Evocation, and Relational and Collaborative Research. European look to the Muisca s Colombian Ancestral Culture

Transcription

1 Evocation, and Relational and Collaborative Research. Postmodern Psychoethnography in action: a European look to the Muisca s Colombian Ancestral Culture Josep Seguí Dolz Escuela de Psicología School of Psychology Spain

2 First of all (or at the End ) What is the Muisca s Colombian Ancestral Culture? I don t know Do I really want to know it? I m not sure Do I need to know it? I think no So What I m doing here? I don t know I don t need to know it

3 Background In the year 1973 Kenneth J. Gergen s Social Psychology as History It is the rare social psychologist whose values do not influence the subject of his research, his methods of observation, or terms of description. Journal of Personality and Social Research. Vol. 26 No. 2. p Clifford Geertz s The Interpretation of Cultures Human thinking is, first of all, a public act developed making reference to the objective materials of common culture, and only second is an intimate, private matter. Tanslated from Spanish edition. Barcelona: Gedisa. P. 82.

4 Method (for tis panel): Literature review Clifford, 1984; Gergen, 2009; Marcus, 1998; Tyler, 1987

5 Brief Inspirations James Clifford An interest in the discursive aspects of cultural representation draws attention not to the interpretation of cultural texts but to their relations of production. P. 13. Etnographic texts are inescapably allegorical, and a serious acceptance of this fact changes the ways they can be written and read. P. 99. Allegory draws special attention to the narrative character of cultural representations, to the stories built into the representational process itself. P Whatever else an etnography does, it translates experience into text. There are various ways of effecting this translation, ways that have significant ethical and political consequences. P If we are condemned to tell stories we cannot control, may we not, at least, tell stories we believe to be true. P Clifford, James and Marcus, George E. (Eds., 1984). Writing Culture. The Poetics and Politics of Ethography. Berkeley: University of California Press.

6 Brief Inspirations Stephen A. Tyler Now the ocular fairy tale is finished, the mirror broken. P. 5. The fable of participant observation both reveals and obscures the presence of the native, for participants implies a doing together which might include speaking together. P. 98. Postmodern ethnography must be another kind of intertextuality whose project is not to reveal the other in univocal descripction ( ). It must be instead, a fantasy of identities, a plurivocal evocation of difference making a unity in fantasy that mimics on every page ( ). P Tyler, Stephen A. (1987). The Unspeakable. Discourse, Dialogue, and Rhetoric in the Postmodern World. Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press. Evocation is neither presentation nor representation. It presents no objetcs and represents none, yet it makes available through absence what can be conceived. It is thus beyond truth and immune to the judgement of permormance. It overcomes the separation of the sensible and the conceivable, or form and content, of self and other, of language and the world. P A postmodern ethnography is a cooperatively evolved text, P. 202.

7 Brief Inspirations George E. Marcus Multi-sited spaces for research: Following the People, the Thing (through different contexts), the Metaphor, the Plot, Story, or Allegory, the Life or Biography, the Conflict. P The collaborative ideal entails the notions that knowledge creation in fieldwork always involves negotiating a boundary between cultures and the result is never reducible to a form of knowledge that can be packaged in the monologic voice of the ethnographer alone. P Culture as the object of ethnography is predicated on the notion that the difference of others can be fully consumed, that is, assimilated to theory and description by cracking codes of structure, through better translation, and so forth. The postmodern idea of radical or surplus difference counters the liberal concept with the premise that difference can never be fully consumed, conquered, experienced, and thus that any interpretative framework must remain partly unresolved in a more serious sense than is usually stipulated as a matter of good manners in doing interpretative work. P Marcus, George E. (1998) Ethnoraphy through Thick & Thin. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

8 Brief Inspirations Kenneth J. Gergen ( ) the meaning of te performance is not te possession of the actor alone. Its meaning is born in the coordination. P. 74. We confront additional problems when we take writings from other cultures as evidence of universality. P For the relational being there is no inside versus outside; there is only embodied action with others. P We collaborate with others to create who we are. P Gergen, Kenneth J. (2009). Relational Being. Beyond Self and Community. Oxford: Oxford University Press. To understand each other is to coordinate our actions within the common scenarios of our culture. P Consider, in contrast, the earlier account of multi-being ( ). A more fully relational form of writing could indeed reveal te faces of multibeing. P Scientific research is ( ) a matter ( ) of participating in a community of meaning makers to achieve goals valued by this community. P. 238.

9 Evocation. My (our) own definition and reflections Dialogically recreate the situation or process without taking anything for granted and taking everything that has been given for granted. Ok, but, what can I do with this? More, what I want to do with this? Or, what I d like to do with this? Perhaps I only want to come in dialogue with Others. Or perhaps I only want to write about exotic places and show beautiful pictures Is this so? We can evoke by writing, taking photographs or videos, making music, dancing, We can evoke to create a new reality with Others What about credibility? All I can do is to be honest Nothing else

10 An example: a trip to the Unspeakable Rosita Suárez is a Colombian Social Psychologist who has been working with original cultures during the last 30 years. I was impressed reading her book (with anthropologist Carlos E. Pinzón), Lechuza women. History, Body and Witchery in Boyacá (1992). Bogotá: CEREC. Se called me to help her in a research about indigenous mental health in Colombia. Why me? I don t know anything about this matter!!! She just needed someone wo was not influenced by political and cultural context. Se needed someone innocent. I accepted her invitation And At the Colombian s National University. Bogotá, December, 2013 Dialogue about the future of Social Constructionism in Latin America. Psychologists College. Bogotá, December, 2013

11 Starting te trip Each day they remind us that we are nature and invite us to live the teachings of the Elders, learning from their wisdom; and to walk together the ways of life, hear the wind, the trees, the birds, the outdoors, gather our hearts to thinking bonito and thought knitting stitch by stitch. Rosita Suárez. Such concepts as nature, teachings, Elders, learning, wisdom, have not the same meaning for the Muiscas and for us. Thinking bonito is not to think in the right way, or with good intentions, or something like this. I can t translate bonito into English. I m not sure what does it exactly mean. What I m doing is to co-evoke with Rosita this and a lot of other meanings.

12 This is Bogotá, Colombia Economical, comercial and cultural area

13 and this is also Bogotá Canadá Güira neighborhood and Veinte de Julio church

14 Canadá Güira neighborhood. Near to Entre Nubes park And this

15 Here is where the World began "The Periquera, ancestral name originated from the abundance of pericos (parrots) that existed in this area, the barley river that forms seven waterfalls, were mythological place of worship of the spirits of the Muiscas, was energizated to accompany their gods, Bochica and Bochué, watchers from high in the Iguaque lagoon... ". There in Iguaque is where it all began... Is this true? Why not?

16 Eldorado "Spanish people, and a little later English, took all the gold, quartz and emeralds. But they could not take the real treasure of Guatavita..." (It is believed that the legend of Eldorado has its origins exactly in this place)

17 El Infiernito Here the Muiscas raised a genuine temple to the fertility of the land. The temple was made of giant phalluses. When the invaders arrived they were horrified. His spiritual colonists believed they were in hell, hence the name of this sacred space for original people, and proceeded to the temple's destruction. There are some pieces that help us to evoke...

18 A journey at the Marketplace. Villa de Leyva collaborative evocation

19 And now It s time to write!!! When you are doing relational research, you are changing with the process More than change, from Collaborative Practices we prefer to talk about transformation But it is not Me or my Self who is changing. It s just the relationships with the Others which are transforming the reality And, with this, the reality is transforming Me, whatever it is, I don t mind The only thing I can do is to evoke the unspeakable Other. At the same time, and through the same process, the only thing I can say about Me is by evoking my relationships Villa de Leyva square We are constructing a way of understanding between us, and, also, wishing to be understood by Others

20 We want to dialogue about a lot of things. But not only about the exotic ones. There are nothing exotic in the Colombian s social reality. Everything is real, very real And present, too much present I want to know more and more about the Muisca s culture. But also about the social problem of the displaced people because of the war and violence, for example. People that I have seen and known in the Canadá Güira neighborhood From our text in process: Josep - I m feeling a little as Barley s Innocent Anthropologist *. I am a guest (with a tribute to Harlene Anderson!**) in a country and in a culture that I don t know anything about. I am in a country from which I only receive news that have nothing to do with reality, whatever this is. Yes, Rosita is my informant, in a classical sense. She explains to me a lot of things. Step by step I m surprised with everything. Sometimes I m afraid. Now I think I understand something. Then my understanding is blurred. I am sure of my wisdom illustrated backed by two thousand five hundred years of rational knowledge from classical Greece. But the next minute I think I know nothing; I absolutely can t understand anything of what I'm seeing in this chaotic, but beautiful and friendly in many ways, city. The Monserrate greets me. As always, wherever you are in Bogotá. Rosita There are many stories, memories that constructs our "identities". Unlike Mexico or Peru we did not have a dominant group with features of state. We had many and various. A few more warriors than others. The Caribbean, as called by conquerors, were the inhabitants of these lands. The interior was Muiscas. Bacatá was the territory of Zipa Sagipa. It means "Country Farm, and Bogotá "territory minga, or of the Supreme Being." The minga is a collective work in which each person contributes. BOGOTA meaning: BO = Divinity, GO = Collective Work, TA = Farm. This territory is under the custody of two large hills: Monserrate and Guadalupe, names assigned by the Spaniards. They are the guardians, the great "legs", foundations and strengths of ancestral territory. I understand your feeling, when you say Monserrate is "greeting you, wherever you are." True, for the citizens of Bogotá, Monserrate and Guadalupe are our guide and reference. If we feel lost, we seek the hills to guide us. * Barley, Nigel (1983). The Innocent Anthropologist. Notes from a Mud Hut. Illinois: Waveland Press. ** Anderson, Harlene (1997). Conversation, Language, and Possibilities. A Postmodern Aproach to Therapy. New York: BasicBooks.

21 Discussion Is this Social Science, or it is just only a way of writing, as Literature or Poetry? What consequences can evocation have to the work of the social researcher, or psychologist in general? It could be a new or complementary way of doing collaborative and relational research processes in the field We need to explore more all the possibilities THANK YOU!!!