EYES BANDAGED WITH TEXT. THE CATEGORY OF COUNTERTEXTUALITY AS MEANS OF ANALYZING THE EPISTEMOLOGICAL IMPLICATIONS OF TEXT
EYES BANDAGED WITH TEXT. THE CATEGORY OF COUNTERTEXTUALITY AS MEANS OF ANALYZING THE EPISTEMOLOGICAL IMPLICATIONS OF TEXT

Summary/Abstract: The paper presents a mode of researching epistemological and conceptual implications of text focused on the category of countertextuality. Parallel to the development of the orality / literacy theory within different areas of humanities and social sciences there runs a thread of various reconceptualization of text and textuality. It implies an increasing awareness of the non-neutral character of text (as a means of communicating knowledge within the academia) for the research results, which appears on both methodological and ethical grounds. In the paper the example of the project of postmodern anthropology is invoked to show how the constraints of the norms of writing texts specific of anthropology in mid- 1980’s are articulated and what the proposed ways of writing are that would overcome the perceived flaws of text. The article focuses on the major manifesto of the postmodern turn in anthropology (Writng Culture), some other methodological articles of its authors, as well as some of the actual ethnographic researches. I highlight some of the major charges laid against text in these works and some of the major countertextual writing strategies.

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