They Lie, We Lie: Getting on with Anthropology
Title: They Lie, We Lie: Getting on with Anthropology Author: Peter Metcalf ISBN: 9780415262606 Publisher: Routledge Published: 2001 Binding: Paperback Language: English Condition: Used: Near Fine F 1639143 Publisher Description: 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 'afterology' and those who find the critiques so crippling as to make it hard to get on with anthropology at all. Metcalf bridges this divide by analyzing the contradictions of fieldwork in connection with a particular 'informant', a formidable old lady who tried for twenty years