Reflections on the Poetics ofEthnography in the work of Nikos Kavvadias

This paper compares the poetry and writings of Nikos Kavvadias (1919-1975) to thediary of Malinowski (1884-1942) in order to critically reflect upon the alienation of theanthropologist from the field, and to further expand on the professionalization andalienation of the anthropological discipline in a privatized world of education fromworld(s). In this context it distinguishes two general types of ethnographic writing,amateur and professional, highlighting the role of the ethnographer as that of acharismatic auteur. In respect to the historical predicament of anthropology the paperthen asks: If we accept ethnography as a semi-fictional genre, the ethnographer as anauteur, and the monograph as a chronotope, what can the anthropological thoughtgain by a turn towards fiction? By placing the amateur anthropological vision within theliminal space in-between fiction and non-fiction, subjectivity and objectivity respectively,the paper highlights the dissociation of the anthropological discourse from the samehistorical processes that ideologically formulate the methodology used andinterpretation of the field, in order to focus on the 'poetics' of amateur ethnographicwriting, and the potentiality to rewrite a subjective and diverse body of worldhistory(ies) in the spirit of Emmanuel Kant.