Ethnography and democracy: Hymes's political theory of language

Abstract Dell Hymes's oeuvre was explicitly political, and this paper addresses this often overlooked dimension of his work. The project of ethnography was intended by Hymes to be a counterhegemonic and democratic science, which offered voice to the subjects it studied and so created a critical social-scientific paradigm that destabilized and negated established truths by dialogically engaging with reality. This critical and counterhegemonic paradigmatic dimension of ethnography is first sketched and discussed at some length. Next, we discuss Hymes's ethnopoetic work. In his ethnopoetic work, Hymes's critical concern with voice, democracy, and inequality is articulated most clearly and persuasively. It is by looking at ethnopoetics that we see the blending of a methodological and a political project.