Paper short abstract:

Anthropological methods have been used by many fiction writers to get a detailed account of their literary theme. Present focus in the field of anthropological methodology is the way new anthropology is coming up reflexively. We have anthropologists presenting their field data in a fictional form. The representation of the data changes as the practices change accordingly with the position of the narrator. The paper tries to reflect upon these issues and to bring out subjective understanding of this theme.

Paper long abstract:

Fictional depiction of anthropological data has widely been used not only by the Anthropologists but also by various fiction writers. Ethnography as fiction or fictional depiction of ethnography is the issue of recent debate. Different arguments are put forward by different scholars at different time. Besides this, anthropological research methodologies are finding its popular place in different literary works and people without having anthropological training are applying these methodologies to collect data and representing these in a fictional form. We have lots of such examples in world literature as well as in Indian literature. Assamese literature is not an exception to this. Some very famous fictional works in Assamese literature are based on Anthropological data gathered by using anthropological methodologies by authors without having anthropological training. At the same time, anthropologists are also depicting fictional accounts of their anthropological fieldwork findings in the same literary field. My own experience as a fiction writer in Assamese also provides me the understanding of the difference between these two types of practices- fictional depiction of anthropological data by an anthropologist and writing fiction with the help of anthropological methodology by non-anthropologists. It helps in exploring the relationship between writer, audience, and subject. The keywords are reflexivity and subjectivity in modern anthropology. A detailed study of such practices can unfold new themes for exploring anthropological gain in this context. The paper would reflect upon a comparative study of such practices citing examples from Assamese literature.