Rip Van Winkle and the Pluriverse; [A la mémoire de Van Winkle et son ethnographie nord-africaine]

Abstract

How have the perspectives motivating ethnographic work in North Africa changed between 1989 and 2019? Have new approaches substituted new dominant narratives or eschewed arrogance in favor of pluralism and support for intellectual diversity? This article provides a critique of the literature from a Pyrrhonic skepticʼs perspective. It finds both substantial and significant change in the thirty years between 1989 and 2019 on a number of counts: authorship in the literature is vastly more inclusive and now is dominated by work by North Africans while pluralism has become standard as support for counter-narratives. Invidious comparison has remained a problem. © 2020, Universite Mohammed V de Rabat - Institut Scientifique. All rights reserved.