Exploring the Written: Anthropology and the Multiplicity of Writing (Oslo Studies in Social Anthropology). This item is unavailable.Exploring the Written: Anthropology and the Multiplicity of Writing (Oslo Studies in Social Anthropology)

Ethnography as a genre is distinct from literature and therefore it cannot be treated in the same way. The relevant question, the contributors in this book claim, is how literature relates to ethnography - not vice versa. In this critical dialogue with postmodernist American anthropology, they pose a number of questions. Can a novel, for example, be treated as the statement of an informant, as an ethnographic report, or even as an implicit analysis of a cultural or social situation? And in what way can the enthnographer make use of fiction, essays, songs, letters, poetry, drama, newspapers, or autobiographies that are produced in the culture that is being studied? The book includes a number of empirical cases from a broad range of cultural settings such as Turkey, Argentina, Mexico, Trinidad, Peru, Colombia, Fiji, Norway, and Samoa.

Ethnography as a genre is different from literature and therefore it cannot be treated in the same way. In this critical dialogue with postmodernist American anthropology, the authors tackle the question of how literature relates to ethnography, not vice versa. Can a novel, for example, be treated as the statement of an informant, as an ethnographic report, or even as an implicit analysis of a cultural or social situation? And in what way can the ethnographer make use of fiction, essays, songs, letters, poetry, drama, newspapers or autobiographies that are produced in the culture which is being studied? The book includes a number of empirical cases from a broad range of cultural settings such as Turkey, Argentina, Mexico, Trinidad, Peru, Colombia, Fiji, Norway and Samoa.