VULNERABLE OBSERVER - Hardcover

Behar, Ruth

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0807046302 ISBN 13: 9780807046302

Publisher: Beacon Pr, 1996

Synopsis

Behar (anthropology, U. of Michigan-Ann Arbor) challenges the idea of objectivity and impersonality in research, blending ethnography with memoir in an account of her own fieldwork in Spain, Cuba, and the US, placed together with personal stories of life as a young Cuban Jewish immigrant. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.

About this title

Review:

In The Vulnerable Observer, Ruth Behar--ethnographer, essayist, editor, poet, and a professor of anthropology--challenges traditional theories and offers a more personal approach to anthropology in which the line between observer and observed is not so easily drawn and the observers themselves are not only visible, but vulnerable to their subjects. As she writes, "Call it sentimental, call it Victorian and nineteenth century, but I say that anthropology that doesn't break your heart just isn't worth doing anymore." These insightful, often poetic essays weave together memories of childhood as a Cuban Jewish immigrant with accounts of fieldwork in Spain, Cuba, and the United States. Along the way, Behar tirelessly investigates and elegantly communicates the "central dilemma of all aspects of witnessing." In her own words, "Are there limits--of respect, piety, pathos--that should not be crossed, even to leave a record?"

About the Author:

Ruth Behar is professor of anthropology at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.

About this edition

• Publisher: Beacon Pr
• Publication date: 1996
• ISBN 10: 0807046302
• ISBN 13: 9780807046302
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 195