PTSD, journalism and writing about Haiti as an exotic, yet dangerous locale

[bcholmes]

In the fall, I’ll be teaching a seminar on reflexive anthropology entitled “Beyond Me, Me, Me,” and I can’t help but think that McClelland’s piece might serve as an example to discuss. Although it’s journalism, not anthropology, her essay could be seen as work that loses sight of the social context while focusing solely on an individual’s personal experience in the study of culture. In anthropology, such work is critiqued as navel-gazing that won’t serve a broader purpose. To be fair, McClelland, as a journalist, does shed some light on a larger dilemma that all female journalists may face in threatening situations–sexual harassment and assault–but aside from that her essay is all me, me, me.

Reflexive anthropology is important, as it calls for a more self-critical and self-reflective approach that examines power relations in fieldwork. Indeed, many early researchers treated their “informants” as though they were just that -- sources of information, rather than human beings. That, and the swashbuckling overtone in the work of many early anthropologists, was decried by leftists, feminists and other minorities, who wanted to decolonize the discipline. (These issues are at the core of my first book). It’s hard not to see that old swashbuckling tone in McClelland’s piece, as she suffers-but-soldiers-on despite the violence and the predatory men she encounters. Haiti, in that sense, becomes the last frontier; it ceases to be about the people and the human rights issues, and becomes just another a terrain to be conquered.

— Gina Athena Ulysse, "Why Context Matters: Journalists and Haiti", Ms. Magazine