{"id":274,"date":"2018-03-04T18:27:45","date_gmt":"2018-03-04T23:27:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/18s-psci204\/?p=274"},"modified":"2018-03-04T18:27:45","modified_gmt":"2018-03-04T23:27:45","slug":"the-grocer-and-the-chief","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/18s-psci204\/uncategorized\/the-grocer-and-the-chief\/","title":{"rendered":"The Grocer and the Chief"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">In Lerner\u2019s \u201cThe Grocer and the Chief\u201d, Lerner\u2019s conclusions are predicated on a number of assumptions about progress and change. Chief among these assumptions is the notion that there is only one true definition of progress: a Western-style industrialized, liberal state. Lerner further assumes that urbanization and technological development is necessarily good, painting the development of infrastructure in the village as to allow them to commute to work in the city as an unabated positive. To call this work Western-centric is nothing if not understatement. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">As Lerner\u2019s Western-centric biases serve as the basis for this ethnographic work, they render many of the conclusions drawn, if not the underlying work itself, distorted and thus unsound. Every aspect of his description of the village and his inhabitants point to the reductive notion of Western good, Eastern bad. This faulty logic certainly extends to the case of the two eponymous figures, the Chief and Grocer. Lerner dismisses the Chief and the traditional values he represents as being backwards and reactionary while holding the values of the Grocer as being Western and thus enlightened and good. No sound social scientific study, much less an ethnography can proceed from such flawed premises. Irrespective of one\u2019s personal inclinations, to so openly push an ideological agenda while dismissing all else is to dismiss the very essence and lifeblood of ethnography, different cultures and practices. <\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In Lerner\u2019s \u201cThe Grocer and the Chief\u201d, Lerner\u2019s conclusions are predicated on a number of assumptions about progress and change. Chief among these assumptions is the notion that there is only one true definition of progress: a Western-style industrialized, liberal &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/18s-psci204\/uncategorized\/the-grocer-and-the-chief\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1893,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-274","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/18s-psci204\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/274","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/18s-psci204\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/18s-psci204\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/18s-psci204\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1893"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/18s-psci204\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=274"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/18s-psci204\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/274\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":275,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/18s-psci204\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/274\/revisions\/275"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/18s-psci204\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=274"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/18s-psci204\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=274"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/18s-psci204\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=274"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}