Taste of Ethnographic Things

Anthropologists who have lost their senses write ethnographies that are often disconnected from the worlds they seek to portray. For most anthropologists, Stoller contends, tasteless theories are more important than the savory sauces of ethnographic life. That they have lost the smells, sounds, and tastes of the places they study is unfortunate for them, for their subjects, and for the discipline itself.The Taste of Ethnographic Things describes how, through long-term participation in the lives of the Songhay of Niger, Stoller eventually came to his senses. Taken together, the separate chapters speak to two important and integrated issues. The first is methodologicalall the chapters demonstrate the rewards of long-term study of a culture. The second issue is how he became truer to the Songhay through increased sensual awareness.

Auteur
Paul Stoller is Professor of Anthropology at West Chester University and the author of Sensuous Scholarship, also available from the University of Pennsylvania Press.

Contenu

The Taste of Ethnographic Things. Eye, Mind, and Word in Anthropology. "Gazing" at the Space of Songhay Politics. Signs in the Social Order: Riding a Songhay Bush Taxi. Son of Rouch: Songhay Visions of the Other. Sound in Songhay Possession. Sound in Songhay Sorcery. The Reconstruction of Ethnography. Detours