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Sarah Peters
Anthropological Methodology
Comparative Ethnography
Mama Lola: A Vodou Priestess in Brooklyn
Karen McCarthy Brown
The Afterlife is Where We Come From: The Culture of
Infancy in West Africa
Alma Gottlieb
Performing Dreams: Discourse of Immortality Among the
Xavante of Central Brazil
Laura R. Graham
Why These Ethnographies?
Symbolic Approach
Religion
Awareness of historical influences
The Ethnographers
Karen McCarthy Brown
Specializes in Haitian and Religious studies
Strong feminist and postmodern theory
Alma Gottlieb
Specializes in West Africa (Beng), Religious, and gender
studies
Author of numerous books and articles
Laura Graham
Specalizes in Brazilian, Venezuelan and Colombian
studies(Xavante and Wayuu)
Mama Lola: A Vodou Priestess in Brooklyn
Researched the religion of vodou, and its
practice in America and Haiti
The life of one woman: Alourdes (Mama
Lola)
Active Listening
Participant
Observation
Unique relationship with informant
Organization of ethnography
The Afterlife is Where We Come From:
The Culture of Infancy in West Africa
Explores the Beng belief that babies have
recently returned from wrugbe, the
afterlife
Compares infant care in Bengland to
America
Historical understanding of Beng’s current
situation
Participant Observation, formal and
informal interviewing
Performing Dreams:
Discourses of Immortality Among the
Xavante of Central Brazil
Examines and explains the communicative
techniques of the Xavante
History, legends, stories, dreams
10 years of research
Very little discussion of personal
reactions– traditional ethnography
What is Significant about them?
These three ethnographies are all significant in a variety
of ways
Understudied topics
Vodou
Beng
Infant culture/children
Specific topics
Religion/Communicative techniques
Comparing Their Methodology
These three ethnographies use similar techniques
Active Listening
Participant Observation
interviews
Different questions; different results
Each used methodological techniques suited to the
information they were seeking
How Successful Were They?
Success?
Variation on type of information being sought/informants
needed
Brown
Graham
Gottlieb
How Does this Apply to Class?
No two (or three) fieldwork experiences are the same
Different ways of approaching symbolic aspects of culture
Different interpretations
Different presentation
From Grahams traditional “objective” ethnography as
compared to Brown’s “subjective” and fictional accounts
Conclusion
These three ethnographies utilized the symbolic approach
in a variety of ways
Ultimately each was successful with her research and
presentation
Inclusion and understanding of the past’s influence on the
present and non-isolated societies
Bibliography
Brown, Karen McCarthy
1991 Mama Lola: A Vodou Priestess in Brooklyn. Berkley and Los Angeles: University of California Press
Clifford, James
1990 Notes on (Field)notes, Fieldnotes: the Makings of Anthropology. Ed. Roger Sanjek. Itthica: Cornell University Press
Ford Foundation,
2007 “Religion and Culture, Meeting the Challenge of Pluralism: Karen McCarthy Brown” [internet], Available from
<http://religionandpluralism.org/KarenMcCarthyBrown.htm> [accessed May 1, 2011]
Gottlieb, Alma
2004 The Afterlife is Where We Come From: The Culture of Infancy in West Africa. Chicago: University of Chicago Press
Graham, Laura R.
1995 Performing Dreams: Discourse of Immortality Among the Xavante of Central Brazil. Austin: University of Texas Press
Larean, Annette, Shultz, Jeffrey, Krieger, Susan.
1996 “Beyond Subjectivity”, Krieger, Susan, Journeys Through Ethnography: Realistic Accounts of Fielwork. Westview Press: Boulder
University of Illlinois,
2011 “Dr. Alma Gottlieb” [internet], Available from <http://www.anthro.illinois.edu/people/ajgottli> [accessed April 28, 2011]
University of Iowa
2007 “Department of Anthropology: Laura R. Graham” [internet]. Available from <http://www.uiowa.edu/~anthro/graham.shtml> [accessed
May 1, 2011]
Wolf, Diane L, Ed
1996 Feminist Dilemmas in Fieldwork. Boulder, Westview Press, Inc.
Thank you!
Any Questions?