Critical Review #4

Wong, Deborah.  “Moving from Performance to Performative Ethnography and Back Again.”  Shadows in the Field.  Ed. Barz and Cooley.  New York: Oxford University Press, 2007. 76-89.

Deborah Wong’s chapter on Performative Ethnography is accessible to the general public, unlike last week’s Clifford reading, which is only easy to understand for a select group of scholars.  Wong employs several “ethnographic moments” throughout her text to draw the reader in, as though the reader is attending a performance; it is this writing technique that drives her argument.  Her work is wholly reflexive, and she is constantly referring to her double role as a Taiko drummer and an ethnomusicologist.  For her, the job of the ethnomusicologist is not only to develop broad generalizations about a culture but also to study the important ethnographic moments.  I hope that ethnographic writing moves more in this direction. 

On page 80, Wong outlines a few “ideological problems” that Classical western musicians may encounter, including “the understanding that performing is categorically different from everyday life.”  What are the implications of this statement?  Would she have classical instrumentalists look at their “performances” as extensions of everyday life, or vice versa?