The Shadow Side of Fieldwork: Exploring the Blurred Borders between Ethnography and Life - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1405169818 ISBN 13: 9781405169813

Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell, 2007

Synopsis

The Shadow Side of Fieldwork draws attention to the typically hidden or unacknowledged aspects of ethnographic fieldwork encounters that nevertheless shape the resulting knowledge and texts.

Addressing these invisible, elusive, unspoken or mysterious elements introduces a distinctive rigor and responsibility to ethnographic research.

• Luminaries in anthropology dare to explore the 'unspeakable' and 'invisible' in the ethnographic encounter
• Considers personal and professional challenges (ethical, epistemological, and political) faced by researchers who examine the subjectivities inherent in their ethnographic insights
• Explores the value, and limitations, of addressing the personal in ethnographic research
• Includes a critical discussion of the anthropologist’s self in the field
• Introduces imaginative rigor to ethnographic research to heighten confidence in anthropological knowledge

About this title

About the Author

Athena McLean is Professor of Anthropology at the Department of Sociology, Anthropology and Social Work, Central Michigan University. Dr. McLean’s research has focused on processes of knowledge production and contestation in the areas of aging and psychiatry. She has particular interests in dementia care and advocacy movements in mental health and aging. Her writings include 'Contradictions in the Social Production of Clinical Knowledge: The Case of Schizophrenia', in Social Science and Medicine (1990), and The Person in Dementia: A Study of Nursing Home Care in the U.S. (2007).

Annette Leibing is an anthropologist with research interests in psychiatry, aging (especially Alzheimer), medications, and new medical technologies (such as stem cells). She has taught anthropology at the Institute of Psychiatry, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, and been a visiting professor in Social Studies of Medicine, McGill University (2002–05). She is Associate Professor of Medical Anthropology at the University of Montreal. Her latest book, co-edited with Lawrence Cohen, is Thinking about Dementia: Culture, Loss, and the Anthropology of Senility (2006).

From the Back Cover

The Shadow Side of Fieldwork draws attention to typically hidden or unacknowledged aspects of ethnographic research that nevertheless shape knowledge, texts, and methodologies. These are the invisible, unspoken, elusive, and mysterious areas where life and research overlap, private experiences and formal ethnography blur, and research boundaries seem to dissolve.

Containing essays by such variedluminaries as Nancy Scheper-Hughes and Vincent Crapanzano, among others, this book penetrates a variety of shadows in ethnographic field encounters. The authors recount personal and professional challenges that led them to confront the complex sources or paradoxical nature of their insights. By turning attention to the shadow sides of fieldwork and thoroughly exploring what they find there, the writers, as responsible researchers, strengthenconfidence in ethnographic knowledge. The Shadow Side of Fieldwork helps students and scholars to understand the submerged influences inherent in their research, and is essential reading for anyone involved in ethnographic fieldwork.

Containing essays by such variedluminaries as Nancy Scheper-Hughes and Vincent Crapanzano, among others, this book penetrates a variety of shadows in ethnographic field encounters. The authors recount personal and professional challenges that led them to confront the complex sources or paradoxical nature of their insights. By turning attention to the shadow sides of fieldwork and thoroughly exploring what they find there, the writers, as responsible researchers, strengthenconfidence in ethnographic knowledge. The Shadow Side of Fieldwork helps students and scholars to understand the submerged influences inherent in their research, and is essential reading for anyone involved in ethnographic fieldwork.

Edition details

• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell
• Publication date: 2007
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1405169818
• ISBN 13: 9781405169813
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 328
• Editor: McLean Athena, Leibing Annette