Rosaldo’s chapter may be thought of as a companion piece to his essay “Notes on Poetry and Ethnog... more Rosaldo’s chapter may be thought of as a companion piece to his essay “Notes on Poetry and Ethnography.” In this essay, he comments on the ethnographic poetry of Yusef Komunyakaa and Naomi Shihab Nye, addressing not only cultural translation but also linguistic translation. As someone familiar with the American racial field, who weighed in the translation of Komunyakaa’s poem on Vietnam into Spanish, he reads Komunyakaa’s poem as a continuation of the civil rights struggle by other means. His chapter in this volume is a meditation on what a poet, translator, and ethnographer may have in common.
... Critics assert that iden-tity politics emerges from a moment of social and intellectual crisi... more ... Critics assert that iden-tity politics emerges from a moment of social and intellectual crisis during which we have retreated to navel gazing. ... My parents in their marriage followed their family pattern by uniting south and north, in their case Mexico and the United States. ...
... Not unlike Ernesto Galarza's Barrio Boy (1971), this is a story about moving... more ... Not unlike Ernesto Galarza's Barrio Boy (1971), this is a story about moving" north from Mexico." Among other things the novel plays with the dilemmas ... When Joey, for example, hears about intercourse, he knows it can't be true because it doesn't feel good:" It's kinda like school. ...
My central question is: How should ethnographies talk about death and bereavement? Ethnographic d... more My central question is: How should ethnographies talk about death and bereavement? Ethnographic discourse on death tends to ignore the cultural practices and lived experiences characterized by improvisation, subjectivity, and particularity. Instead it concentrates on formality, externality, and generality. Aside from being inhumane, the result is superficial social analysis. My hope is that a diagnosis of the problem will lead to better studies in the future. Ethnographic representations of death can be characterized by formality, externality, and generality. Formality refers to the practice of describing human events as if they were normal, highly codified, and always repeated in precisely the same manner. Such accounts eliminate significant variations in timing and tempo, sources of disturbance and particular struggles or goals. Externality refers to the distance at which ethnographers write. This distance presumably confers objectivity but it also objectifies by producing descriptions that fail to consider the subjectivity of the people described. Generality refers to the way many accounts stress not particular agonies of grief but general recipes for mourning rituals. Perhaps the notion of shared culture leads analysts to suppose they should explore only identical forms throughout a group. Following their discipline's norms of writing, ethnographers tend to flatten their accounts, distancing themselves from the tears and agony, as they seek out the lowest common denominators that make all funerals not different from one another but the same. Yet the emotional
... San Francisco CA: Pandora. Jones, Terry. 1983. The saga of Erik the Viking. New York: Schocke... more ... San Francisco CA: Pandora. Jones, Terry. 1983. The saga of Erik the Viking. New York: Schocken. Modleski, Tania. 1991. ... 1989. Culture and truth. Boston MA: Beacon Press. Viramontes, Helena Maria. 1985. The moths and other stories. Houston TX: Arte Ptiblico Press. ...
... It reflects on the possibilities and arueieties aroused by culturalstudies fmanthropohgkts an... more ... It reflects on the possibilities and arueieties aroused by culturalstudies fmanthropohgkts and ethnic studies faculty ... well govern both the intellectual production and the human composition of such working groups. Cultural studies has brought anxiety to a number of anthropologists ...
Snapshot One: In Guatemala, several thousand Mayan youth-the majority of whom are young unmarried... more Snapshot One: In Guatemala, several thousand Mayan youth-the majority of whom are young unmarried daughters-work as apparel assemblers at the Sam Lucas maquila factory. The factory, built from cement blocks with aluminum roofing, is the size of a football field. Inside, long wooden tables divide the workers into production lines of about 30 people. Each person in a line repeats the assigned task over and over, whether it is to sew labels on pants, fasten sleeves to a shirt or cut threads off the almost finished product. Production ...
Rosaldo’s chapter may be thought of as a companion piece to his essay “Notes on Poetry and Ethnog... more Rosaldo’s chapter may be thought of as a companion piece to his essay “Notes on Poetry and Ethnography.” In this essay, he comments on the ethnographic poetry of Yusef Komunyakaa and Naomi Shihab Nye, addressing not only cultural translation but also linguistic translation. As someone familiar with the American racial field, who weighed in the translation of Komunyakaa’s poem on Vietnam into Spanish, he reads Komunyakaa’s poem as a continuation of the civil rights struggle by other means. His chapter in this volume is a meditation on what a poet, translator, and ethnographer may have in common.
... Critics assert that iden-tity politics emerges from a moment of social and intellectual crisi... more ... Critics assert that iden-tity politics emerges from a moment of social and intellectual crisis during which we have retreated to navel gazing. ... My parents in their marriage followed their family pattern by uniting south and north, in their case Mexico and the United States. ...
... Not unlike Ernesto Galarza's Barrio Boy (1971), this is a story about moving... more ... Not unlike Ernesto Galarza's Barrio Boy (1971), this is a story about moving" north from Mexico." Among other things the novel plays with the dilemmas ... When Joey, for example, hears about intercourse, he knows it can't be true because it doesn't feel good:" It's kinda like school. ...
My central question is: How should ethnographies talk about death and bereavement? Ethnographic d... more My central question is: How should ethnographies talk about death and bereavement? Ethnographic discourse on death tends to ignore the cultural practices and lived experiences characterized by improvisation, subjectivity, and particularity. Instead it concentrates on formality, externality, and generality. Aside from being inhumane, the result is superficial social analysis. My hope is that a diagnosis of the problem will lead to better studies in the future. Ethnographic representations of death can be characterized by formality, externality, and generality. Formality refers to the practice of describing human events as if they were normal, highly codified, and always repeated in precisely the same manner. Such accounts eliminate significant variations in timing and tempo, sources of disturbance and particular struggles or goals. Externality refers to the distance at which ethnographers write. This distance presumably confers objectivity but it also objectifies by producing descriptions that fail to consider the subjectivity of the people described. Generality refers to the way many accounts stress not particular agonies of grief but general recipes for mourning rituals. Perhaps the notion of shared culture leads analysts to suppose they should explore only identical forms throughout a group. Following their discipline's norms of writing, ethnographers tend to flatten their accounts, distancing themselves from the tears and agony, as they seek out the lowest common denominators that make all funerals not different from one another but the same. Yet the emotional
... San Francisco CA: Pandora. Jones, Terry. 1983. The saga of Erik the Viking. New York: Schocke... more ... San Francisco CA: Pandora. Jones, Terry. 1983. The saga of Erik the Viking. New York: Schocken. Modleski, Tania. 1991. ... 1989. Culture and truth. Boston MA: Beacon Press. Viramontes, Helena Maria. 1985. The moths and other stories. Houston TX: Arte Ptiblico Press. ...
... It reflects on the possibilities and arueieties aroused by culturalstudies fmanthropohgkts an... more ... It reflects on the possibilities and arueieties aroused by culturalstudies fmanthropohgkts and ethnic studies faculty ... well govern both the intellectual production and the human composition of such working groups. Cultural studies has brought anxiety to a number of anthropologists ...
Snapshot One: In Guatemala, several thousand Mayan youth-the majority of whom are young unmarried... more Snapshot One: In Guatemala, several thousand Mayan youth-the majority of whom are young unmarried daughters-work as apparel assemblers at the Sam Lucas maquila factory. The factory, built from cement blocks with aluminum roofing, is the size of a football field. Inside, long wooden tables divide the workers into production lines of about 30 people. Each person in a line repeats the assigned task over and over, whether it is to sew labels on pants, fasten sleeves to a shirt or cut threads off the almost finished product. Production ...
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