rowanglass's review
challenging
informative
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
4.0
Works and Lives offers a reading of ethnography and ethnographic writing as a type of literature, using the example of four major twentieth-century anthropologists: Levi-Strauss, Evans-Pritchard, Malinowski, and Benedict. In approaching ethnography from the standpoint of literary criticism, seeking to understand how style and voice affect the content, meaning, and mission of ethnographic writing, this work builds on such influential work as Writing Culture, which likewise problematizes the supposed "objectivity" or "empiricism" of anthropological writing—and, of course, by extension its writers—in a postmodern age. This book is engagingly written and full of Geertz' usual eloquence and breadth of knowledge. A recommendable read to anyone interested in the theory and practice of doing, i.e., writing, anthropology.
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