Conrad Phillip Kottak

Conrad Kottak's "Assault on paradise" is ethnography and anthropology done well. I don't think you could say that Kottak is pushing some grand theory, nor an innovative approach. But he isn't pretending to have done those things, either. This ethnography, a long-term study of the change - both internal and external - that occurs in (and to) a Brazilian fishing village, is rather like a solid, digestable meal. Kottak manages to be a 'modern' anthropologist without reveling in anthropological arcana, and shows empathy and a relativistic viewpoint while maintaining the structure and model of an ethnographic text - that is, he doesn't descend into pretty words without substance. There have been some very great ethnographies at both ends of the scientific and - as it were - 'poetic' scale (say, Evans-Pritchard's "The Nuer" at one end and Abu-Lughod's "Veiled Sentiments" at the other) - Kottak does a very decent job of putting himself somewhere in the middle.

The text is logical, well structured, and has a clear motion. We're always signposted - helpfully, not intrusively - by the author to what he's talking about and why. But it doesn't seem stodgy, either - the people, the personalities, of the fishing village come through in a very human and, often, amusing way. This isn't ethnography with the people taken out.

But it isn't neutral, by any means. Kottak's choice of title - the "assault on paradise" - should tell us that much. It's quite clear from the book that Kottak adores this place, and suffers greatly to see some of the calamitous changes to which it is subjected. Social fragmentation, growing inequalities. Even the environment, too, changes. He frankly says - with an almost "why not?" indifference - that he'll try being reflexive. That's what is so refreshing about Kottak's book - he doesn't assume prior knowledge, doesn't just assume that something like a reflexive fieldwork methodology and writing practice is to be taken for granted. He lays bare his thinking, as if this is both an ethnography and a "how to" guide to writing ethnography. Significantly, it doesn't loose any of its relevance or insight because of this.

What is impressive about this ethnography is its near perfectness; this is what all anthropologists, surely, must dream for - a picture of a village and a society over time (from 1962 to 1992) that undergoes significant change, as well as experiencing continuity. Kottak is on the whole, as I've said, a clear, consise and engaging host. True, he does lapse on occassion - some of the writing is a little awkward, the phrasing a bit 'off', but the overall effect is quite impressive.… (altro)