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Dancing Lessons from God
the consciousness of the self-aware ethnographer. Plath writes, “Our
most important instrument of understanding continues to be our hu-
man sensibility, searching for “the cruel radiance of what is” (James
Agee’s phrase, Agee and Evans 1941 , 11 )and struggling for ways to
communicate it” (Plath 1990 , 379 , his emphasis). To fully understand
in context what the ethnographer does communicate after that strug-
gle, it would be relevant to understand his or her reflections on his or
her own positioning within the fieldwork. Another suggestion is in-
herent in these field methods texts decrying autobiographical inclu-
sions: all researchers should maintain standard research practices that
can be replicated by others. The possibility of different forms of an-
thropological research is therefore precluded. Where does this leave
prospects for the Weberian view that, in order to be meaningful, so-
cial inquiry must be related “to ‘understandable’ action, that is with-
out exception, to the actions of participating [individuals], because
“the individual is the upper limit and sole carrier of meaningful con-
duct” (Weber 1946 , 55 )?
In fairness to these texts and those who wrote or edited them, they
do recognize that some ethnographers believe linear research models
cannot encompass all that we really do in ethnographic research. So al-
ternatives are also presented. For example, they refer to Martin’s model
of ethnography, which she labeled the Garbage Can Model (Martin
1982 ). By using the phrase “garbage can model,” Martin is empha-
sizing that ethnographic research does not conform to strict classical
linear research models, and perhaps we should not try to coerce into
such paradigms the kind of interpretive research that focuses on the
experiences and meanings of people’s lives. I think there is much truth
to what Martin was attempting to suggest—not just for ethnography
but pretty much for every other aspect of life and human endeavors
in it. In discussing Martin’s proposed idea of a garbage can model, de-
Munck and Sobo ( 1998 , 14 ) write: “The garbage can metaphor sug-
gests that research is actually a messy, ad hoc affair only tidied up when
put on display.” Most researchers would recognize that this is true to
some extent; Martin made a point of acknowledging it and bringing
this aspect into the realm of possible discussion, much as Rabinow’s
