These seminal essays place ethnography at the intersection of interpretive anthropology, cultural studies, social history, travel writing, discourse theory, and textual criticism. They grapple with issues of power and poetics in contemporary situations of globalization, post-coloniality, and post-modernity. Since its publication in 1986, Writing Culture has been a source of generative controversy and innovation in anthropology. It continues to inspire scholars and activists across the humanities, social sciences, and arts who are concerned with experimentation and ethics in cultural analysis.
This anniversary edition is augmented with a new foreword by Kim Fortun, Associate Professor of Science and Technology Studies at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, exploring the legacies of Writing Culture in the twenty-first century.
Writing Culture The Poetics and Politics of Ethnography, 25th Anniversary Edition
About the Book
Reviews
"The ethical concerns expressed in Writing Culture are important ones."—American Ethnologist
"Writing Culture is an invaluable book for anyone concerned about anthropology's future."—Oceania“Humanists and social scientists alike will profit from reflection on the efforts of the contributors to reimagine anthropology in terms, not only of methodology, but also of politics, ethics, and historical relevance. Every discipline in the human and social sciences could use such a book.”—Hayden White, author of Metahistory
"A distinguished, original, and highly significant collection."—Stephen Greenblatt, author of The Swerve: How the World Became Modern
Table of Contents
Foreword to the Twenty-fifth
Anniversary Edition
Preface
JAMES CLIFFORD
Introduction: Partial Truths
MARY LOUISE PRATT
Fieldwork in Common Places
VINCENT CRAPANZANO
Hermes' Dilemma: The Masking of
Subversion in Ethnographic Description
REN ATO ROSALDO
From the Door of His Tent:
The Fieldworker and the Inquisitor
JAMES CLIFFORD
On Ethnographic Allegory
STEPHEN A. TYLER
Post-Modern Ethnography:
From Document of the Occult
to Occult Document
TALAL ASAD
The Concept of Cultural Translation
in British Social Anthropology
GEORGE E. MARCUS
Contemporary Problems of Ethnography
in the Modern World System
MICHAEL M. J. FISCHER
Ethnicity and the Post-Modern Arts
of Memory
PAUL RABINOW
Representations Are Social Facts:
Modernity and Post-Modernity in
Anthropology
GEORGE E. MARCUS
Afterword: Ethnographic Writing and
Anthropological Careers
Bibliography
Notes on Contributors
Index
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