ENGLISH

Improvising Theory: Process and Temporality in Ethnographic Fieldwork

By Allaine Cerwonka , Liisa H. Malkki

Book information

Publisher
University of Chicago Press
Year
2007
ISBN
9780226100319, 0226100316, 0226100308, 9780226100302, 9780226100289
Google Books ID
3NKbZbFZ4DwC
Open Library ID
OL22755367M
Language
english
Format
PDF
Filesize
839 kB (859620 bytes)
Pages
216\216
Library
avaxhome.ws
Orientation
no
Scanned
no
Time added
2010-05-31 15:29:46

Description

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. (20060927)

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