Oscar Lewis's Mexico
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 2581674 |
|---|---|
| Authors | John Paddock (0000-0002-4950-2517, corresponding author) |
| Year | 1961 |
| Volume | 34 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 129 |
| Publication date | 1961-07-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Anthropological Quarterly (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0003-5491 • E-ISSN: 1534-1518 |
| Publisher | JSTOR (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.2307/3316672 |
| OpenAlex | W2321625372 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 5 |
| References cited | 2 |
They want to know the results, and unlike laboratory rats, they regard the findings with emotion, says Douglas G. Haring (1956:61) of the literate people among whom he worked in Amami Oshima, Ryukyu Islands. The question of imparting the results to the people studied is fundamental, he adds, in any anthropological investigation among a literate population. The forthcoming issue of a Spanish translation of Five Families brings up this question. Although Oscar Lewis has now contributed two large works (Life in a Mexican Village was the first) to the anthropology of the Americas in recent years, and although both have been important essays in method as well as major collections of observations, his work has been little discussed in print beyond the customary brief reviews of new books. Lewis is a very unusual anthropologist, and his work deserves discussion not only because of its impact in Mexico and because it might affect some Latin Americans' feelings toward North Americans, but equally because of its high quality and its iconoclasm. One day in the life of each of the five Mexican families is described-as completely as it is possible for Lewis to do. Three of the five are poor Mexico City families; one is a poor village family; and the fifth is a newly rich Mexico City one. Lewis has attempted to present them objectively, as if their actions had been recorded by an automatic sound camera and then transcribed into text. Tape recording and stenographic recording were resorted to in four of the cases; the village family's day was reconstructed from Lewis's copious field notes. Since everything that the people said and did was scrupulously noted and reported, Lewis has made a pitiless invasion of the five families' privacy (he has effectively concealed their identity, of
Political science · Sociology · History · Latin American and Latino Studies
| Unique citing works | 5 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,08 |
| Citation span | 1967 - 2015 (49) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 5 |