Programme

The teaching is an introduction to ethnography as a practice and theory of the description of social and cultural phenomena. The first part will focus on field research through a historical examination of the methods and reflection on them: from the expeditions season, to participatory observation, to the most recent and innovative forms. A second part will focus on ethnography as a space for reflection on the narrative strategies put in place in the human and social sciences, thus providing critical awareness around discursive rhetoric and ethnographic writing. Particular attention will be paid to the construction of the research question, the identification of the object of analysis, its empirical development, the role and relationship with the informants, the questions that ethnography formulates and the answers it provides, through its specific modalities. Classroom readings and presentations of classical and more recent anthropological ethnographies will provide an overview of the potential of the approach.

Core Documentation

Testi d’esame:
Piasere, L., L'etnografo imperfetto. Esperienza e cognizione in antropologia, Laterza 2002.

Più un testo a scelta tra i seguenti:
Abu-Lughod, L., Sentimenti velati. Onore e poesia in una società beduina, Bollati Boringhieri, 2004.
Bourgois, P., Cercando rispetto. Drug economy e cultura di strada, Derive Approdi, 2005.
Crapanzano V., Tuhami. Ritratto di un uomo del Marocco, Meltemi, 1995.
Griaule, M., Dio d’acqua. Incontri con Ogotemmeli, Bollati Boringhieri 2002.
Malinowski, B. Argonauti del Pacifico Occidentale. Bollati Boringhieri, 2011.
Mead M., L’adolescenza a Samoa, Giunti, 2007.
Shostack, M., Nisa. La vita e le parole di una donna!Kung, Meltemi, 2017.
Tsing Lowenhaupt, A. Il fungo alla fine del mondo. La possibilità di vivere nelle rovine del capitalismo. Keller, 2021.

For those attending, it is possible to replace the text of your choice with 4 essays (which the teacher will make available to the students during the course) of which one or two will be chosen and presented by the attending student and discussed collegially in class, from the following texts (see "bibliografia di riferimento").

Non attending students will add 2 chapters from:
Fabietti, U. (a cura di), Etnografia e culture. Antropologi, informatori e politiche dell’identità, Carocci, 2001.

Type of delivery of the course

Students involvement is particularly welcome through critical remarks and comments, starting from specific case studies and the literature. In order to involve students frontal teaching and collegial discussions will alternate. Articles and essays to read and comment together will be shared during classes. Students' participation will be evaluated for the grade of the final exam. Classes will be held in the classroom with the possibility of following remotely on Teams. They will not be recorded.

Type of evaluation

Students' participation will contribute to the mark of the final exam.