WEF 18-23 Response

Again, I feel this reading, like Clifford and Redfield’s before it, over trivializes ethnographic and analytic research. The WEF this time speaks on the behalf of how to properly take, read, and put into writing the notes one should take in the field and attempts to stand apart by simply stating that by 1995, the modern day ethnographic writer should work and view their research from the viewpoint of an objective observer and that their notes and writings should reflect this. Although not as wordy as Clifford, and thankfully not nearly as prone to an unnecessary overabundance of secondary research name-dropping, I still feel as though what the WEF is expressing is something I've known about writing for quite a while now, just as I had felt after reading Redfield and Clifford. I’m not saying it isn't relevant, and perhaps it’s simply because all my schooling has occurred after 1995 and that it’s simply been incorporated into what I've been taught and learned, but I feel like I’m just retreading water with these explanations for things I've done hands on already. I do appreciate that this is trying to make a new case from the essays before it without using ridiculously loaded sentences that each require dissection to understand, but again, it does seem a bit unnecessary. I learn much better with a hands-on approach rather than readings, and especially since I’ve done ethnographic/cultural studies prior, a reading like this is kind of lost on me and makes me wonder if a formal academic essay is ALWAYS needed to bring forth new ideas for fields of study.