ANTHROPOLOGY, LIFE HISTORY AND AUTOBIOGRAPHY

Catalog description

In this tutorial, students will examine the role of life history in ethnographic description. That is, we will examine the ways in which life narratives of one or more participants in a cultural group can be used to inform our understanding of the cultural rules, values and beliefs of the group as a whole. In addition, we will be investigating the influence of the research on the process of data collection. To what extent, we will ask, does the life story elicitor and investigator influence the substance of the narrative? We will also be interested in looking at other forms of the life story, such as individual and group biography, as well as autobiography, outside of the social sciences, and the ways that these genres might also contribute to anthropological understanding. Our answers to these questions will be formulated and reformulated gradually as we do the readings and individually carry our field research within an identifiable culture group.