Anthropology and Autobiography

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.

Autorentext

Judith Okely, Helen Callaway

Zusammenfassung
Provides insights into the validity of fieldwork autobiography and the textual critique of anthropologists, presenting new scope for the genre of autobiography and contributing to debates about reflexivity and political responsibility.

Inhalt
Preface 1 Anthropology and autobiography: participatory experience and embodied knowledge 2 Ethnography and experience: gender implications in fieldwork and texts 3 Automythologies and the reconstruction of ageing 4 Spirits and sex: a Swahili informant and his diary 5 Putting out the life: from biography to ideology among the Earth People 6 Racism, terror and the production of Australian auto/Biographies 7 Writing ethnography: state of the art 8 Autobiography, anthropology and the experience of Indonesia 9 Changing places and altered perspectives: research on a Greek island in the 1960s and in the 1980s 10 The paradox of friendship in the field: analysis of a long-term AngloJapanese apanese relationship 11 Ali and me: an essay in street-corner anthropology 12 From affect to analysis: the biography of an interaction in an English village 13 Tense in ethnography: some practical considerations 14 Self-conscious anthropology