The Graffiti Subculture: Youth, Masculinity and Identity in London and New York by Nancy Macdonald. 2001, Pelgrave Publishing, Hampshire.

On ‘Realty’

Windows on the World?

Initial ethnographic work derived theory from insiders accounts, but, in doing so, it presented its findings as ‘truth’. Meanings were not offered as one of many, but as ‘the’ meaning, and accounts were read, as this quote demonstrates, to disclose evidence as a ‘true’ and independent reality: ‘The things that people say about themselves and other people should be taken seriously as reports of data that really exist’ (Harré & Secord, 1972: 7). Many ethnographers have also tried to reproduce reality, presenting their accounts as ‘immaculate perceptions’ (van Maanen, 1988) or windows on the world. Implicit in this ‘reproduction model’ (Hammersly, 1992) is the idea that there is one single ‘reality’ which exists in some ‘out-thereness’ waiting for us to discover it.

As the currently dominant force in philosophical thinking, postmodernism has made positions like these very difficult to sustain. Sa it asserts, meaning is not unitary, but fractured, multiple, relative and subjectively situated. ‘Reality’ or ‘truth’ cannot be discovered because its contours constantly shift in line with our cultural and social angles of vision. And if reality or truth is a social construction, then so is the account that describes it. Relativism, as this position termed, calls into question the very value of our quest for knowledge, and this poses a critical dilemma for ethnography. Under relativist terms, ethnographic work can only offer us entertainment value. To conduct research with the aim of illustrating anything becomes, as Hammersley (1992: 49) recognizes, a futile endeavor:

We may have to conclude that ‘there are as many realities as there are people’ (Smith, 1984: 386). If this is so, what is the point of spawning more versions of ‘reality’ especially given the relative costs of ethnography compared with, say, armchair reflection?

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To assert that one reality fits all is naïve because our conceptions of the world vary with our different experiences. But if we accept reality as multiple, that is, different to different people, then we must also accept the existence of ‘independent’ realities; those unrelated to our own and, therefore, existent beyond our recognition and experience of them.

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