168 Pages
by
Routledge
164 Pages
by
Routledge
168 Pages
by
Routledge
Also available as eBook on:
They Lie, We Lie is an attempt by an experienced fieldworker to engage recent critiques in ethnography, that is the writing of culture, made both from within anthropology and from such disciplines as cultural studies and post-colonial theory. This is necessary because there has been a polarization within anthropology between those who react dismissively to what Marshall Sahlins calls... Read more
CHAPTER ONE: LIES 1. Something spoken which is not true 2, They lie, we lie 3. Getting on with anthropology CHAPTER TWO: STRUGGLE 1. Learning experiences 2. Kasi's pre-emptive strike 3. The polite fictions of research proposals 4. Kasi throws up her defenses 5. The siege 6. My fifth column CHAPTER THREE: POWER 1. Hearts and minds 2. Colonial involvements 3. Going into the villages 4. People invisible to the state CHAPTER FOUR: ETHNICITY 1. Lelakness 2. The vanishing point 3. Foregrounding the Berawan 4. Lost tribes 5. The true Berawan 6. Keeping things in perspective CHAPTER FIVE: CLOSURE 1. Lelak 2. Throwing away the old way 3. Kasi's vanishing 4. Cultural obituaries 5. Indignities 6. Demolishing Upriver 7. Constructing Upriver People 8. No closure FOOTNOTES BIBLIOGRAPHY
Biography
Peter Metcalf has conducted research in Borneo for over two decades. He is Professor of Anthropology at the University of Virginia, USA.
"In a critically plausible and aesthetically pleasing project, Peter Metcalf addresses some major arguments against, anxieties about, and 'epistemological skepticism' toward anthropology as a whole... The argument Metcalf develops through the book is concretized in richly detailed, thick description of twenty years of ethnographic research... significantly contributes to a critically reflexive dialogue on ethnographic practices." - Anthropology and Education Quarterly
