Out of the shadows of history and memory

Personal family narratives in ethnographies of rediscovery

Bibliographic Data

ID7572607
AuthorsA Waterston (0000-0002-6750-7610, John Jay College of Criminal Justice), Barbara Rylko‐bauer (Michigan State University), Barbara Rylko-Bauer
Year2006
Volume33
Issue3
Pages397-412
Publication date2006-08-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueAmerican Ethnologist (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0094-0496 • E-ISSN: 1548-1425
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1525/ae.2006.33.3.397
OpenAlexW2042595263
LanguageEN
Citations received46
References cited32

Shadows are often places of hiding, ephemeral or blurred, and they also soften that which appears stark or unbearable in the light. This article is grounded in dialogues that revolve around shadows: between the two author–anthropologists, each reconstructing a parent's story, situating it in history and political economy; and between each daughter and her parent. Both parents have witnessed some of the 20th century's major upheavals and social processes—war, fascism, the Holocaust, revolution, migration, and exile. This article focuses on epistemological, emotional, methodological, and ethical issues in doing "intimate ethnography," a term coined by the authors. Through the process of examining similarities and differences in their respective ethnographies, the authors bring into sharper focus the roles of emotion, subjectivity, truthfulness, and positionality in ethnographic work

Aesthetics · Art · Ephemeral key · Epistemology · Ethnography · Literature · Narrative · Political science · Politics · Psychoanalysis · Sociology · Subjectivity · The Holocaust · Anthropology · Anthropology: Ethics, History, Culture · Gender Studies · Law · Oral History, Memory, Narrative Analysis · Philosophy · Psychology · Qualitative Research Methods and Ethics

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