On the Harkis

Really interesting subject. Most discussion of the Harkis that I’ve seen/heard paints them in a derogatory manner. Although Crapanzano isn’t enamored by this group of people, he is sympathetic.

At times, his language does suffer, in large part due to syntax. Take the following paragraph:

I have taken a loosely phenomenological approach that seeks to uncover the structures of experience that arise from the Harkis’ existential situation and their understanding of that situation. But, unlike traditional phenomenological approaches, which are centered on the subject’s consciousness, mine insists on the role of the researcher’s engagement with the subject in his or her informed construction of the subject’s experience. However empathetic, however intuitive the researcher’s construction is, it can never achieve the goal he or she sets, for the mind, the subjective experience, of the other always remains opaque. Our constructions must be judged in terms of the relations—the possible understandings and misunderstandings—that arise from our engagement with other people. They are mediated by language and our perception of language, by translation and our understanding of translation, by narrative and descriptive conventions and our critical acknowledgment of those conventions, and by our projective capacities and our appraisal of those capacities.

It took me some time to get through this.