On ethnographic nostalgia: exoticising and de-exoticising Emberá culture, for example

In this article I introduce the concept of ethnographic nostalgia as an analytical tool that may contribute to the de-exoticisation of the ethnographic object. I argue that scholarly engagement with a previous ethnographic record, and the art of writing ethnography, generate a particular type of nostalgia that emerges from the comparison of an already described, polished and well-articulated past with a more imperfect and unpredictable present. Ethnographic nostalgia may distort and exoticise our description of social reality by superimposing an interpretation of underlying cultural patterns over the spontaneous or unpredictable intentions of purposeful action. But ethnographic nostalgia may also lead, through systematic deconstruction, to the discovery of new layers of social complexity, thus de-exoticising academic interpretation. To offer examples of these two possibilities provided by ethnographic nostalgia I look at a series of challenges that I encountered during my fieldwork with the Emberá.