Sarah Peters
Anthropological Methodology
Comparative Ethnography
 Mama Lola: A Vodou Priestess in Brooklyn
 Karen McCarthy Brown
 The Afterlife is Where We Come From: The Culture of
Infancy in West Africa
 Alma Gottlieb
 Performing Dreams: Discourse of Immortality Among the
Xavante of Central Brazil
 Laura R. Graham
Why These Ethnographies?
 Symbolic Approach
 Religion
 Awareness of historical influences
The Ethnographers
 Karen McCarthy Brown
 Specializes in Haitian and Religious studies
 Strong feminist and postmodern theory
 Alma Gottlieb
 Specializes in West Africa (Beng), Religious, and gender
studies
 Author of numerous books and articles
 Laura Graham
 Specalizes in Brazilian, Venezuelan and Colombian
studies(Xavante and Wayuu)
Mama Lola: A Vodou Priestess in Brooklyn
 Researched the religion of vodou, and its
practice in America and Haiti
 The life of one woman: Alourdes (Mama
Lola)
 Active Listening
Participant
Observation
 Unique relationship with informant
 Organization of ethnography
The Afterlife is Where We Come From:
The Culture of Infancy in West Africa
 Explores the Beng belief that babies have
recently returned from wrugbe, the
afterlife
 Compares infant care in Bengland to
America
 Historical understanding of Beng’s current
situation
 Participant Observation, formal and
informal interviewing
Performing Dreams:
Discourses of Immortality Among the
Xavante of Central Brazil
 Examines and explains the communicative
techniques of the Xavante
 History, legends, stories, dreams
 10 years of research
 Very little discussion of personal
reactions– traditional ethnography
What is Significant about them?
 These three ethnographies are all significant in a variety
of ways
 Understudied topics
 Vodou
 Beng
 Infant culture/children
 Specific topics
 Religion/Communicative techniques
Comparing Their Methodology
 These three ethnographies use similar techniques
 Active Listening
 Participant Observation
 interviews
 Different questions; different results
 Each used methodological techniques suited to the
information they were seeking
How Successful Were They?
 Success?
 Variation on type of information being sought/informants
needed
 Brown
 Graham
 Gottlieb
How Does this Apply to Class?
 No two (or three) fieldwork experiences are the same
 Different ways of approaching symbolic aspects of culture
 Different interpretations
 Different presentation
 From Grahams traditional “objective” ethnography as
compared to Brown’s “subjective” and fictional accounts
Conclusion
 These three ethnographies utilized the symbolic approach
in a variety of ways
 Ultimately each was successful with her research and
presentation
 Inclusion and understanding of the past’s influence on the
present and non-isolated societies
Bibliography

Brown, Karen McCarthy
1991 Mama Lola: A Vodou Priestess in Brooklyn. Berkley and Los Angeles: University of California Press

Clifford, James
1990 Notes on (Field)notes, Fieldnotes: the Makings of Anthropology. Ed. Roger Sanjek. Itthica: Cornell University Press

Ford Foundation,
2007 “Religion and Culture, Meeting the Challenge of Pluralism: Karen McCarthy Brown” [internet], Available from
<http://religionandpluralism.org/KarenMcCarthyBrown.htm> [accessed May 1, 2011]

Gottlieb, Alma
2004 The Afterlife is Where We Come From: The Culture of Infancy in West Africa. Chicago: University of Chicago Press

Graham, Laura R.
1995 Performing Dreams: Discourse of Immortality Among the Xavante of Central Brazil. Austin: University of Texas Press

Larean, Annette, Shultz, Jeffrey, Krieger, Susan.
1996 “Beyond Subjectivity”, Krieger, Susan, Journeys Through Ethnography: Realistic Accounts of Fielwork. Westview Press: Boulder

University of Illlinois,
2011 “Dr. Alma Gottlieb” [internet], Available from <http://www.anthro.illinois.edu/people/ajgottli> [accessed April 28, 2011]

University of Iowa
2007 “Department of Anthropology: Laura R. Graham” [internet]. Available from <http://www.uiowa.edu/~anthro/graham.shtml> [accessed
May 1, 2011]

Wolf, Diane L, Ed
1996 Feminist Dilemmas in Fieldwork. Boulder, Westview Press, Inc.
Thank you!
Any Questions?