who in a voice that the clarity of in its to the and some of the of that one might find in a of in some

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Original Source

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9655.14104

References

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