Improvising Theory : Process and Temporality in Ethnographic Fieldwork /Allaine Cerwonka; Liisa H Malkki
Material type: TextPublisher number: International Book Distributors | ;Flat No.17,Prakash Apartments ,5 Ansari Road ,Daryaganj New Delhi-110002Publication details: Chicago :University of Chicago Press , 2007Description: xi,203 p. ;23 cmISBN: 9780226100319Subject(s): Social SciencesGenre/Form: Culture & institutionsDDC classification: 305.8009451 CER Summary: Scholars have long recognized that ethnographic method is bound up with the construction of theory in ways that are difficult to teach. The reason, Allaine Cerwonka and Liisa H. Malkki argue, is that ethnographic theorization is essentially improvisatory in nature, conducted in real time and in necessarily unpredictable social situations. In a unique account of, and critical reflection on, the process of theoretical improvisation in ethnographic research, they demonstrate how both objects of analysis, and our ways of knowing and explaining them, are created and discovered in the give and take of real life, in all its unpredictability and immediacy. Improvising Theory centers on the year-long correspondence between Cerwonka, then a graduate student in political science conducting research in Australia, and her anthropologist mentor, Malkki. Through regular e-mail exchanges, Malkki attempted to teach Cerwonka, then new to the discipline, the basic tools and subtle intuition needed for anthropological fieldwork. The result is a strikingly original dissection of the processual ethics and politics of method in ethnography.Item type | Current library | Call number | Status | Date due | Barcode | Item holds |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Books | SNU LIBRARY | 305.8009451 CER (Browse shelf(Opens below)) | Available | 25176 |
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305.8009 MUN The Adivasi question | 305.8009 PIN Racism in metropolitan areas | 305.8009 RAD First Citizens | 305.8009451 CER Improvising Theory | 305.8009489 RED Danes are Like that: Perspectives of an Indian Anthropologist on the Danish Society | 305.80095 MUE The age of wild ghosts | 305.800951 DIK The construction of racial identities in China and Japan |
Scholars have long recognized that ethnographic method is bound up with the construction of theory in ways that are difficult to teach. The reason, Allaine Cerwonka and Liisa H. Malkki argue, is that ethnographic theorization is essentially improvisatory in nature, conducted in real time and in necessarily unpredictable social situations. In a unique account of, and critical reflection on, the process of theoretical improvisation in ethnographic research, they demonstrate how both objects of analysis, and our ways of knowing and explaining them, are created and discovered in the give and take of real life, in all its unpredictability and immediacy.
Improvising Theory centers on the year-long correspondence between Cerwonka, then a graduate student in political science conducting research in Australia, and her anthropologist mentor, Malkki. Through regular e-mail exchanges, Malkki attempted to teach Cerwonka, then new to the discipline, the basic tools and subtle intuition needed for anthropological fieldwork. The result is a strikingly original dissection of the processual ethics and politics of method in ethnography.
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