I think she made several superficial judgements about
the communities she studied with. "Correct" in the
contentious field of culture theory in anthro is hard
to define. That said, she did refuse to "go native"
and shined a critical light on the social and economic
dynamics of the people she studied.
In that sense its closure to critical social science
then sympathetic intersubjective ethnography. As such,
it fits the parameters of a certain type of analysis,
and not those of another. I think, for what it is,
it's a pretty good effort, but it also conceals as
much as it reveals given her theoretical
orientation...
--- heliade <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Hi, this is a question that might be best answered
> by the anthropologists here... You know Tanya
> Luhrman's "Persuasions of the Witch's Craft"? Well,
> I know that many, or is it most, of the Witches and
> Magicians that she studied felt that she hadn't
> represented them corectly, or that she was sarcastic
> or otherwise betrayed them.
>
> Is this the only complaint about her methods / book?
> How is it seen academically? Is it considered to
> have been done 'correctly'? In other words, was her
> only 'crime' to - in journalistic terms - burn her
> sources? Or was there something else wrong with or
> objectionable about her work?
>
> (I used to own the book, lent it out, never got it
> back, and I've just re-ordered it from amazon).
>
> ~Caroline.
>
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