Intro Cultural Ethnographies?

[Alexander King]

I think that Waveland Press is the place to go for ethnographies for  
first and second year students. I used Nunavut Generations by Anne  
McElroy in a second year course, and it is great. Her take is history  
and historical perspective, but it covers lots of basics, including  
fieldwork, the use of history, colonialism, cultural brokers,  
indigenous people's rights. Most recently, I used The Headman was a  
Woman by Kirk and Karen Endicott in our main first-year course (300  
students), and it went over really well. The main theme there is  
gender egalitarianism among Malaysian hunter-gatherers. It also covers  
lots of other things, including fieldwork, relations with the state,  
development, hunting and making a living from the forest. A third book  
that I like, but haven't taught, is John Ziker's People of the Tundra.

These are all slim volumes with lots of pictures. Some have a sort of  
study guide at the end, including sources for 'further reading'.  
However, they are all serious monographs making important points  
through detailed ethnography, so they aren't watered-down textbooks.  
They have arguments, consider the published literature on a topic, and  
demonstrate their points through ethnographic description and analysis.

Once I tried to use Benedict's Patterns of Culture with freshmen, and  
it went over like a lead balloon. I have found students these days are  
very resistant to 'classics', particularly by authors with a literary  
voice. I am not sure why, but many even Victor Turner and Mary Douglas  
from the 1960s so old fashioned in their prose style that they are  
turned off. Personally, I love Malinowski and those old guys, but I  
don't think I would ever assign more than a chapter to first years  
from a book older than 1990, which is still before most freshmen were  
born. However, I have gotten the same complaints from 'mature'  
students--middle aged people sometimes my senior also find the old- 
fashioned prose of Sapir or Evens-Pritchard unaccessible.

best
Alex


On 8 Mar 2011, at 19:43, Leila Monaghan wrote:

> Hi, I am thinking of changing over my intro to cultural anthropology  
> to an
> ethnography based course.  Do people have suggestions for modern or  
> classic
> ethnographies that would be suitable for a large course open to all  
> majors
> that will include freshman?
>
> all best,
>
> Leila
>
> -- 
> Leila Monaghan, PhD
> Department of Anthropology
> University of Wyoming
> Laramie, Wyoming

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