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On Presence
ethnography, a dissertation. The thought that at some point in the not-
so-distant future I would need to return to Canada (where I went to
graduate school for my dissertation), would need to return to supervi-
sor, university, or department, and somehow would have to transform
this silence into a dissertation, articles, and eventually a book kept
piercing my enjoyment. I grew desperate at the thought of not having
enough “data.” Writing and silence seemed a contradiction in terms.
I felt I was being asked to come up with interesting ethnographic de-
tails, or to explain cultural functions and patterns. But how could si-
lence be interesting, and how could it be explained?
A great deal of my dissatisfaction with writings on the North, in-
cluding my own, is that these writings never seemed able to capture
the essence of things. I am aware that this is a rather out-of-date state-
ment, destined to garner criticism in some of the academic quarters to
which I belong. And I am even not quite sure what I mean by essence
here. I certainly do not mean that there is some sort of overarching,
metaphysical, or universal spirit that lurks in the north and that one
could unravel, but when I think back to those moments of silence, in
houses, camps, and in the tundra, it seems as if there was something
going on that related to an intrinsic sense of being. It is this sense that
I have found most challenging and intriguing. Perhaps the expres-
sion “the feel of life” jives better here, certainly in the sense that it is
more palatable to most social scientists. And here I am not interested
in fighting over expressions. What continues to fascinate me is the
being-ness of being. And it is from this that I continue to learn.
As for the Koriak women and men I knew, silence is almost a nat-
ural component of time. And to me, this silence has always felt like a
moment of presence. So, instead of allowing the silence to melt into
language, a device to propel a plot, it should be perhaps left as what
it is: a connection with something larger than the self.
Presence (November 3, 2004)
I have reworked this article several times, but I have reworked this
section most. I still find it difficult to speak about the presence. It is as
if it were something awkward. I am somewhat uncomfortable with
advancing such a notion in a book with academic credentials, that is.
