Auto/ethnography: Rewriting the Self and the Social (Explorations in Anthropology) - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1859739709 ISBN 13: 9781859739709

Publisher: Routledge, 1997

Synopsis

In departing from the traditional stance taken by anthropologists, who study 'others' ethnographically, this timely book explores forms of self-inscription on the part of both the ethnographer and those 'others' who are studied. Informed by developments in postmodernism, postcolonialism, and feminism, this is an original contribution to the growing dialogue across disciplinary boundaries. The chapters build upon recent reconsiderations of the uses and meaning of personal narrative to examine the ways in which selves and social forms are culturally constituted through biographical genres. Ethnic autobiography, self-reflexivity in ethnography, and native ethnography raise provocative questions about a range of issues for the contemporary scholar: authenticity of voice; ethnographic authority; and the degree to which autoethnography constitutes resistance to hegemonic bodies of discourse. Examined here in a variety of cultural and political contexts, writing about the self offers challenging insights into the construction and transformation of identities and cultural meanings.

About this title

About the Author

Deborah Reed-Danahay is Professor of Anthropology at the University at Buffalo (SUNY), USA.

Edition details

• Publisher: Routledge
• Publication date: 1997
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1859739709
• ISBN 13: 9781859739709
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 292
• Editor: Reed-Danahay Deborah