Feminist Anthropology: A Reader surveys the history of feminist anthropology, a field that was inspired by the women’s movement of the late 1960s and has since emerged at the forefront of efforts to make anthropology more responsive to the concerns of disempowered people around the globe. The field has moved from a central concern with women as an unproblematic focus to the study of gender as an analytical construct.
Feminist Anthropology offers students and scholars a fascinating collection of both classic and contemporary articles, grouped to highlight key themes from the past and present. Avoiding synthetic overviews, this volume offers vibrant examples of feminist ethnographic work. The thoughtful introduction to the volume provides context and discusses the intellectual ''foremothers'' of the field, including Margaret Mead, Ruth Landes, Phyllis Kaberry, and Zora Neale Hurston. Comprised of 5 sections, each framed by a theoretical and bibliographic essay with suggestions for additional readings, this reader focuses on the ways that feminist anthropology gave rise to important new concepts in anthropology.
Author(s): Ellen Lewin
Series: Blackwell Anthologies in Social and Cultural Anthropology
Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell
Year: 2006
Language: English
Pages: 324
Feminist Anthropology......Page 1
Contents......Page 5
Acknowledgments......Page 8
Introduction......Page 13
Part I Discovering Women across Cultures......Page 51
Introduction......Page 53
1 Belief and the Problem of Women and the ‘Problem’ Revisited......Page 59
2 A Note on the Division of Labor by Sex......Page 78
3 Is Female to Male as Nature Is to Culture?......Page 84
4 The Traffic in Women: Notes on the ‘‘Political Economy’’ of Sex......Page 99
5 The Use and Abuse of Anthropology: Reflections on Feminism......Page 119
6 Toward a Unified Theory of Class, Race, and Gender......Page 141
Part II Questioning Positionality......Page 159
Introduction......Page 161
7 Writing against Culture......Page 165
8 My Best Informant’s Dress: The Erotic Equation in Fieldwork......Page 182
9 Feminist Insider Dilemmas: Constructing Ethnic Identity with......Page 198
10 Contingent Stories of Anthropology, Race, and Feminism......Page 215
Part III Confronting the USA......Page 229
Introduction......Page 231
11 Bringing the Family to Work: Women’s Culture on the Shop Floor......Page 234
12 Procreation Stories: Reproduction, Nurturance, and Procreation......Page 247
13 Ethnically Correct Dolls: Toying with the Race Industry......Page 262
14 Strategic Naturalizing: Kinship in an Infertility Clinic......Page 283
Part IV Maintaining Commitments......Page 301
Introduction......Page 303
15 Dirty Protest: Symbolic Overdetermination and Gender......Page 307
16 Women’s Rights are Human Rights: The Merging of Feminine and......Page 323
17 Searching for ‘‘Voices’’: Feminism, Anthropology,......Page 345
18 Imagining the Unborn in the Ecuadoran Andes......Page 370
Part V Interpreting Instability and Fluidity......Page 387
Introduction......Page 389
19 ‘‘Like a Mother to Them’’: Stratified Reproduction and......Page 392
20 Femininity and Flexible Labor: Fashioning Class through Gender......Page 409
21 Tombois in West Sumatra: Constructing Masculinity......Page 423
22 ‘‘What’s Identity Got to Do with It?’’: Rethinking Identity in......Page 447
Index......Page 461
