AAAD 214 : Ethnography of Africa
What is an Ethnography?
This course guide will help you find an ethnographic monograph on a particular African ethnic group or on an issue relevant to African Studies. This guide will get you started on your analytic paper.
"Ethnography is the recording and analysis of a culture or society, usually based on participant-observation and resulting in a written account of a people, place or institution".
Traditionally, ethnographies have focused on a particular group of people, such as The Nuer, or The San in Namibia but ethnographies can also focus on a particular aspect of contemporary society such as the meaning of a national headdress, tattooing, cooking rituals, social media, or fans of UNC basketball.
The concept of ethnography originated within social anthropology and provided in-depth case studies that served to inform and educate about global cultures and issues. Even if the case study is on a particular aspect of a society, anthropologists will place the study in a broader context providing a deep and nuanced account.
Source: https://www.discoveranthropology.org.uk
Where are Ethnographies located in the library?
- Ethnographies are not always easy to find in the library or the library catalog. There is not one section of ethnographies because the word 'Ethnography' is not a Library of Congress subject heading (the classification system Davis Library and a lot of other academic libraries use).
- Ethnographies are found in different locations of the library depending on the call number or classification of the ethic group, cultural aspect or geographic area of your research.
- In order to find ethnographies you will have to use the library catalog and probably perform several different search strategies.
Searching and finding Ethnographies in the library catalog
Tips for searching the library catalog:
- Most ethnographies do not have the word ethnography in the title. Try to identify the correct name of the ethnic group or cultural aspect you are researching instead and perform a keyword search. A keyword search of an ethnic group will not automatically result in ethnographies. You will find a lot of books about that group but you will have to decide by looking at book reviews, the introduction, the summary or methodology section of the book whether it is an ethnography.
- Ethnographies can often be found under the subject heading Social Life and Customs. Try a search in the catalog using social life and customs and the name of an ethnic group. Example: Yoruba social life and customs.
- Try searching the name of the group or subject in combination with the subheading "case studies". Not all case studies are ethnographies.
- Search with the group name or subject and the subheading "ethnology".
- Try a keyword search that combines the name of the ethnic group and the cultural aspect that you want to research.
- Another search strategy might be to identify an anthropologist. Search the catalog by his or her name as an author and see if they have published any ethnographies.
- Try searching ethnographic journals for book reviews, for example American Ethnologist.
Useful subject headings
Subject headings in combination with an ethnic group or cultural aspect:
- Case studies
- Ethnology
- Folklore
- Public health
- Climate changes
- Economic aspects
Useful Titles
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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 -
Akamba in British East Africa by ISBN: 9780837126258Publication Date: 1988-01-01 -
Anthropological Report on the Ibo-Speaking Peoples of Nigeria by This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.ISBN: 9781012189617Publication Date: 2019-04-04 -
Ashanti by ISBN: 0837122015Publication Date: 1971-09-30 -
Dancing Skeletons by ISBN: 9781478607588Publication Date: 2013-09-01 -
Ethnographies of Uncertainty in Africa by This collection explores the productive potential of uncertainty for people living in Africa as well as for scholars of Africa. Eight ethnographic case studies from across the continent examine how uncertainty is used to negotiate insecurity, create and conduct relationships, and act as a source for imagining the future.ISBN: 9781137350831Publication Date: 2014-11-03 -
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 -
The Life of a South African Tribe by ISBN: 9781340203696Publication Date: 2015-08-24 -
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 -
Marriage Without Borders by In popular songs, televised media, news outlets, and online venues, a jabaaru immigré ("a migrant's wife") may be depicted as an opportunistic gold-digger, a forsaken lonely heart, or a naïve dupe. Her migrant husband also faces multiple representations as profligate womanizer, conquering hero, heartless enslaver, and exploited workhorse. These depictions point to fluctuating understandings of gender, status, and power in Senegalese society and reflect an acute uneasiness within this coastal West African nation that has seen an exodus in the past thirty-five years, as more men and women migrate out of Senegal in hope of a better financial future. Marriage Without Borders is a multi-sited study of Senegalese migration and marriage that showcases contemporary changes in kinship practices across the globe engendered by the neoliberal demand for mobility and flexibility. Based on ten years of ethnographic research in both Europe and Senegal, the book examines a particular social outcome of economic globalization: transnational marriages between Senegalese migrant men living in Europe and women at home in Senegal. These marriages have grown exponentially among the Senegalese, as economic and social possibilities within the country have steadily declined. More and more, building successful social lives within Senegal seems to require reaching outside the country, through either migration or marriage to a migrant. New kinds of affective connection, and disconnection, arise as Senegalese men and women reshape existing conceptions of spousal responsibility, filial duty, Islamic piety, and familial care. Dinah Hannaford connects these Senegalese transnational marriages to the broader pattern of flexible kinship arrangements emerging across the global south, arguing that neoliberal globalization and its imperative for mobility extend deep into the family and the heart and stretch relationships across borders.ISBN: 9780812249347Publication Date: 2017-06-28 -
Medicine in the Meantime by In Mozambique, where more than half of the national health care budget comes from foreign donors, NGOs and global health research projects have facilitated a dramatic expansion of medical services. At once temporary and unfolding over decades, these projects also enact deeply divergent understandings of what care means and who does it. In Medicine in the Meantime, Ramah McKay follows two medical projects in Mozambique through the day-to-day lives of patients and health care providers, showing how transnational medical resources and infrastructures give rise to diverse possibilities for work and care amid constraint. Paying careful attention to the specific postcolonial and postsocialist context of Mozambique, McKay considers how the presence of NGOs and the governing logics of the global health economy have transformed the relations--between and within bodies, medical technologies, friends, kin, and organizations--that care requires and how such transformations pose new challenges for ethnographic analysis and critique.ISBN: 9780822370109Publication Date: 2018-01-12 -
Monique and the Mango Rains by "Monique and the Mango Rains is the compelling story of a rare friendship between a young Peace Corps volunteer and a midwife who became a legend. Monique Dembele saved lives and dispensed hope in a place where childbirth is a life-and-death matter. This book tells of her unquenchable passion to better the lives of women and children in the face of poverty, unhappy marriages, and endless backbreaking work. Monique's buoyant humor and willingness to defy tradition were uniquely hers. In the course of this deeply personal narrative, as readers immerse themselves in the rhythms of West African village life, they come to know Monique as friend, mother, and inspired woman."--BOOK JACKET.ISBN: 9781577664352Publication Date: 2006-09-01 -
Music, Culture, and the Politics of Health by This book is an ethnographic study of a HIV/AIDS choir who use music to articulate their individual and collective experiences of the disease. The study interrogates as to understand the bigger picture of HIV/AIDS using the approach of microanalysis of music event. It places the choir, and the cultural and political issues addressed in their music in the broader context of South Africa's public health and political history, and the global culture and politics of AIDS.ISBN: 9781498510103Publication Date: 2016-08-03 -
Neoliberal Frontiers by In Neoliberal Frontiers, Brenda Chalfin presents an ethnographic examination of the day-to-day practices of the officials of Ghana's Customs Service, exploring the impact of neoliberal restructuring and integration into the global economy on Ghanaian sovereignty. From the revealing vantage point of the Customs office, Chalfin discovers a fascinating inversion of our assumptions about neoliberal transformation: bureaucrats and local functionaries, government offices, checkpoints, and registries are typically held to be the targets of reform, but Chalfin finds that these figures and sites of authority act as the engine for changes in state sovereignty. Ghana has served as a model of reform for the neoliberal establishment, making it an ideal site for Chalfin to explore why the restructuring of a state on the global periphery portends shifts that occur in all corners of the world. At once a foray into international political economy, politics, and political anthropology, Neoliberal Frontiers is an innovative interdisciplinary leap forward for ethnographic writing, as well as an eloquent addition to the literature on postcolonial Africa.ISBN: 9780226100593Publication Date: 2010-07-15 -
The Nuer by ISBN: 9781179585093Publication Date: 2011-09-01 -
Remotely Global by At first glance, the remote villages of the Kabre people of northern Togo appear to have all the trappings of a classic "out of the way" African culture--subsistence farming, straw-roofed houses, and rituals to the spirits and ancestors. Arguing that village life is in fact an effect of the modern and the global, Charles Piot suggests that Kabre culture is shaped as much by colonial and postcolonial history as by anything "indigenous" or local. Through analyses of everyday and ceremonial social practices, Piot illustrates the intertwining of modernity with tradition and of the local with the national and global. In a striking example of the appropriation of tradition by the state, Togo's Kabre president regularly flies to the region in his helicopter to witness male initiation ceremonies. Confounding both anthropological theorizations and the State Department's stereotyped images of African village life, Remotely Global aims to rethink Euroamerican theories that fail to come to terms with the fluidity of everyday relations in a society where persons and things are forever in motion.ISBN: 9780226669694Publication Date: 1999-10-15 -
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 -
Making and Unmaking Public Health in Africa by "This volume contributes significantly to the rapidly developing scholarship of public health and global health in African contexts, considered either as a collection of excellent chapters or taken as the sum of its parts..." --Social History of Medicine This volume explores how medical professionals and patients, government officials, and ordinary citizens approach questions of public health as they navigate contemporary landscapes of NGOs and transnational projects, faltering state services, and expanding privatization. Its contributors analyze the relations between the public and the private providers of public health, from the state to new global biopolitical formations of political institutions, markets, human populations, and health. Tensions and ambiguities animate these complex relationships, suggesting that the question of what public health actually is in Africa cannot be taken for granted. Offering historical and ethnographic analyses, the volume develops an anthropology of public health in Africa.Contributors: P. Wenzel Geissler; Murray Last; Rebecca Marsl∧ Lotte Meinert; Benson A. Mulemi; Ruth J. Prince; and Noemi Tousignant.ISBN: 9780821420584Publication Date: 2013-11-26
Series of ethnographies
Reference works
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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 -
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
Librarian
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Contact:
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Databases
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Anthropology PlusProvides citations and links to journal articles, reports, and commentaries for the fields of social, cultural, physical, biological and linguistic anthropology; also for ethnology, archaeology, folklore and material culture.
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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.
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ARTstorA digital library of over 2 million images and media files covering the arts, architecture, humanities, social sciences, and sciences with tools for teaching, research and study. See ARTstor's complete list of available collections. Anyone can browse ARTstor collections using a computer on UNC campus. In order to view full size images and download or save content, however, you must first register for an ARTstor user account. For more information, see the library's ARTstor guide.
Ethnographic Films
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Ethnographic Video OnlineWatch full length documentary and educational ethnographic films online. The database is designed to use the films specifically for teaching and research and includes Study Guides, filmmaker biographies, interviews, release notes, etc. alongside many of the titles. Geographic and cultural group browses allow users to highlight sections of a map to find result sets, and searchable transcripts scroll with the films.
Note: Click and play.
- Last Updated: Aug 27, 2020 3:35 PM
- URL: https://guides.lib.unc.edu/Ethnographies
