Telling stories, screening lives: notes towards an anthropological biography

Abstract

Anthropological work that focuses on individual lives, what Zeitlyn calls a ‘sample of one’ (Zeitlyn, 2008, Social Anthropology, 16, 154), has long hovered on the edge of disciplinary respectability. At best it is viewed as a fieldwork methodology, a way of collecting data; at worst, a kind of popularisation. This essay is a response to an emerging interest in anthropological biography. Drawing on the rich history of innovative work with individuals, it presents an argument for taking seriously ‘person‐centered ethnography’ (Langness and Frank 1981). Through a juxtaposition of classic texts and films, the paper articulates a case for recognising person‐centred ethnography as an unusually generative anthropological form, offering a critical context for the development of contemporary practice. Finally, in seeking to distinguish what might constitute anthropological biography as a particular mode of inquiry, I propose a realignment of the life‐writing project with humanistically oriented work in biographical studies.

Retrato de uma vida em comunidade: o relato de si ante a duas modalidades de desenvolvimento

“…Importa ressaltar que não pretendo, portanto, reconstruir a vida nem inventariar a biografia. O procedimento buscado é parcialmente inspirado no que propôs Grimshaw (2020), particularmente diferenciando a história de vida do retrato, por sua vez retomando as indicações fornecidas por Crapanzano (1980). Retrato pode ser considerado resultado de um encontro entre pesquisador e pesquisado.…”

‘We Were all Italian!’: The construction of a ‘sense of Italianness’ among Jews from Libya (1920s–1960s)

“…How it unfolds across generations reveals the 'porosity of temporal boundaries' (Paulicelli 2015, 5) across the colonial and postcolonial. Here, a sense of Italiannessas I suggest to term itstands for a more individualized perspective (Grimshaw 2020) that enables us to understand Italianness 'from within' (Little 1980), 'as a series of interacting points of rupture and continuity rather than a series of clear breaks' (Paulicelli 2015, 5).…”