Joanna Davidson
Biographic Data
| ID | 3613784 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Joanna Davidson |
| GIVEN NAMES | Joanna |
| FAMILY NAME | Davidson |
| SIGNATURE | DAVIDSON J |
| AFFILIATIONS | Boston University |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 11 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 51 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 11 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2003 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2020 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
Firing the canon: A History of Women's Pioneering Role in Anthropology
In a black-and-white photograph on the cover of Andrew Bank’s Pioneers of the Field: South Africa’s Women Anthropologists, Hilda Beemer Kuper stands upright and chin forward, hands behind her back
The problem of widows
How does an ethnographer inquire about a social category that is neither named nor recognized as such? The Ejamat Jola language has no word for widow, even though more than a third of households in the Jola villages of Guinea-Bissau are occupied by women whose husbands have died. Over years of fieldwork, I have tried to explain why widows were not named or even seen by Jola villagers. Chronicling how each of my explanations was undercut by both J…
“People Insult Me – Oh My!”: Reflections on Jola Women’s Story-Songs in Rural West Africa
Jola women in Guinea-Bissau, West Africa, regularly compose short story-songs about themselves that become a kind of abbreviated anthem associated with a particular individual. Friends and neighbours all know each other's songs and often sing them while working in the rice paddies or gathered around a collective rice bowl and some palm wine after a long day's work. Usually only two lines, these story-songs encapsulate a moment or episode in each …
AFA's Live Annual Review 2017
Rice biofortification: Lessons for global science and development
Don't be fooled by the title. This book is of greater importance and broader relevance than its unfortunately narrow title would lead readers to believe. Sally Brooks, an experienced international
Of Rice and Men: Climate Change, Religion, and Personhood among the Diola of Guinea-Bissau
When Diola Christians participated in their male initiation rites despite missionary objections, the argument was framed in theological terms. But Diola actions regarding this and other religious practices can only be understood within the wider frame of ecological changes that have challenged not only their agrarian livelihoods but their very conceptions of personhood and processes of socialization. Given the decline in rain, Diola males can no …
Basket Cases and Breadbaskets: Sacred Rice and Agricultural Development in PostcolonialAfrica
Based on ethnographic research among ruralDiola inGuinea-Bissau, I provide a broad view of the history and interpenetration of rice in social, political, religious, and ecological domains, while chronicling the current difficulties of residents in this region who are no longer able to grow enough of it. These farmers' experiences are unfolding at a time of revitalized attention to agricultural development inAfrica, particularly under the auspices…
Cultivating knowledge: Development, dissemblance, and discursive contradictions among the Diola of Guinea-Bissau
Development practitioners are eager to "learn from farmers" in their efforts to address Africa's deteriorating agricultural output. But many agrarian groups, such as Diola rice cultivators in Guinea-Bissau, regulate the circulation of knowledge-whether about agriculture, household economy, or day-to-day activities. In this article, I thus problematize the assumptions that knowledge is an extractable resource, that more knowledge is better, and th…
We Work Hard: Customary Imperatives of the Diola Work Regime in the Context of Environmental and Economic Change
Hard work is a core value among Diola rice cultivators in Guinea-Bissau. This essay explores Diola attitudes toward work in the context of recent changes in their natural and social environment. It asks why Diola maintain a particular work regime even when they admit that it is not actually workingforthem. The intrinsic characteristics of wet rice cultivation, the tightly woven web of social relations involved in Diola agricultural practices, and…
American Ethnological Society
AES/SANA Joint Conference: Democracy, Disorder and Discontent, Apr 3?5, 2008, Wrightsville Beach, NC
Native birth: Identity and territory in postcolonial Guinea-Bissau, West Africa
Focusing on examples from Guinea-Bissau, this article examines recent attention to birthplace as constitutive of national identity in West African postcolonial politics. The author explores the logic of native birth as a marker of authenticity and legitimacy, particularly in light of scholarship on modernity and postcolonialism. Several explanations from various disciplinary perspectives are offered to examine why the ideological trope of identit…
Cultivating knowledge: Development, dissemblance, and discursive contradictions among the Diola of Guinea-Bissau
Development practitioners are eager to "learn from farmers" in their efforts to address Africa's deteriorating agricultural output. But many agrarian groups, such as Diola rice cultivators in Guinea-Bissau, regulate the circulation of knowledge-whether about agriculture, household economy, or day-to-day activities. In this article, I thus problematize the assumptions that knowledge is an extractable resource, that more knowledge is better, and th…
We Work Hard: Customary Imperatives of the Diola Work Regime in the Context of Environmental and Economic Change
Hard work is a core value among Diola rice cultivators in Guinea-Bissau. This essay explores Diola attitudes toward work in the context of recent changes in their natural and social environment. It asks why Diola maintain a particular work regime even when they admit that it is not actually workingforthem. The intrinsic characteristics of wet rice cultivation, the tightly woven web of social relations involved in Diola agricultural practices, and…
Basket Cases and Breadbaskets: Sacred Rice and Agricultural Development in PostcolonialAfrica
Based on ethnographic research among ruralDiola inGuinea-Bissau, I provide a broad view of the history and interpenetration of rice in social, political, religious, and ecological domains, while chronicling the current difficulties of residents in this region who are no longer able to grow enough of it. These farmers' experiences are unfolding at a time of revitalized attention to agricultural development inAfrica, particularly under the auspices…
Native birth: Identity and territory in postcolonial Guinea-Bissau, West Africa
Focusing on examples from Guinea-Bissau, this article examines recent attention to birthplace as constitutive of national identity in West African postcolonial politics. The author explores the logic of native birth as a marker of authenticity and legitimacy, particularly in light of scholarship on modernity and postcolonialism. Several explanations from various disciplinary perspectives are offered to examine why the ideological trope of identit…
Of Rice and Men: Climate Change, Religion, and Personhood among the Diola of Guinea-Bissau
When Diola Christians participated in their male initiation rites despite missionary objections, the argument was framed in theological terms. But Diola actions regarding this and other religious practices can only be understood within the wider frame of ecological changes that have challenged not only their agrarian livelihoods but their very conceptions of personhood and processes of socialization. Given the decline in rain, Diola males can no …
The problem of widows
How does an ethnographer inquire about a social category that is neither named nor recognized as such? The Ejamat Jola language has no word for widow, even though more than a third of households in the Jola villages of Guinea-Bissau are occupied by women whose husbands have died. Over years of fieldwork, I have tried to explain why widows were not named or even seen by Jola villagers. Chronicling how each of my explanations was undercut by both J…
Native birth: Identity and territory in postcolonial Guinea-Bissau, West Africa
Focusing on examples from Guinea-Bissau, this article examines recent attention to birthplace as constitutive of national identity in West African postcolonial politics. The author explores the logic of native birth as a marker of authenticity and legitimacy, particularly in light of scholarship on modernity and postcolonialism. Several explanations from various disciplinary perspectives are offered to examine why the ideological trope of identit…
American Ethnological Society
AES/SANA Joint Conference: Democracy, Disorder and Discontent, Apr 3?5, 2008, Wrightsville Beach, NC
We Work Hard: Customary Imperatives of the Diola Work Regime in the Context of Environmental and Economic Change
Hard work is a core value among Diola rice cultivators in Guinea-Bissau. This essay explores Diola attitudes toward work in the context of recent changes in their natural and social environment. It asks why Diola maintain a particular work regime even when they admit that it is not actually workingforthem. The intrinsic characteristics of wet rice cultivation, the tightly woven web of social relations involved in Diola agricultural practices, and…
Cultivating knowledge: Development, dissemblance, and discursive contradictions among the Diola of Guinea-Bissau
Development practitioners are eager to "learn from farmers" in their efforts to address Africa's deteriorating agricultural output. But many agrarian groups, such as Diola rice cultivators in Guinea-Bissau, regulate the circulation of knowledge-whether about agriculture, household economy, or day-to-day activities. In this article, I thus problematize the assumptions that knowledge is an extractable resource, that more knowledge is better, and th…
Of Rice and Men: Climate Change, Religion, and Personhood among the Diola of Guinea-Bissau
When Diola Christians participated in their male initiation rites despite missionary objections, the argument was framed in theological terms. But Diola actions regarding this and other religious practices can only be understood within the wider frame of ecological changes that have challenged not only their agrarian livelihoods but their very conceptions of personhood and processes of socialization. Given the decline in rain, Diola males can no …
Basket Cases and Breadbaskets: Sacred Rice and Agricultural Development in PostcolonialAfrica
Based on ethnographic research among ruralDiola inGuinea-Bissau, I provide a broad view of the history and interpenetration of rice in social, political, religious, and ecological domains, while chronicling the current difficulties of residents in this region who are no longer able to grow enough of it. These farmers' experiences are unfolding at a time of revitalized attention to agricultural development inAfrica, particularly under the auspices…
Rice biofortification: Lessons for global science and development
Don't be fooled by the title. This book is of greater importance and broader relevance than its unfortunately narrow title would lead readers to believe. Sally Brooks, an experienced international
AFA's Live Annual Review 2017
“People Insult Me – Oh My!”: Reflections on Jola Women’s Story-Songs in Rural West Africa
Jola women in Guinea-Bissau, West Africa, regularly compose short story-songs about themselves that become a kind of abbreviated anthem associated with a particular individual. Friends and neighbours all know each other's songs and often sing them while working in the rice paddies or gathered around a collective rice bowl and some palm wine after a long day's work. Usually only two lines, these story-songs encapsulate a moment or episode in each …
Firing the canon: A History of Women's Pioneering Role in Anthropology
In a black-and-white photograph on the cover of Andrew Bank’s Pioneers of the Field: South Africa’s Women Anthropologists, Hilda Beemer Kuper stands upright and chin forward, hands behind her back
The problem of widows
How does an ethnographer inquire about a social category that is neither named nor recognized as such? The Ejamat Jola language has no word for widow, even though more than a third of households in the Jola villages of Guinea-Bissau are occupied by women whose husbands have died. Over years of fieldwork, I have tried to explain why widows were not named or even seen by Jola villagers. Chronicling how each of my explanations was undercut by both J…
Sociology (10 works) · Anthropological Studies and Insights (7 works) · Political science (7 works) · Gender Studies (6 works) · Anthropology (5 works) · Art (5 works) · Geography (5 works) · Law (5 works) · Law (5 works) · Aesthetics (4 works)