They Lie, We Lie : Getting on with Anthropology

ISBN-13: 9780415262590 / Angielski / Twarda / 2001 / 168 str.

Peter Metcalf

Opis

In this work Peter Metcalf gives an account of his fieldwork in Borneo, telling the story of his tortuous relationship with Kasi, a formidable old lady who, for 20 years tried to strictly control what he learned about her community. By comparing his experiences with those of Victor and Edith Turner and the most celebrated of informants, Muchona, the author examines the puzzles and contradictions of life in the field drawing out what such personal predicaments have to say about anthropology in a post-colonial world. Engaging with negative critiques of anthropology, the author sorts the issues into three broad areas: power, ethnicity and closure. Taking the self proclaimed middle ground, he show how ethnographers cope with the existential dilemas they produce and how one anthropologist has found it possible to get on with anthropology. This is an entertaining and unflinching potrait of the impossible but compelling nature of ethnographic fieldwork for students, professional anthropologists, and anyone interested in understanding how ethnography is actually produced.

Recenzje

"In a critically plausible and aesthetically pleasing project, Peter Metcalf addresses some major arguments against, anxieties about, and 'epistemological skepticism' toward anthropology as a whole... The argument Metcalf develops through the book is concretized in richly detailed, thick description of twenty years of ethnographic research... significantly contributes to a critically reflexive dialogue on ethnographic practices." - Anthropology and Education Quarterly

Spis treści

CHAPTER ONE: LIES 1. Something spoken which is not true 2, They lie, we lie 3. Getting on with anthropology CHAPTER TWO: STRUGGLE 1. Learning experiences 2. Kasi's pre-emptive strike 3. The polite fictions of research proposals 4. Kasi throws up her defenses 5. The siege 6. My fifth column CHAPTER THREE: POWER 1. Hearts and minds 2. Colonial involvements 3. Going into the villages 4. People invisible to the state CHAPTER FOUR: ETHNICITY 1. Lelakness 2. The vanishing point 3. Foregrounding the Berawan 4. Lost tribes 5. The true Berawan 6. Keeping things in perspective CHAPTER FIVE: CLOSURE 1. Lelak 2. Throwing away the old way 3. Kasi's vanishing 4. Cultural obituaries 5. Indignities 6. Demolishing Upriver 7. Constructing Upriver People 8. No closure FOOTNOTES BIBLIOGRAPHY

O autorze

Peter Metcalf has conducted research in Borneo for over two decades. He is Professor of Anthropology at the University of Virginia, USA.