AAAD 214: Ethnography of Africa: Home
Tips & Tricks on how to find ethnographies in Davis library
This guide will be useful to students in AAAD 214 to find ethnographies in Davis library.
Where are Ethnographies located in the library?
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Finding ethnographies in the library catalog isn't always straightforward or easy. First of all, there isn't a specific Library of Congress subject heading (LCSH) just for ethnographies. The most common subject heading subheading assigned to ethnographies is "social life and customs" but "case studies" and "ethnology" are other subheadings that may be applied.
Since ethnographic books about a particular cultural group, region of the world, or subject area are grouped with other books about that region, country, or subject area, you won't be able to find all ethnographies shelved in one place in the library. Given all of these factors, here are some tips for using the library catalog to identify ethnographies:
1) Identify the correct name of the group you are researching. For example, the subject heading for the !Kung is "!Kung (African people)" not Kung Bushmen, and "Ashanti (African people)".
2) Once you have the correct name of the group or subject, search with that name and the subheading phrase "social life and customs". For example, search:
!Kung (African people) -- Social life and customs
either as an exact subject heading search, or as a keyword search.
3) Try searching the name of the group or subject in combination with the subheading "case studies." Although not all case studies are ethnographies, some of the titles retrieved from this search might be ethnographies. You will need to look at the books to determine if they are actually ethnographies.
4) Search with the group name or subject and the subheading "ethnology." Again, you will need to look at the books to determine if they are ethnographies.
5) Search by keywords with your group name or subject and add the truncated term "ethnograph*" (e.g., maasai and ethnograph*). This search will only retrieve those titles that have ethnography in the title (not all do) or somewhere else within the record.
6) Try a keyword search that combines the name of the group and the aspect of the culture that you want to research. You will need to look at the books to determine if they are ethnographies.
7) Search in the library catalog by a series title, such as Case Studies in Cultural Anthropology or Contemporary Ethnography, and then review the books to determine if a specific title is an ethnography. Potential series are listed in the box to the left.
8) Identify an anthropologist and then search by his or her name as an author in the catalog to determine if he or she has published an ethnography based on their fieldwork. You can use biographical sources such as the Biographical Dictionary of Social and Cultural Anthropology or the International Dictionary of Anthropologists to find potential authors.
From: https://libguides.du.edu/c.php?g=90260&p=582099, University of Denver Libraries.
Useful subject headings
Start in the Library Catalog and use subject headings or keywords in combination with an ethnic group or cultural aspect. For example:
- Case studies
- Ethnology
- Folklore
- Public health
- Climate changes
- Economic aspects
Series of ethnographies
Look for series in the library catalog with the advanced search button.
Anthropology of contemporary issues
Case studies in cultural anthropology
Contemporary ethnography
Smithsonian Series in Ethnographic Inquiry
New Directions in Ethnography
New Ethnography
Reference works
Oxford bibliographies online: Ethnography
Oxford bibliographies online: Anthropology of Africa
Fifty Key Anthropologists by
Fifty Key Anthropologists surveys the life and work of some of the most influential figures in anthropology. The entries, written by an international range of expert contributors, represent the diversity of thought within the subject, incorporating both classic theorists and more recent anthropological thinkers. Names discussed include: Clifford Geertz Bronislaw Malinowski Zora Neale Hurston Sherry B. Ortner Claude Lévi-Strauss Rodney Needham Mary Douglas Marcel Mauss This accessible A-Z guide contains helpful cross-referencing, a timeline of key dates and schools of thought, and suggestions for further reading. It will be of interest to students of anthropology and related subjects wanting a succinct overview of the ideas and impact of key anthropologists who have helped to shape the discipline.
ISBN: 9780203838792Publication Date: 2010-11-15
On Ethnography by
In turn creative thinker and street flâneur, careful planner and adventurer, empathic listener and distant voyeur, recluse writer and active participant: the ethnographer is a multifaceted researcher of social worlds and social life. In this book, sociologists Sarah Daynes and Terry Williams team up to explore the art of ethnographic research and the many complex decisions it requires. Using their extensive fieldwork experience in the United States and Europe, and hours spent in the classroom training new ethnographers, they illustrate, discuss, and reflect on the key skills and tools required for successful research, including research design, entry and exit, participant observation, fieldnotes, ethics, and writing up. Covering both the theoretical foundations and practical realities of ethnography, this highly readable and entertaining book will be invaluable to students in sociology and other disciplines in which ethnography has become a core qualitative research method.
ISBN: 9780745685595Publication Date: 2018-05-07
Finding ethnographies in databases
- AnthroSourceDeveloped by the American Anthropological Association (AAA), AnthroSource provides over a century publications online. It has current issues of the AAA's most critical peer-reviewed publications and archives of all AAA journals.
Finding ethnographies in full-text sources
- Google ScholarEnables you to search specifically for scholarly literature, including peer-reviewed papers, theses, books, preprints, abstracts and technical reports from all broad areas of research. Use Google Scholar to find articles from a wide variety of academic publishers, professional societies, preprint repositories and universities, as well as scholarly articles available across the web.
- JSTORProvides an image archive of important scholarly journal literature in nearly all the humanities and social sciences disciplines, international and foreign areas studies, and many of the sciences. UNC patrons have access to extensive retrospective holdings of hundreds of journals, starting with the first issues. Excludes the most recent 2-5 years of currently available journals.
Finding ethnographies in journals
Examples of ethnographies
African Modernities and Mobilities by
In this book Walter Gam Nkwi documents the complexities and nuances embedded in African modernities and mobilities which have been overlooked in historical discourses in Africa and Cameroon. Using an ethnographic historical approach and drawing on the intricacies of what it has meant to be and belong in Kom- an ethnic community in the Northwest Region of Cameroon - since 1800, he explores the discourses and practices of kfaang as central to any understanding of mobility and modernity in Kom, Cameroon and Africa at large. The book unveils the emic understanding of modernity through the history and ethnography of kfaang and its technologies and illustrates how these terminologies were conceived and perceived by the Kom people in their social and physical mobilities. It documents and analyzes the historical processes involved in bringing about and making kfaang a defining feature of everyday life in Kom and among Kom subjects.
ISBN: 9789956762378Publication Date: 2015-05-11
Dancing Skeletons by ISBN: 9781478607588Publication Date: 2013-09-01
Distant Companions by
Distant Companions tells the fascinating story of the lives and times of domestic servants and their employers in Zambia from the beginning of white settlement during the colonial period until after independence. Emphasizing the interactive nature of relationships of domination, the book is useful for readers who seek to understand the dynamics of domestic service in a variety of settings. In order to examine the servant- employer relationship within the context of larger political and economic processes, Karen Tranberg Hansen employs an unusual combination of methods, including analysis of historical documents, travelogues, memoirs, literature, and life histories, as well as anthropological fieldwork, survey research, and participant observation.
ISBN: 0801495466Publication Date: 1989-01-23
Laibon by
Elliot Fratkin shares the story of his early anthropological fieldwork in Kenya in the 1970s. Using his fieldnotes and letters home to bring to life the voices of those he met, Fratkin invites the reader to experience his cross-cultural friendships with the enigmatic laibon (a diviner and healer of the Samburu and Maasai peoples) Lonyoki, his family, and the people of the nomadic community of Lukumai. Fratkin participated in the daily lives of the Ariaal livestock herders and accompanied the laibon as he performed divination and healing rituals throughout Marsabit and Samburu Districts. After Fratkin reunited Lonyoki with his son and wife, Lonyoki adopted Fratkin into his family, and Fratkin continues his close friendship with Lonyoki's son Lembalen today. Black-and-white photographs, a guide to the characters, words, and places, and a list of suggested readings supplement the engaging narrative. Laibon is more than a memoir; it delves into nitty-gritty details of fieldwork, speaks to larger questions about ethnographic research, and provides unparalleled insight into the world of the laibon.
ISBN: 9780759120679Publication Date: 2011-09-29
Listen, Here Is a Story by
Based on author Bonnie L. Hewlett's ten years of field experience in the Central African Republic, Listen, Here Is a Story: Ethnographic Life Narratives from Aka and Ngandu Women of the Congo Basin offers a fascinating glimpse into the lives of contemporary African women in their own words. Rendered here are the experiences of four women who Hewlett depicts in their homes, fields, and the forest. The women vividly recall memories, childhood games, dances, folk tales, songs, and drawings from throughout their lives and provide insights and anecdotes from their experiences as children,adolescents, mothers, wives, and providers. A vital contribution to literature on foraging and farming societies, Listen, Here Is a Story presents a new viewpoint on small-scale communities from a non-Western perspective.
ISBN: 9780199764235Publication Date: 2012-05-01
The Nuer by ISBN: 9781179585093Publication Date: 2011-09-01
Once Intrepid Warriors by
"Once Intrepid Warriors advances a brilliantly persuasive critique of development among the Maasai. . . . This historical ethnography is a tour de force, counter-balancing the analysis of cultural, political, and socio-economic transformation over the longue duree with intimate and memorable portraits of representative individuals." --Richard Werbner "In a series of chapters on the interrelationships of ethnicity, gender, and 'modernity,' Hodgson concludes that it is not the Maasai who have remained static, but rather the external images of them." --Choice ". . . meticulous and well-documented . . . a valuable resource. . . ." --Africa
ISBN: 0253214513Publication Date: 2004-04-06
Sacred Rice by
Sacred Rice explores the cultural intricacies through which Jola farmers in West Africa are responding to their environmental and economic conditions given the centrality of a crop - rice - that is the lynchpin for their economic, social, religious, and political worlds.Based on more than ten years of author Joanna Davidson's ethnographic and historical research on rural Guinea-Bissau, this book looks at the relationship among people, plants, and identity as it explores how a society comes to define itself through the production, consumption, and reverence of rice.It is a narrative profoundly tied to a particular place, but it is also a story of encounters with outsiders who often mediate or meddle in the rice enterprise. Although the focal point is a remote area of West Africa, the book illuminates the more universal nexus of identity, environment, anddevelopment, especially in an era when many people--rural and urban - are confronting environmental changes that challenge their livelihoods and lifestyles.
ISBN: 9780199358687Publication Date: 2015-08-14
Wanderings by
In one of the first books devoted to the experience of Sudanese immigrants and exiles in the United States, Rogaia Mustafa Abusharaf places her community into context, showing its increasing historical and political significance. Abusharaf herself participates in many aspects of life in the migrant community and in the Sudan in ways that a non-Sudanese could not. Attending religious events, social gatherings, and meetings, Abusharaf discovers that a national sense of common Sudanese identity emerges more strongly among immigrants in North America than it does at home. Sudanese immigrants use informal transatlantic networks to ease the immigration process, and act on the local level to help others find housing and employment. They gather for political activism, to share feasts, and to celebrate marriages, always negotiating between tradition and the challenges of their new surroundings.Abusharaf uses a combination of conversations with Sudanese friends, interviews, and life histories to portray several groups among the Sudanese immigrant population: Southern war refugees, including the "Lost Boys of Sudan," spent years in camps in Kenya or Uganda; professionals were expelled from the Gulf because their country's rulers backed Iraq in the Gulf War; Christian Copts suffered from religious persecution in Sudan; and women migrated alone.
ISBN: 0801440181Publication Date: 2002-08-23
Political Oratory and Cartooning by
Political Oratory and Cartooning An Ethnography of Democratic Processes in Madagascar "Insightful, detailed, and substantial, this book has much to say to students of language and followers of politics, not to mention those of us passionate about both and how they interact." Virginia R. Dominguez, Gutgsell Professor, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign "Why don't more people write books like this? Jennifer Jackson's brilliant insights on Malagasy cartooning, oratory, and political culture are not only a breath of fresh air for the anthropological study of political language, but a genuinely creative contribution to the study of global democracy." David Graeber, Goldsmiths, University of London Called kabary in the island nation of Madagascar, political oratory jostles with political cartoon satire in competing for public attention and shaping opinion. The apparent simplicity of these modes of political commentary conceals nuanced subtleties, which inform the constantly evolving landscape of politics. Linguistic anthropologist Jennifer Jackson offers an original semiotic analysis of the formative social role played by these narratives in Madagascar's polity. Though political orators and cartoonists rarely come face to face, their linguistic skirmishing both reflects and informs the political process, deploying rhetorical devices that have significant impacts on the vernacular political culture, its language and publics. This new ethnography examines the dynamic interplay between past and new forms of oratory and satire and their effects in social, religious, class, and transnational contexts. Jackson assesses how far they mirror the vicissitudes of political agency and authority, especially under the leadership of President Marc Ravalomanana. The author shows how democracy must be understood as historically contingent, bound in a local and global accretion of social and economic relations, and always mediated by language.
ISBN: 9781118314432Publication Date: 2012-12-13
Librarian
UNC Writing Center
What makes a good research question?
Handout from Duke University's Thompson Writing Program. Has good guidelines and examples of research questions in the humanities and social sciences.
Interlibrary Loan
Can't find the article, book, or report you need at our library? You can request it from another library through interlibrary loan.
Citing
MLA is the primary citation style used in the Humanities.
MLA Style Resources
- MLA Style Center
- MLA Style Guide from OWL the Purdue Online Writing Lab
- MLA Format (8th Ed.) Complete guide from EasyBib, a free online citation generator