The Vulnerable Observer: Anthropology That Breaks Your Heart

Ruth Behar. Boston: Beacon Press, 1996. xii, 195 pp. S18.00.

Ruth Behar’s The Vulnerable Observer is an illustrative and personal book that a reader is likely to remember. Respected as a young Hispanic poet, Behar has, through her writings, questioned traditional anthropological methods (Behar, 2005). By blending art and science, Behar opens her life and its climatic moments to the reader. Behar’s book illustrates some of the philosophical conclusions she reached through her research projects and life experiences. She reminds us that writing is both personal and political (Hanisch, 1970). When selecting variables to study or determining what to observe, an individual also selects what will not be studied. Site-based research is often influenced by the presence of the researcher in the site of study.

To increase objectivity, and increase their research validity, classical anthropologists have tended to separate themselves from the object of study (Crick, 1989). Behar defies anthropological traditions by formally including herself within her studies, by making herself vulnerable. A young Jewish Cuban American feminist immigrant writer, Behar illustrates how her various identities have influenced her research and perceptions through six different essays. Through her book she encourages a careful but overt intertwining of one’s personal experiences with one’s research. Not only should a scholar identify their biases, but they could also increase the validity of their study by comparing and contrasting their research with their own experiences and including this comparison within their writings.

Behar’s past experiences, such as surviving “one of the worst car accidents in New York traffic history” (pg 104) as a child, being in a cast from the chest down for a year, learning to walk again, and coping with the trauma for years afterwards are experiences that few people can personally understand. From such unique experiences one develops an individual understanding than an outsider who has not lived through such a unique situation can share. Another event that influenced her scholarship was the deaths of two grandparents. “My grandfather’s dying and death while I was in Spain brought home to me… the profound emotional power of the situation of the peasant elderly in Santa Maria [Spain]” (pg 82).

Behar also elaborates about the implications of being a young Hispanic immigrant in the United States, being a woman, and being an emerging cultural anthropologist, a “second-rate gringa” and how those experiences enhanced her understanding of some of her research projects (pg 21). These identities provided her with an inside understanding of her subjects of study, or so she contends. Through a well written half autobiographical, half ethnographic book, in just 177 pages, Behar helps us understand her life in detail. Her rich personal experiences are clearly linked to her research, and doubtlessly contributed to her understanding of events and our ability to understand them, yet unfortunately, her case in support of vulnerable scholarship is not entirely convincing. While her approach has numerous merits, including the need for anthropologists to engage and be personal with their readers, unfortunately, the balance of her book primarily helps us hear her voice and learn her story, rather than to understand her research and the voice of those studied.

Despite having a similar viewpoint, identical twins relate to and experience the world in different ways (Ashenfelter & Rouse 1998). After reading her book, one wishes to find out more about life in Santa Marta and gain insights into what it is like to live in a rapidly shirking and aging town in rural Spain, or how it feels to be a recent Mexican immigrant in the United States. How common is Martha’s medical experience?  The links between her research and the greater body of literature are missing, leading her to publish a work that feels incomplete, from which it is difficult to develop conclusions and generalize. Perhaps the book excludes such elements for the sake of brevity, yet by reducing the amount of space given to her studies, she fails to provide the reader with the thick descriptions characteristic of cultural anthropological and ethnographic works.

Her book is not clearly described in terms of literature review, methodology, research methods, and findings, but rather in how her research relates to her personal experience. Going to places “without a map” may be an exciting adventure, but it can also results in one’s work being ephemeral and misplaced (pg 33). In addition, her book may lead to an overemphasis on the value of an insider’s understanding. Whether by being an insider or an outsider, an individual can bring valuable insights to a particular topic.

At times her personal linkages to the research were not particularly convincing or insightful. Is the experience of a Mexican immigrant, Martha, who migrates without her family to the United States and migrates at an older age similar to those of a person who migrated when they were 5 years old as a member of a larger family and of a middle class background? In a number of ways they are similar, and understand each other, but yet, as Behar states, despite of living only half a mile away, “there is a gaping-wide border” between their households (pg 90). Making her scholarship personal, Behar decides to ask Martha if she could write about her operation, a hysterectomy, for a women’s health conference.  The book relates the story of their friendship and their differences, which, although interesting, does little to address a wider issue or study a larger group of individuals. It does not extend beyond a personal anecdote or experience.

As with other examples, while Behar’s personal relationship and experience complement the study, it would be more insightful to compare Martha’s experience, to that of other migrants living in similar environments (Hovey, 2000; Tienda 1980). The summary of her study of “Death and Memory” would have also benefited from observations of other rural communities in rural Spain, or a longer, more in-depth, analysis of Santa Maria (pg 34). These additions would also increase the book’s validity as do those of her personal experience. While her prior publications expand on some of these concerns, is her book by itself complete and able to support its claims without it?

A scholar conducting qualitative research would benefit from a broader review of the literature. Neglecting previous academic works can result in the scholar being perceived as overemphasizing and valuing their own personal experience above previous scientific academic studies. Without reference to existing literature, a work can be difficult to place within the broader field of study.

Her book, while missing additional materials, does display how research can be enriched and perhaps validated through a personal comparison. This is particularly effective in her discussion of the experience a researcher lives when they include their feelings and their experiences within their studies. In a panel discussion at the American Ethnological Society regarding interpretive ethnography, Behar supported her style of ethnography by advocating the embrace of  Renato Rosaldo’s “Grief and a Headhunter’s Rage: On the Cultural Force of the Emotions”  as a “classic work of vulnerable writing” (Pg 167). Instead of a “new sentimentalism” to her, Rosaldo’s work dares “to be feminine” and is unfairly chastised for it (pg 170).  Through this and other examples, Behar elaborates how personalizing one’s research can lead one to be attacked and disqualified by more traditional scholars.

As with any other change that challenges the status quo, in attempting to personalize anthropology, Behar and her writings have received both praise and criticism. Behar acknowledges the reasons for some of the criticism, but points out that “Vulnerability doesn’t mean that anything personal goes” (pg 14). Being a vulnerable scholar and an artist requires a very well crafted sense of balance. She criticizes how inadequately linking personal experiences to scientific work can come across as disjointed when an author alternates between “the detached ethnographic voice and the exceedingly emotional personal voice” (pg 17). She argues that “Even [her], a practitioner of vulnerable writing, [is] sometimes at a loss to say how much emotion is bearable within academic settings” (pg 17).

Apart from providing an insider’s view into the thoughts of a well known “vulnerable observer”, Behar’s book also provides the reader with an interesting insight into the complicated relationship Cuban American scholars who are interested in researching in Cuba have with their country of birth. Despite her repeated visits to Cuba to attend literary events and present her translated works, she exposes her concerns with the implications of losing her “safe diaspora” member status, and what it means to obtain “red-carpet [preferential] treatment” (pg 151). As an active member of the Cuban exile community, a regular visitor, and instructing a course on “Cuba and its Diaspora,” Behar’s experiences with the island illustrate the difficulties of conducting scholarship between the two countries (pg 144).

“The Vulnerable Observer” should be read by anthropologists and other academics as an example of what can be gained from overtly mentioning one’s personal experiences into one’s research, and as a way to remember that our daily actions are value laden. By sharing with our readers our value premises, the reader will be able to better understand the orientation of a study and why the author may have chosen a particular question (Myrdal 1969 pp. 59, 63). Like art, anthropological work is subjective and its value lies in the eyes of the beholder. “The Vulnerable Observer” is a book that proposes to anthropologists to look at the world through an additional, more introspective set of lenses. Anyone with an evening available should glance through some of the book’s pages.

Alfonso J Sintjago

University of Minnesota

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Works Cited

Ashenfelter, O., & Rouse, C. (1998). Income, Schooling, and Ability: Evidence from a New Sample of Identical Twins. The Quarterly Journal of Economics , 253-284.

Behar, R. (2005). Art as Research & Research as Art. 18th Annual Conference on Interdisciplinary Qualitative Studies. Athens: Annual Conference on Interdisciplinary Qualitative Studies.

Brandes, S. H. (1976). “La Solteria,” or Why People Remain Single in Rural Spain. Journal of Anthropological Research , 205-233.

Crick, M. (1989). Shifting Identities in the Research Process: an Essay in Personal Anthropology. In J. Perry, Doing Fieldwork (pp. 24-40). Sydney: University of South Wales Press LTD.

Geertz, C. (2003). Thick Description: Toward an Interpretive Theory of Culture. In Y. Lincoln, & N. Denzin, Turning Points in Qualitative Research: Tying Knots in a Hardkerchief (pp. 143-168). Walnut Creek: Altamira Press.

Hanisch, C. (1970). The Personal is Political. Notes From the Second Year: Women’s Liberation: Major Writings of the Radical Feminists .

Hovey, J. D. (2000). Acculturative Stress, Depression, and Suicidal Ideation in Mexican Immigrants. Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology , 134-151.

Myrdal, G. (1969). Objectivity in Social Research. New Yroki: Random House Trade Paperbacks.

Tienda, M. (1980). Familism and Structural Assimilation of Mexican Immigrants in the United States. International Migration Review , 383-408.