Using Dialogue to Write More Immersive Ethnography

In my work as an academic developmental editor, and as a cultural anthropologist before that, I've noticed that anthropologists are often insecure about using dialogue in ethnographic vignettes and revert to familiar academic formats, such as block quotations.

This happens for a few reasons.

First, the vast majority of anthropologists don’t want to misrepresent an actual conversation that occurred. This is not something that fiction writers worry about—or many memoir writers, for that matter. I won't dig into representational ethics here, but it certainly deserves a deeper separate discussion.

Second, a lot of anthropologists are much more comfortable with academic writing conventions than with creative writing ones—although subdisciplines like the tradition in literary ethnography are changing this.

Third, it also depends on the tradition the anthropologist is writing in. I work with a lot of anthropologists based in mainland Europe, and traditions there often focus on more scientific, report-like styles of writing, whereas in US anthropology in particular, experimentation with creative writing forms is more prevalent.

Fourth, sometimes the block quotation is more appropriate, and a creative writing approach can distract from an important message (where telling the message is much more important than showing the context).

The tension between narrative and notes in anthropology

All the above highlights a tension in anthropological writing between creating immersive, colorful narrative (along the lines of Geertz's call for thick description) and a more objective, report-like genre that may be dry but gives the impression of telling truths.

Creative writing techniques may create a more immersive narrative and curate the reader experience to improve it, but if it feels like an invented story, then readers may doubt it really happened. Yet, as Michael Taussig once said:

Anthropology is blind to how much its practice relies on the art of telling other people’s stories—badly. What happens is that those stories are elaborated as scientific observations gleaned not from storytellers but from ‘informants.’

Why use dialogue in ethnography?

To be clear, dialogue is not always appropriate for ethnography. Sometimes a block quote works just fine. But dialogue can help you to anthropologize a discussion, interview, or quote, because it allows you to create a more immersive read that also brings in elements of setting and emotionality.

Here’s an example from an invented ethnography, where I'm arranging to meet with a member (Sanjay) of a football fan group just before a match:

Report (notes) style: Sanjay had invited me to his flat for an afternoon beer, but I wanted to spend time in a more public place for the fieldwork.

Immersive (dialogue) style: My phone vibrated in my pocket as I prepared my morning coffee. I answered, and Sanjay asked, “Why don’t you drop by a quick beer before the game?”  

“No,” I said, clenching my fist. “I’d rather hang around outside the stadium, be more social.”  

When using dialogue as in the example above, you get the following:

• Multiple senses (the vibration; the coffee)

• Heightened sense of place (the assumed kitchen setting where the coffee is prepared)

• Heightened voice (you get both your own voice included and that of your interlocutors)

• Shown emotion (the fist clenching implies a certain amount of anxiety or nervousness)

Using dialogue in your ethnographic writing is therefore a useful skill to learn, particularly if you want to pay attention to the emotional and sensory experience.

If you want to experiment with this more, I recommend these books:

Ghodsee, K. (2016) From Notes to Narrative. University of Chicago Press.

Narayan, K. (2012) Alive in the writing: crafting ethnography in the company of Chekhov. Univ. Of Chicago Press.

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Does your book manuscript, journal article, or book proposal need this kind of structural work? If so, contact me about my developmental editing services.