![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kateelliottAs a writer, I get heavily involved in my landscapes both physical and cultural. Because I like fiction that immerses me in a different world than the one I live in, I like to write that kind of fiction as well.
One of the things this means is constructing societies--or perhaps I should more accurately say variations on societies found here on this Earth--that have enough depth and breadth and authenticity (whatever those words mean) to "feel" on some level as if they truly might exist. Because, honestly, the real world we live in and which has preceded us historically (and prehistorically as far as that goes) is far more complex than what we can get across on the page or "invent." And I do not believe that any fantastic landscape is invented out of whole cloth; I think it is always informed by this world.
I'm sometimes tempted to use a "we" formulation here, as in "we all do this and we all do that" but after all I know I can only speak for myself when I say that *I* can only unfold a landscape in my fiction based on what I know and comprehend and am aware of. So I am limited, in that sense, to my own experience, my own research, my own conversations with others, and so on, and it is incumbent on me, given what I try to do, to continually attempt to extend my awareness.
When I try to describe a social system that is not meant to replicate, say, the 21st century O'ahu one I'm living in right now or the rural Oregon I grew up in, I have to use the terms available to me to describe social structures and interactions. Those terms have developed over decades, even centuries; and indeed, I often accept how those terms are used without necessarily questioning all that much where they come from and how they are being applied. So I'm always always looking to expand on what I (think I) know and how I know it.
That's why I was pleased to stumble across this article online: Talking about "Tribe": Moving from Stereotypes to Analysis.
In this paper we argue that anyone concerned with truth and accuracy should avoid the term "tribe" in characterizing African ethnic groups or cultures. This is not a matter of political correctness. Nor is it an attempt to deny that cultural identities throughout Africa are powerful, significant and sometimes linked to deadly conflicts. It is simply to say that using the term "tribe" does not contribute to understanding these identities or the conflicts sometimes tied to them.
Articles like this keep me thinking about what terms I'm using and why I'm using them and if they are the right terms to use as I, as a writer, try to translate across a fictional setting the images I have in my head.
One of the things this means is constructing societies--or perhaps I should more accurately say variations on societies found here on this Earth--that have enough depth and breadth and authenticity (whatever those words mean) to "feel" on some level as if they truly might exist. Because, honestly, the real world we live in and which has preceded us historically (and prehistorically as far as that goes) is far more complex than what we can get across on the page or "invent." And I do not believe that any fantastic landscape is invented out of whole cloth; I think it is always informed by this world.
I'm sometimes tempted to use a "we" formulation here, as in "we all do this and we all do that" but after all I know I can only speak for myself when I say that *I* can only unfold a landscape in my fiction based on what I know and comprehend and am aware of. So I am limited, in that sense, to my own experience, my own research, my own conversations with others, and so on, and it is incumbent on me, given what I try to do, to continually attempt to extend my awareness.
When I try to describe a social system that is not meant to replicate, say, the 21st century O'ahu one I'm living in right now or the rural Oregon I grew up in, I have to use the terms available to me to describe social structures and interactions. Those terms have developed over decades, even centuries; and indeed, I often accept how those terms are used without necessarily questioning all that much where they come from and how they are being applied. So I'm always always looking to expand on what I (think I) know and how I know it.
That's why I was pleased to stumble across this article online: Talking about "Tribe": Moving from Stereotypes to Analysis.
In this paper we argue that anyone concerned with truth and accuracy should avoid the term "tribe" in characterizing African ethnic groups or cultures. This is not a matter of political correctness. Nor is it an attempt to deny that cultural identities throughout Africa are powerful, significant and sometimes linked to deadly conflicts. It is simply to say that using the term "tribe" does not contribute to understanding these identities or the conflicts sometimes tied to them.
Articles like this keep me thinking about what terms I'm using and why I'm using them and if they are the right terms to use as I, as a writer, try to translate across a fictional setting the images I have in my head.