Anthropology and Autobiography

by Okely,Judith

• ISBN13: 9780415051897
• ISBN10: 0415051894
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Nonspecific Binding
• Copyright: 1992-07-21
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

Anthropological writings by anthropologists in the field have long been a valuable tool to the profession. But until now, the theoretical implications of its use have not been fully explored. Anthropology and Autobiography provides unique insights into the fieldwork, autobiographical materials and/or textual critiques of anthropologists, many of whose ethnographies are already familiar. It considers the role of the anthropologist as fieldworker and writer, examining the ways in which nationality, age, gender, and personal history influence the anthropologist's behavior towards the individuals he is observing. This volume also contributes to debates about reflexivity and the political responsibility of the anthropologist, who, as a participant, has traditionally made only stylized appearances in the academic text. The contributors examine their work among peoples in Africa, Japan, the Caribbean, Greece, Shetland, England, indigenous Australia, Indonesia, and Sri Lanka.Autobiography is developed alongside political, intellectual, and historical changes. The anthropologists confront and examine issues of racism, reciprocity and friendships. Anthropology and Autobiography will appeal to anthropologists and social scientists interested in ethnographic approaches, the self, reflexivity, qualitative methodology, and the production of texts.

Table of Contents

List of illustrations	vii
List of contributors	ix
Preface	xi
Judith Okely
Helen Callaway
Anthropology and autobiography: participatory experience and embodied knowledge	1	(28)
Judith Okely
Ethnography and experience: gender implications in fieldwork and texts	29	(21)
Helen Callaway
Automythologies and the reconstruction of ageing	50	(14)
Paul Spencer
Spirits and sex: a Swahili informant and his diary	64	(18)
Pat Caplan
Putting out the life: from biography to ideology among the Earth People	82	(18)
Roland Littlewood
Racism, terror and the production of Australian auto/biographies	100	(16)
Julie Marcus
Writing ethnography: state of the art	116	(18)
Kirsten Hastrup
Autobiography, anthropology and the experience of Indonesia	134	(13)
C. W. Watson
Changing places and altered perspectives: research on a Greek island in the 1960s and in the 1980s	147	(16)
Margaret E. Kenna
The paradox of friendship in the field: analysis of a long-term Anglo-Japanese relationship	163	(12)
Joy Hendry
Ali and me: an essay in street-corner anthropology	175	(18)
Malcolm Crick
From affect to analysis: the biography of an interaction in an English village	193	(12)
Nigel Rapport
Tense in ethnography: some practical considerations	205	(16)
John Davis
Self-conscious anthropology	221	(21)
Anthony P. Cohen
Name index	242	(4)
Subject index	246