The shadow side of fieldwork : exploring the blurred borders between ethnography and life / edited by Athena McLean and Annette Leibing.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

McLean, Athena.

Leibing, Annette.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Ethnology--Fieldwork.

Ethnology.

Ethnology--Moral and ethical aspects.

Physical Description:

xviii, 302 pages ; 26 cm

Place of Publication:

Malden, MA : Blackwell Pub., 2007.

Summary:

The Shadow Side of Fieldwork draws attention to typically hidden or unacknowledged aspects of ethnographic research that nevertheless shape knowledge, texts, and methodologies. These are the invisible, unspoken, elusive, and mysterious areas where life and research overlap, private, experiences and formal ethnography blur, and research boundaries seem to dissolve.

Containing essays by such varied luminaries as Nancy Scheper-Hughes and Vincent Crapanzano, among others, this book penetrates a variety of shadows in ethnographic field encounters. The authors recount personal and professional challenges that led them to confront the complex sources or paradoxical nature of their insight. By turning attention to the shadow sides of fieldwork and thoroughly exploring what they find there, the writers, as responsible researchers, strengthen confidence in ethnographic knowledge. The Shadow Side of Fieldwork helps students and scholars to understand the submerged influences inherent in their research, and is essential reading for anyone involved in ethnographic fieldwork.

Contents:

Foreword: In the Shadows: Anthropological Encounters with Modernity / Gillian Goslinga, Gelya Frank xi

"Learn to Value Your Shadow!" An Introduction to the Margins of Fieldwork / Annette Leibing, Athena McLean 1

Part I Secrecy and Silence in the Ethnographic Encounter 29

1 Out of the Shadows of History and Memory: Personal Family Narratives as Intimate Ethnography / Alisse Waterston, Barbara Rylko-Bauer 31

2 When Things Get Personal: Secrecy, Intimacy, and the Production of Experience in Fieldwork / Anne M. Lovell 56

Part II Transmutations of Experience: Approaching the Reality of Shadows 81

3 The Scene: Shadowing the Real / Vincent Crapanzano 83

4 Transmutation of Sensibilities: Empathy, Intuition, Revelation / Thomas J. Csordas 106

Part III Epistemic Shadows 117

5 Shining a Light into the Shadow of Death: Terminal Care Discourse and Practice in the Late 20th Century / Jason Szabo 119

6 The Hidden Side of the Moon, or, "Lifting Out" in Ethnographies / Annette Leibing 138

Part IV The Politics of Ethnographic Encounter: Negotiating Power in the Shadow 157

7 The Gray Zone: Small Wars, Peacetime Crimes, and Invisible Genocides / Nancy Scheper-Hughes 159

8 Others within Us: Collective Identity, Positioning, and Displacement / Meira Weiss 185

9 Falling into Fieldwork: Lessons from a Desperate Search for Survival / Rose-Marie Chierici 204

Part V Blurred Borders in the Ethnographic Encounter of Self and Other 219

10 Field Research on the Run: One More (from) for the Road / Dimitris Papageorgiou 221

11 Personal Travels through Otherness / Ellen Corin 239

12 When the Borders of Research and Personal Life Become Blurred: Thorny Issues in Conducting Dementia Research / Athena McLean 262.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9781405161305

1405161302

9781405169813

1405169818

OCLC:

73927706