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THE 1997 VICTOR TURNER PRIZE Winners of the 1997 Victor Turner Prize in Ethnographic Writing provide exemplars of humanistic anthropology at its best, both in attention to the expressive aspects of ethnographic experience in the field and in commitment to write about that experience in an accessible and aesthetically satisfying form. Anthropologists’ attention to quality of writing, authorial reflexivity, multivocality and dialogical interaction of ethnographer and consultant have increased exponentially in the few short yeas since the Turner Prize was first awarded by the Society for Humanistic Anthropology in 1990. Winner This year’s winner is Keith Basso (U New Mexico) for Wisdom Sits in Places: Landscape and Language among the Western Apache (1996). Basso uses nearly 4 decades of sustained ethnography in the same community to tease out the semiotic space of Western Apache place-making in relation to the moral imagination of a tribal people whose history is grounded more firmly in space than in time. These are "places whose handsomely crafted names- bold, visual, evocative- lend poetic force to the voices of the ancestors" (p. 23). The privileged reader peers over Basso’s shoulder as he asks his questions and acknowledges the wisdom and unique experiences of each of his primary consultants: Charles Henry, Nick Thompson, Lola Machuse and Dudley Patterson. Although the ethnography speaks to sophisticated theoretical issues at the intersection of language, symbolic form and social interaction, scholarly apparatus is not intrusive. The elegance of the writing draws the reader in, as though sharing the experience of learning in the Western Apache way. Moreover, the work represents the finest ethical tradition of our discipline in that the mapping of Western Apache place-names and stories associated with them took place at the request of and in collaboration with the Cibecue (Arizona) Tribal Council. In an age of diaspora and dissipation of cultural centers, both geographically and in personal experiences, Basso returns our attention to the way traditional communities ground themselves, quite literally, in their relationship to land and define their history in terms of experiences on and with that land. The prize confers a $500 cash award plus a certificate. Honorable Mention Honorable Mention is awarded to another magnificent book by Andrew Shryock (SUNY Buffalo), Nationalism and the Genealogical Imagination: Oral History and Textual Authority in Tribal Jordan (1997). This monumental ethnography explores the tensions and confrontations produced as a tribal society moves from oral tradition to written history. The narrative is dominated by the personage and self-assigned mission of Dr. Ahmad ‘Uway-di al-‘Abbadi, a public figure in Jordan and a determined, socially situated scribe for tribal traditions preserved to date only in authoritative narratives firmly rooted in local experience of family, clan and tribe. Warfare of the recent past has given way to battles waged through poetry. Contested genealogies are at the core of alternative narratives firmly rooted in local experience of family. clan and and tribe. Warfare of the recent past has given way to battles waged through poetry. Contested genealogies are at the core of alternative and incompatible histories, themselves revised in relation to an emerging Jordanian nationalism based on writing. Shryock presents the dialogues through which he negotiated access to this genealogical knowledge, recreating for the reader the jealousy with which local positioning is asserted and maintained. Bedouin storytellers claim unassailable truth for their knowledge standing at the end of an unbroken chain of oral transmission. The complexity of the ethnographer’s role emerges clearly as consultants reject Shryock’s commitment to a multivocalic oral history in which he refuses to side with any party to discordant versions. The text combines historical documents, dialogues in the field, changing social conditions in the nation-state and literary genres available to Bedouin performance of tribal history. The range of topics and sources is reflected in a shifting genre of ethnographic writing which both distinguished and links the pieces of a complex argument. The award confers a certificate. The awards will be conferred at the AAA Annual Meeting in Washington, DC, by judging committee chair Regna Carnell (Western Ontario). The other judges were Carol Stack (Berkeley), last year’s winner for Call Me Home: African Americans Reclaim the Rural South, and Jean-Paul Dumont (George Mason), author of The Headman and I and Visayan Vignettes. The ceremony will be the major part of the SHA annual business meeting, held November 21, 12:30-1:30 pm. Both winners will be invited to read selection from their books. All are welcome, with or without membership in SHA. --Regna Darnell, Chair, Turner Prize Committee [Anthropology Newsletter: November 1997:21-22] Return to Society for Humanistic Anthropology Page
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