In the book The Vulnerable Observer: Anthropology That Breaks Your Heart, Ruth Behar, a Jewish Cuban American writer/scholar, shows us that anthropology doesn’t have to be “rooted in male quests and male musings about foreign lands” (pg. 172).
Throughout this book, (which is a combination of ethnography, memoir, and essay), Behar proves just how expansive anthropology can be. Indeed, anthropology can be as expansive as our hearts, only if we let it be. Gone are the days when the anthropological field asks of us to study other humans as “objects,” submitting to the concept of Self v. Other. No, to learn about another person, culture, or life, we must realize that we are studying ourselves, too. And yet, one must be cautious when attempting to break the binary of self v. other, for there is a danger of examining the world by centering the self, which leaves us to produce work that is egotistical at best and patronizing at worst. To produce work that centers the self would be a misinterpretation, in my opinion, of Behar’s writing. Behar asks us to be vulnerable observers, which reiterates that the observer cannot escape the present nor the past. When the observer inserts themselves into history and the present moment, the observer can recognize their complicity in what is taking place. To be vulnerable means not blurring reality, but rather, stepping fully into reality. Behar references Isabel Allende’s musings when Allende lost her daughter, Paula. After the loss of her daughter, Allende had to begin “surrendering to the intractableness of reality...setting forth on an irreversible voyage” (pg. 2).
As Behar surrenders to her realities, both past and present, her writings begin to break the reader’s heart, and her authenticity allows the reader to trust Behar with our hearts.
There is great tragedy in this book, from Behar’s grandfather Zayde dying in Miami while Behar is studying death in Santa María, Spain, to Behar remembering her experience in a waist-down cast after a traumatic car accident. To me, there is also tragedy (but perhaps hope) in Behar asking herself, again and again, difficult questions surrounding identity.
Behar is Jewish, both Sephardic and Ashkenazi, and for her, some of the questions that tug at her heart are questions regarding land, return, deterritorialization, and diaspora. Behar tells us that these questions also arise because she is Cuban—she lived in Cuba along with her parents and grandparents until she was eight. She quotes a woman in David Rieff’s book, writing:
“Just like Jews, what is important to us is that we keep on saying it [next year in Havana]....That’s what unites us, that feeling. It’s an emotional thing, something no one should take away” (pg. 145).
This book, in many ways, is so relevant. Behar writes on collective identity and trauma, memory, art, Israel, Palestine, Cuba, Detroit, Miami, New York, Santa María, privilege, love, death, and life.
Before you go, I learned of these authors in this book, and I want to share them with you if you don’t already know them:
~Rosario Morales (Jewish Puerto Rican who wrote Getting Home Alive)
~Sidra DeKoven Ezrahi, “Diasporism’: Philip Roth from ‘Portnoy’ to ‘Shylock’”
~Renato Rosaldo, Culture and Truth: The Remaking of Social Analysis
I believe it is absolutely possible to unequivocally CONDEMN Hamas while also unequivocally CONDEMNING the oppression of Palestinian people.
"In my brief twenty-two years of personhood, I have seen Palestine dwindle in size and spirit like a decaying loved one.
I refuse to wait in the wreck."
Another poem in the book:
"In truth I'm ashamed of my dreams.
There are those who dream of seeing the ocean,
Palestinian men who saw grave before gravel,
the coffin before the coast."
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