Chiefs, scribes, and ethnographers : Kuna culture from inside and out / James Howe.

Author
Howe, James, 1944- [Browse]
Format
Book
Language
English
Εdition
1st ed.
Published/​Created
Austin : University of Texas Press, 2009.
Description
1 online resource (361 p.)

Details

Subject(s)
Series
  • William & Bettye Nowlin series in art, history, and culture of the Western Hemisphere. [More in this series]
  • The William and Bettye Nowlin Series in Art, History, and Culture of the Western Hemisphere
Summary note
The Kuna of Panama, today one of the best known indigenous peoples of Latin America, moved over the course of the twentieth century from orality and isolation towards literacy and an active engagement with the nation and the world. Recognizing the fascination their culture has held for many outsiders, Kuna intellectuals and villagers have collaborated actively with foreign anthropologists to counter anti-Indian prejudice with positive accounts of their people, thus becoming the agents as well as subjects of ethnography. One team of chiefs and secretaries, in particular, independently produced a series of historical and cultural texts, later published in Sweden, that today still constitute the foundation of Kuna ethnography. As a study of the political uses of literacy, of western representation and indigenous counter-representation, and of the ambivalent inter-cultural dialogue at the heart of ethnography, Chiefs, Scribes, and Ethnographers addresses key issues in contemporary anthropology. It is the story of an extended ethnographic encounter, one involving hundreds of active participants on both sides and continuing today.
Notes
Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph
Bibliographic references
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Language note
English
Contents
  • Introduction: Literacy, representation, and ethnography
  • A flock of birds : the coming of schools and literacy
  • Letters of complaint
  • Representation and reply
  • North American friends
  • The Swedish partnership
  • Collaborative ethnography
  • Post-rebellion ethnography, 1925-1950
  • The ethnographic boom, 1950-
  • Native ethnography
  • Chapin's lament.
ISBN
0-292-79347-2
OCLC
  • 501014401
  • 1280943711
Doi
  • 10.7560/721104
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