Fictions Of Feminist Ethnography

A Thrice-Told Tale is one ethnographer's imaginative and powerful response to the methodological issues raised by feminist and postmodernist critics of traditional ethnography. The author, a feminist anthropologist, uses three texts developed out of her research in Taiwan--a piece of fiction, anthropological fieldnotes, and a social science article--to explore some of these criticisms. Each text takes a different perspective, is written in a different style, and has different "outcomes," yet all three involve the same fascinating set of events. A young mother began to behave in a decidedly abherrant, perhaps suicidal manner, and opinion in her village was sharply divided over the reason. Was she becoming a shaman, posessed by a god? Was she deranged, in need of physical restraint, drugs, and hospitalization? Or was she being cynically manipulated by her ne'er-do-well husband to elicit sympathy and money from her neighbors? In the end, the woman was taken away from the area to her mother's house. For some villagers, this settled the matter; for others the debate over her behavior was probably never truly resolved. The first text is a short story written shortly after the incident, which occurred almost thrity years ago; the second text is a copy of the fieldnotes collected about the events covered in the short story; the third text is an article published in 1990 in American Ethnologist that analyzes the incident from the author's current perspective. Following each text is a Commentary in which the author discusses such topics as experimental ethnography, polyvocality, authorial presence and control, reflexivity, and some of the differences between fiction and ethnography. The three texts are framed by two chapters in which the author discusses the genereal problems posed by feminist and postmodernist critics of ethnography and presents her personal exploration of these issues in an argument that is strongly self-reflexive and theoretically rigorous. She considers some feminist concerns over colonial research methods and takes issues with the insistence of some feminists tha the topics of ethnographic research be set by those who are studied. The book concludes with a plea for ethnographic responsibility based on a less academic and more practical perspective.

In Visible Histories, Disappearing Women, Mahua Sarkar examines how Muslim women in colonial Bengal came to be more marginalized than Hindu women in nationalist discourse and subsequent historical accounts. She also considers how their near-invisibility except as victims has underpinned the construction of the ideal citizen-subject in late colonial India. Through critical engagements with significant feminist and postcolonial scholarship, Sarkar maps out when and where Muslim women enter into the written history of colonial Bengal. She argues that the nation-centeredness of history as a discipline and the intellectual politics of liberal feminism have together contributed to the production of Muslim women as the oppressed, mute, and invisible “other” of the normative modern Indian subject. Drawing on extensive archival research and oral histories of Muslim women who lived in Calcutta and Dhaka in the first half of the twentieth century, Sarkar traces Muslim women as they surface and disappear in colonial, Hindu nationalist, and liberal Muslim writings, as well as in the memories of Muslim women themselves. The oral accounts provide both a rich source of information about the social fabric of urban Bengal during the final years of colonial rule and a glimpse of the kind of negotiations with stereotypes that even relatively privileged, middle-class Muslim women are still frequently obliged to make in India today. Sarkar concludes with some reflections on the complex links between past constructions of Muslim women, current representations, and the violence against them in contemporary India.

In Un/common Cultures, Kamala Visweswaran develops an incisive critique of the idea of culture at the heart of anthropology, describing how it lends itself to culturalist assumptions. She holds that the new culturalism—the idea that cultural differences are definitive, and thus divisive—produces a view of “uncommon cultures” defined by relations of conflict rather than forms of collaboration. The essays in Un/common Cultures straddle the line between an analysis of how racism works to form the idea of “uncommon cultures” and a reaffirmation of the possibilities of “common cultures,” those that enact new forms of solidarity in seeking common cause. Such “cultures in common” or “cultures of the common” also produce new intellectual formations that demand different analytic frames for understanding their emergence. By tracking the emergence and circulation of the culture concept in American anthropology and Indian and French sociology, Visweswaran offers an alternative to strictly disciplinary histories. She uses critical race theory to locate the intersection between ethnic/diaspora studies and area studies as a generative site for addressing the formation of culturalist discourses. In so doing, she interprets the work of social scientists and intellectuals such as Elsie Clews Parsons, Alice Fletcher, Franz Boas, Louis Dumont, Claude Lévi-Strauss, Clifford Geertz, W. E. B. Du Bois, and B. R. Ambedkar.

Extrait de la couverture : ""Here, for the first time, is a book that brings women's writings out of exile to rethink anthropology's purpose at the end of the century. ... As a historical resource, the collection undertakes fresh readings of the work of well-known women anthropologists and also reclaims the writings of women of color for anthropology. As a critical account, it bravely interrogates the politics of authorship. As a creative endeavor, it embraces new Feminist voices of ethnography that challenge prevailing definitions of theory and experimental writing."

Feminist Ethnography, Second Edition, is an interdisciplinary and cross-cultural introduction to the methods, challenges, and possibilities of feminist ethnography. Dána-Ain Davis and Christa Craven use a problem-based approach—focused on inquiry and investigation—to present a feminist framework for thinking critically about how we document everyday experiences. The book begins with an introduction to feminist perspectives, their meanings over time, and a brief history of feminist ethnography. Then the authors examine feminist methodologies, answering the question, how does one do feminist ethnography, and investigates common challenges such as ethical dilemmas and logistical constraints faced during fieldwork. Finally, Davis and Craven discuss what it means to be a feminist activist ethnographer, including advocacy efforts and engagement with public policy, and ask students to consider: what is your vision for the future of feminist ethnography? New to this Edition: Six new interviews with feminist ethnographers include reflections on the intersections of trans studies, disability studies, and the Cite Black Women movement New section on safety, accessibility, and fieldwork to address the risks all ethnographers face, but in particular those who challenge long-held assumptions that ethnographers are (all) white, Western, able-bodied, well-funded, cisgender, and usually male Enhanced discussion of virtual ethnography in the wake of COVID-19 Added content on transgender/nonbinary experiences and disability studies

Anton Chekhov is revered as a boldly innovative playwright and short story writer - but he wrote more than just plays and stories. In this book, the author introduces readers to some other sides of Chekhov.

What is feminist ethnography? What is its history? How can its methods be applied? How is feminist ethnography produced, distributed, and evaluated? How do feminist ethnographers link their findings to broader publics through activism, advocacy, and public policy? Investigating these questions and more, this cross-cultural and interdisciplinary new text employs a problem-based approach to guide readers through the methods, challenges, and possibilities of feminist ethnography. Dána-Ain Davis and Christa Craven tease out the influences of feminist ethnography across a variety of disciplines including women’s and gender studies, critical race studies, ethnic studies, education, communications, psychology, sociology, urban studies, and American studies. Feature elements of the text include Essentials (excerpts from key texts in the field), Spotlights (interviews with feminist ethnographers), and suggested assignments and readings. The text concludes with a “conversation” among contemporary feminist ethnographers about what feminist ethnography looks like today and into the future. This text is accompanied by an author-maintained website that can be found here: http://discover.wooster.edu/feministethnography/