Anthropology/Travel/Writing: Strange Encounters with James Clifford and Nicolas Rothwell

Abstract

Attempts to distinguish between travel writing and ethnography (or, more generally, anthropology) have become a staple of the debates surrounding both since at least the mid 1980s, at roughly the time that travel writing studies was beginning to establish itself as an academic field.1 It is possible to track these debates through a series of key books and articles, including — to cite just a few examples, presented in chronological order — Valerie Wheeler, ‘Travelers’ Tales: Observations on the Travel Book and Ethnography’ (1986); Mary Louise Pratt, ‘Field work in Common Places’ (1986); Peter Crawford and David Turton, Film as Ethnography (1992); James Clifford, Routes: Travel and Translation in the Late Twentieth Century (1997); Patrick Holland and Graham Huggan, Tourists with Typewriters: Critical Reflections on Contemporary Travel Writing (1998); Jan Borm, ‘In-Betweeners? On the Travel Book and Ethnographies’ (2000); Joan Pau Rubies, ‘Travel Writing and Ethnography’ (2002); Peter Hulme and Russell McDougall, Writing, Travel and Empire: In the Margins of Anthropology (2007); and, most recently, Ivona Grgurinovic, ‘Anthropology and Travel: Practice and Text’ (2012).2