21A.112 | Spring 2008 | Undergraduate

Seminar in Ethnography and Fieldwork

Readings

SES # TOPICS READINGS
0 Meeting to construct syllabus  
1 Ethnographic method and writing

Gusterson, Hugh. “Ethnographic Research.” In A Pluralist Guide to Qualitative Methods in International Relations. Edited by Audie Klotz and Deepa Prakash. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008, pp. 115-142. ISBN: 9780230542396.

Van Maanen, John. “In Pursuit of Culture.” In Tales of the Field: On Writing Ethnography. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1988, pp. 13-35. ISBN: 9780226849614.

Geertz, Clifford. “I-Witnessing: Malinowski’s Children.” In Works and Lives: The Anthropologist as Author. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1988, pp. 73-101. ISBN: 9780804714280.

Clifford, James. “On Ethnographic Authority.” Representations 1 (1983): 118-146.

———. “Partial Truths.” In Writing Culture: The Poetics and Politics of Ethnography. Edited by James Clifford and George Marcus. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1986, pp. 1-26. ISBN: 9780520057296.

Abu-Lughod, Lila. “Writing against Culture.” In Anthropology in Theory: Issues in Epistemology. Edited by Henrietta Moore and Todd Sanders. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2005, pp. 466-479. ISBN: 9780631229148.

2 Ethics and engagement

Code of Ethics of the American Anthropological Association

Jackson, Jean. “On Trying to Become an Amazon.” In Self, Sex and Gender in Cross-Cultural Fieldwork. Edited by Tony L. Whitehead and Mary Ellen Conway. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1986, pp. 263-274. ISBN: 9780252013249.

Delaney, Carol. “Participant Observation: The Razor’s Edge.” Dialectical Anthropology 13 (1988): 291-300.

Bourgois, Philippe. “Confronting Anthropological Ethics: Ethnographic Lessons from Central America.” Journal of Peace Research 27 (1990): 43-54.

Cerwonka, Allaine and Liisa Malkki. Improvising Theory: Process and Temporality in Ethnographic Fieldwork. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2007. ISBN: 9780226100319.

3 Anthropological controversies: military uses of anthropology

Price, David. “Anthropologists as Spies.” The Nation, November 2, 2000.

Gusterson, Hugh. “Anthropology and Militarism.” Annual Review of Anthropology 36 (2007): 155-175.

McFate, Montgomery. “The Military Utility of Understanding Adversary Culture.” Joint Forces Quarterly 38 (2005): 42-48.

———. “Anthropology and Counterinsurgency: The Strange Story of their Curious Relationship.” Military Re1view LXXXV (March-April 2005): 24-38.

“Discussion of Anthropology, Security, and Intelligence.” in pages of Anthropology News, 2006-2007.

McNamara, Laura A. “Where Are the Anthropologists?” Anthropology News 47 (October 2006): 13.

Nuti, Paul J. “U. S. Security and Intelligence Commission Charts Ethnographic Course.” Anthropology News 47 (December 2006): 19.

Fluehr-Lobban, Carolyn, and Monica Heller. “Ethical Challenges for Anthropological Engagement: In National Security and Intelligence Work.” Anthropology News 48 (January 2007): 4.

Albro, Robert. “Anthropology’s Terms of Engagement With Security.” Anthropology News 48 (January 2007): 20-21.

Thu, Kendall, and Justin Faulkner. “On the Front Lines of War From an Anthropologist Infantryman.” Anthropology News 48 (February 2007): 6-8.

Gonzalez, Roberto J. “Standing Up Against Torture and War: Why Anthropologists Should Vote on Resolutions.” Anthropology News 48 (March 2007): 5.

Price, David H. “Anthropology and the Wages of Secrecy.” Anthropology News 48 (March 2007): 6-7.

Sterpka, M. K. “Anthropology and Intelligence Gathering.” Anthropology News 48 (May 2007): 11.

Selmeski, Brian R. “Who Are the Security Anthropologists?” Anthropology News 48 (May 2007): 11-12.

Peacock, James. “Should AAA Publish Announcements From Intelligence and Military Agencies?” Anthropology News 48 (September 2007): 5.

Nuti, Paul J., and Fosher, Kerry. “Reflecting Back on a Year of Debate With the Ad Hoc Commission.” Anthropology News 48 (October 2007): 3-4.

Correspondence. Anthropology News 48 (November 2007): 3-4.

Correspondence. Anthropology News 48 (December 2007): 3-4.

Members of the Network of Concerned Anthropologists. “The Network of Concerned Anthropologists Pledges to Boycott Counterinsurgency.” Anthropology News 48 (December 2007): 4-5.

4

Anthropological controversies: the truth of other worlds, from Mead to Menchú

Shankman, Paul. “Culture, Biology, and Evolution: The Mead-Freeman Controversy Revisited.” Journal of Youth and Adolescence 29 (2000): 539-556.

Di Leonardo, Micaela. “Wild Women Don’t Have the Blues: The American Pragmatics of the Primitive Woman.” In Exotics at Home: Anthropologies, Others, American Modernity. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2000, pp. 145-198. ISBN: 9780226472645.

Menchú, Rigoberta. I, Rigoberta Menchú: An Indian Woman in Guatemala. Edited by Elisabeth Burgos-Debray. Translated by Ann Wright. London, England: Verso, 1984, pp. xiv-xix. ISBN: 9780860917885.

Arias, Arturo, eds. “Rigoberta Menchú’s History within the Guatemalan Context.” In The Rigoberta Menchú Controversy. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2001, pp. 3-28. ISBN: 9780816636259.

Pratt, Mary Louise. “I, Rigoberta Menchú and the ‘Culture Wars.’” In The Rigoberta Menchú Controversy. Edited by Arturo Arias. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2001, pp. 29-48. ISBN: 9780816636259.

Warren, Kay B. “Telling Truths.” In The Rigoberta Menchú Controversy. Edited by Arturo Arias. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2001, pp. 198-218. ISBN: 9780816636259.

Montejo, Victor D. “Truth, Human Rights, and Representation.” In The Rigoberta Menchú Controversy. Edited by Arturo Arias. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2001, pp. 372-91. ISBN: 9780816636259.

5 Nationalism and indigeneity

Hernández Castillo, Rosalva Aída. Histories and Stories from Chiapas: Border Identities in Southern Mexico. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 2001. ISBN: 9780292731493.

6 Activist anthropology / double presentation day

Casper, Monica J., and Heather Laine Talley. “Special Issue: Ethnography and Disability Studies.” Journal of Contemporary Ethnography 34 (2005): selections.

Farmer, Paul. AIDS and Accusation: Haiti and the Geography of Blame. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1993. ISBN: 9780520083431.

7 Comparison / double presentation day

Lock, Margaret. Twice Dead: Organ Transplants and the Reinvention of Death. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2002. ISBN: 9780520228146.

Martin, Emily. The Woman in the Body: A Cultural Analysis of Reproduction. 2nd ed. Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 2001. ISBN: 9780807046456.

8 Mobility and/or nomadism / double presentation day

Caron, Andre and Letizia Caronia. Moving Cultures: Mobile Communication in Everyday Life. Montreal, Canada: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2007. ISBN: 9780773532182.

Jackson, Michael. At Home in the World. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2000. ISBN: 9780822325383.

9 Global environments Tsing, Anna Lowenhaupt. Friction: An Ethnography of Global Connection. Princeton: Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2004. ISBN: 9780691120645.
10 Engineering culture Downey, Gary. The Machine in Me: An Anthropologist Sits Among Computer Engineers. New York, NY: Routledge, 1998. ISBN: 9780415920216.

Course Info

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Spring 2008
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Written Assignments with Examples