A Thrice-told Tale

Feminism, Postmodernism, and Ethnographic Responsibility

Author: Margery Wolf
ISBN: 0804719802

A Thrice-Told Tale is one ethnographer's imaginative and powerful response to the methodological issues raised by feminist and postmodernist critics of traditional ethnography. The author, a feminist anthropologist, uses three texts developed out of her research in Taiwan--a piece of fiction, anthropological fieldnotes, and a social science article--to explore some of these criticisms. Each text takes a different perspective, is written in a different style, and has different "outcomes," yet all three involve the same fascinating set of events. A young mother began to behave in a decidedly abherrant, perhaps suicidal manner, and opinion in her village was sharply divided over the reason. Was she becoming a shaman, posessed by a god? Was she deranged, in need of physical restraint, drugs, and hospitalization? Or was she being cynically manipulated by her ne'er-do-well husband to elicit sympathy and money from her neighbors? In the end, the woman was taken away from the area to her moth

Publisher: Stanford University Press
Publish Date: 1992

Subjects: Social Science / Feminism & Feminist Theory, Social Science / Sociology / General

This book is available in the following Community Centers: Women's Center (Location: Anthropology)