Ethnography: A Theoretically Oriented Practice

Contents
Notes on Contributors
1 Ethnography: A Theoretically Oriented Practice Introduction
	References
Part I Grounds for Sociocultural Anthropology: USA, UK, FR, IT
2 Ethnography Before Ethnography: Genesis and Developments of Fieldwork in North America
	Between Mythopoetic Narrations and Historiographic Deconstructions
	Beginnings
	Lewis Henry Morgan
	Bureau of American Ethnology
	Frank Hamilton Cushing: “They Love Me, and I Learn”
	James Mooney
	Franz Boas
	Conclusions
	References
3 Before and After Science: Radcliffe-Brown, British Social Anthropology, and the Relationship Between Field Research, Ethnography, and Theory
	Field Research in the Andaman Islands
	Radcliffe-Brown’s Relationship with Haddon and Rivers
	Fieldwork in Australia and the New Interpretation of Aboriginal Social Organization
	The Andaman Islanders and the Revision of Durkheim’s Theory on Rituals’ Social Value
	Fieldwork, Ethnographic Representation and Radcliffe-Brown’s Theoretical Framework
	Empirical Basis, Research Methods, Theoretical Objects of the Discipline: Does a Bequest of Radcliffe-Brown’s Approach Exist Today?
	A Final Note
	References
4 “Ethnography in France”: Ethnographic Practices and Theories in Marcel Griaule Between the Empirical and Rhetorical
	Between Experience and Interpretation
	Ethnographic Extravagance
	The Origins of French Ethnography
	A Strategically Oriented Dialogue
	The Choice of the Native Collaborator
	A Cultural Representation of an Indigenous Culture
	References
5 The Structural Formula of the Team: Reflections on Ernesto de Martino’s Ethnographic Method
	Ethnography à Rebours
	Interdiscipline
		Focus
		Team
	Historian-Ethnographer
	FIS
	Epilogue: Back Home
	References
Part II Anthropology (Theory) vs Ethnography (Fieldwork)
6 Illusion of Immediate Knowledge or Spiritual Exercise? The Dialogic Exchange and Pierre Bourdieu’s Ethnography
	Introduction
	Bourdieu’s Ethnography
	“The Essence of the Situation”
	The Illusion of Transparency
		Object of Perception and Object of Science
		The Language Critique
		Words in Social Relationship, the Self’s Singularity and Conversion
		Gérard Althabe, Another Possible Impossible
		Implication, Objectify Differently
		The Research Interaction, the Emerging Link
	Conclusions
	Bibliography
7 The Bridge and the Dance: Situational Analysis in Anthropology
	Introduction
	“Analysis of a Social Situation in Modern Zululand” and Its Legacy
	Observing and Analyzing an Urban Dance
	Conclusion
	References
8 Politics Within Anthropology
	Politics Within Social (and Cultural) Anthropology
	Nothing that Anthropologists Investigate Is Balanced
	The Aporia of an Ahistorical Anthropology
	The Italian Cultural Fractures
		Living Philology Becomes Ethnography
		The Relationships Between Cultural Forms and the Contexts of Their Use
	References
9 Stumbling Blocks: The Irruption of the Interpretive Approach in Twentieth-Century Anthropology
	The Field of Extralegality
	Corruption
	Transnational Mafias
	Negative Balance Sheets
	References
Part III Visual, Dialogical, Sensorial, Multi-sited Ethnography
10 The Anthropologist’s Eye: Ethnography, Visual Practices, Images
	Introduction
	The Ethnographer’s Eye and the Visualist Paradigm
	Neighbouring Territories
	Homecoming
	Ways of Seeing and Ethnographic Practices
	References
11 Dennis and Barbara Tedlock: The Dialogic Turn in Anthropology
	Poetics: Collecting, Transcribing, and Interpreting Texts
	Participation: Interaction, Reflexivity, Humanity
	Dialogical Anthropology
	Dialogical Anthropology: An Unresolved Debate
	References
12 Ethnography and Embodiment
	Ethnography as Embodied Cultural Practice
	Participation and Involvement
	Participation, Learning, and Co-production of Knowledge
	From Authenticity to the Conditions of Knowledge Production
	Bibliography
13 Exploring Mobility Through Mobility: Some of the Methodological Challenges of Multi-sited Ethnography in the Study of Migration
	Introduction
	Multi-sited Ethnographies on Transnational Migrations in Italy2
	Multi-sited Ethnography as a “Virtuous Spiral”
	Places and Relationships, Relationships and Places3
	Conclusion
	References
Part IV Deconstructions
14 Participant Observation: The Personal Commitment in Native Life—A Problematic Methodological Topos
	A Methodological Revolution
	On the Field, from the Field
	Being Here
	To Set the Record Straight
	References
15 The Weberian Line of Anthropology: George Marcus from Writing Culture to Design
	Rationale
	The Critique of the Concept of Culture and the Positioning of Writing Culture
	The Weaving of the Program
		Reflexivity
		Public Culture
		The ‘Contemporary’
		(The Necessity of) The Design
		Design as a Regulatory Device
	Analytics and Ethics
		Problematization
		Connecting
	Design Anthropology
	References
16 Making the Invisible Ethnography Visible: The Peculiar Relationship Between Italian Anthropology and Feminism
	Preliminary Postures
	Questions
	Answers
	Conclusions: In the Field, and Alone
	References
17 Beyond the Field: Ethnography, Theory, and Writing in Anthropology
	“Paradigms” and “Turning Points”
	Geertz vs. Writing Culture
	Why Literature?
	Disciplinary Encroachments
	Narration or Theory?
	“Field”, Empirical Research, and Other Anthropologies
	References
Author Index
Subject Index