Reflexive Ethnographic Science [Paperback]

Robert Aunger (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0759102759 | ISBN-13: 978-0759102750 | Publication Date: November 22, 2003

Aunger proposes a solution to a fundamental debate in contemporary ethnography: the source of ethnographic authority. He advocates the method of reflexive analysis as a new way of doing ethnography and making it a more effective scientific endeavor. Reflexive Ethnographic Science constitutes a foil to those in cultural studies and related fields who deride the possibility of verifiable ethnographic representations. Aunger's new work promises to reinvigorate ethnographic research and methods by a unique combination of traditional and postmodern objectives, through the reflexive achievement of authority. He explains how reflexive analysis requires changes in standard ethnographic practice in terms of data collection, analysis, and presentation. Using this method, the author offers a case study of the food taboos in a multi-ethnic population in the Democratic Republic of Congo, which includes pygmy foragers and their horticulturalist Bantu neighbors. This book is a valuable tool for graduate level courses in ethnographic method and theory, and a key reference for researchers in the social sciences who employ interviewing, participant observation methods, and multivariate statistical models, including anthropology, sociology, and psychology.

Editorial Reviews

Review

This is an important book that questions the adequacy of current practices in ethnographic methodology with the goal of rescuing scientific cultural anthropology, both from challenges of the textualists and from the discipline's own methodological inadequacies. The author develops a thorough critique of cultural consensus analysis, one of the newer methodological approaches widely adopted by scientific cultural anthropologists. He develops the outlines of reflexive realism, drawing upon a case study of food taboos among populations in the Ituri Forest. (D. Douglas Caulkins )

This is a powerfully written book: an alternative approach to the study of culture that takes seriously the challenge of reflexivity as a mode of analysis rather than of presentation. To this end, the book is beautifully organized and well-written, and the ethnographic material presented to exemplify the argument is both fascinating and raises a whole series of interesting questions. (Douglas White )

About the Author

Robert Aunger is a lecturer at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. He was previously an affiliate lecturer in Biological Anthropology at Cambridge University. He received his Ph.D. in anthropology from the University of California, Los Angeles, and has conducted ethnographic research in central Africa. He is the editor of Darwinizing Culture: The Status of Memetics as a Science (Oxford University Press, 2001) and author of the The Electric Meme (The Free Press, 2002).

Product Details

• Paperback: 296 pages
• Publisher: Altamira Press (November 22, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0759102759
• ISBN-13: 978-0759102750
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.9 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,240,024 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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