Description
Book SynopsisProposes a solution to a fundamental debate in contemporary ethnography: the source of ethnographic authority. The author advocates the method of reflexive analysis as a way of making ethnography a more scientific endeavor. He challenges standards of ethnographic practice in data collection, analysis and presentation.
Trade ReviewThis is an important book that questions the adequacy of current practices in ethnographic methodology with the goal of rescuing scientific cultural anthropology, both from challenges of the textualists and from the discipline's own methodological inadequacies. The author develops a thorough critique of cultural consensus analysis, one of the newer methodological approaches widely adopted by scientific cultural anthropologists. He develops the outlines of reflexive realism, drawing upon a case study of food taboos among populations in the Ituri Forest. -- D. Douglas Caulkins, Grinnell College
This is a powerfully written book: an alternative approach to the study of culture that takes seriously the challenge of reflexivity as a mode of analysis rather than of presentation. To this end, the book is beautifully organized and well-written, and the ethnographic material presented to exemplify the argument is both fascinating and raises a whole series of interesting questions. -- Douglas White, University of California, Irvine
Table of ContentsChapter 1 Introduction Chapter 2 Chapter 1: A Crisis of Confidence Chapter 3 Chapter 2: Increasing the Reliability of Representations Chapter 4 Chapter 3: Ethnographic Variation in Practice Chapter 5 Chapter 4: The Wrong Way Out: Typology and Idealism Chapter 6 Chapter 5: Reflexive Analysis: A New Way of Doing Ethnography Chapter 7 Chapter 6: The Reliability of Reflexive Analysis Chapter 8 Chapter 7: The "Strength of Belief" Chapter 9 Chapter 8: Toward a Reflexive Ethnographic Science
