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cwalker's picture

Stories that explain us

It is interesting that you thought of the concept of "right" stories after seeing the film Adaptation. For some reason that same concept of the film triggered a similar theory, but one that is often encountered in anthropology and sociology. Current anthropologists and sociologists have opted to use a type of investigation called embedded anthropology, this means that the anthropologists is as active participant in the topic or field they are investigating. By having an active role in the field they are able to give a more holistic interpretation of the field. ---Now you ask, how is this relevant to the "right" story, well this anthropological method surged from the understanding that the previous methods failed to get the "whole" picture of what was happening. The previous methods of anthropology only solely used interviews to make their conclusions, but interviews are based on what people think of themselves, their society, and what those things mean. People interpret their actions and state what their actions are, but anthropologists realized that, that their real actions are not always the same as what they say they do. In other words what they say isn't their "real" self, but rather how they interpret themselves. Anthropologists then stated that what people do is their "real" self, and thus the embedded anthropologist was born.  So which of these two represents the true self? Truth is, that I really do not know, I hope that how I see myself and describe myself is how I actually portray myself to the rest of the world, but let us be realistic that is highly unlikely. So I have opted to believe that the "true" self is not what we describe ourselves to be or what other see us as, but rather the union of those two, there will never be a definitive answer, which is fine because we are fluid, we cannot be defined as one "true" way.

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