I wonder if it is more useful to think about boundaries - where they have
been drawn, are being drawn, who draws them and why. For instance the
boundary between religion and magic that was erected post -Enlightenment.
Instead what was more important pre-enlightenment was as acceptability vs
unacceptability, what was efficacious and what wasn't. Is there a boundary
between pookha and fairy, or is there not? 'Reality', or scholarly
construct? Or are the questions does it matter and is it helpful?
And thank you Chris for your comments on the background of the terms.
Shya
----- Original Message -----
From: "jacqueline simpson" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Sunday, January 15, 2006 6:56 AM
Subject: Re: Emic and Etic
Even if the terms emic and etic are problematic, the
difficulty they attempt to address can be quite a
practical one!
In the days when I was a journal editor, a contributor
from Ireland submitted an article on the Pookah. One
matter under discussion was what title to give the
paper, and i suggested "The Pookha: A Multi-Functional
Irish Fairy". He rejected this indignantly, as from
the Irish point of view Pookhas are quite distinct
from fairies, indeed hostile to them. But from my
english viewpoint it seemed obvious that in all the
tales about the pookha he was behaving either like a
house-spirit (brownie, pixy etc), or like a trickster
shape-changing spirit (Puck), and that both these are
fairy traits, so in my eyes he was a type of fairy.
Naturally, I let the author's view prevail, and we
agreed to call him a 'supernatural entity'. As it was
only a single article, we could agree this compromise.
But if I'd been editing, say, an Encyclopedia of
European Folklore, it would have been a more
troublesome problem.
Jacqueline
--
No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Free Edition.
Version: 7.1.375 / Virus Database: 267.14.19/231 - Release Date: 16/01/2006
|