Feminist anthropology has been a forerunner in debates about power differentials between those observing and those being observed. This article explores how theoretical interventions made by third-wave feminists have led to revisions of the canon, particularly in the understandings of methodology (fieldwork), subject matter (culture), and ethnographic writing. It also highlights some of the problems of placing gender at the center of experience, over differences based on race, class, or sexual orientation. While some feminists have pointed to the impossibility of an ethical feminist anthropology, others have suggested that interdisciplinary ideas and linkages outside academia can lead to greater participation in public policymaking and social struggles that affect the lives of women being studied.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Abu-Lughod, Lila.1990. Can There Be a Feminist Ethnography? Women and Performance : A Journal of Feminist Theory5(1):7-27.
2.
—. 1991. Writing Women's Worlds: Bedouin StoriesBerkeley: University of California Press.
3.
Apffel-Marglin, Frederique with PRATEC.1998 . The Spirit of Regeneration: Andean Culture Confronting Western Notions of Development. London: Zed Books.
4.
Appadurai, Arjun.1988. Introduction: Place and Voice in Anthropological Theory . Cultural Anthropology3: 16-20.
5.
Beauvoir, Simone de. [1952] 1953. The Second Sex. Trans. and ed. H. M. ParshleyNew York : Knopf.
6.
Behar, Ruth.1993. Translated Woman: Crossing the Border with Esperanza's Story. Boston: Beacon Press.
7.
—. 1995. Introduction: Out of Exile. In Women Writing Culture, ed. Ruth Behar and Deborah Gordon.Berkeley: University of California Press.
8.
Behar, Ruth and Deborah Gordon , eds. 1995. Women Writing Culture. Berkeley: University of California Press.
9.
Bell, Diane, Pat Caplan, and Wazir Jahan Karim, eds. 1992 . Gendered Fields: Women, Men and Ethnography. London: Routledge.
10.
Bowen, Elenore Smith.1964. Return to Laughter. New York: Doubleday
11.
Brown, Karen McCarthy.1991. Mama Lola: A Vodou Priestess in Brooklyn. Berkeley: University of California Press.
12.
Clifford, James.1986Introduction: Partial Truths. In Writing Culture: The Poetics and Politics of Ethnography, ed. James Clifford and George Marcus.Berkeley: University of California Press.
13.
Enloe, Cynthia.1990. Bananas, Beaches and Bases: Making Feminist Sense of International Politics. Berkeley: University of California Press.
14.
Enslin, Elizabeth.1994. Beyond Writing: Feminist Practice and the Limits of Ethnography . Cultural Anthropology9(4):537-68.
15.
Friedan, Betty.1963. The Feminine Mystique. New York: Norton.
16.
Friedl, Erika.1989. Women of Deh Koh: Lives in an Iranian Village. New York: Penguin Books.
17.
Ginsberg, Faye.1989. Contested Lives: The Abortion Debate in an American Community . Berkeley: University of California Press.
18.
Golde, Peggy, ed. 1970. Women in the Field: Anthropological Experiences. Berkeley: University of California Press.
19.
Gordon, Deborah.1991. Engendering the Ethnographic Imagination. Ph.D. diss., University of California, Santa Cruz.
20.
—. 1995. Border Work: Feminist Ethnography and the Dissemination of Literacy In Women Writing Culture, ed. Ruth Behar and Deborah Gordon.Berkeley: University of California Press.
21.
Hartsock, Nancy1987. Rethinking Modernism: Minority vs. Majority Theories. Cultural Critique7(Fall): 187-206.
22.
Hurston, Zora Neal.1937. Their Eyes Were Watching God: A Novel. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott.
23.
Kingston, Maxine Hong.1976. The Woman Warrior: Memoir of a Girlhood Among Ghosts. New York: Knopf.
24.
Kondo, Dorinne.1995. Bad Girls: Theater, Women of Color, and the Politics of Representation. In Women Writing Culture, ed. Ruth Behar and Deborah Gordon.Berkeley: University of California Press.
25.
Landes, Ruth.1938. The Ojibwa Woman. New York: Columbia University Press.
26.
Lewin, Ellen.1995. Writing Lesbian Ethnography. In Women Writing Culture , ed. Ruth Behar and Deborah Gordon.Berkeley: University of California Press.
27.
Lurie, Nancy.1966. Women in Early American Anthropology. In Pioneers of American Anthropology, ed. June Helm.Seattle: University of Washington Press.
28.
Lutz, Catherine.1990. Engendered Emotion: Gender, Power, and the Rhetoric of Emotional Control in American Discourse. In Language and the Politics of Emotion, ed. Lila Abu-Lughod and Catherine Lutz.New York : Cambridge University Press.
29.
Martin, Emily.1987. The Woman in the Body: A Cultural Analysis of Reproduction . Boston: Beacon Press.
30.
Mascia-Lees, Frances, Patricia Sharpe, and Colleen Cohen.1989. The Postmodern Turn in Anthropology: Cautions from a Feminist Perspective. Signs15(1):7-33.
31.
Moraga, Cherrie and Gloria Anzaldua .1981. This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color. Watertown, MA: Persephone Press.
32.
Narayan, Kirin.1993. How Native Is a "Native" Anthropologist? American Anthropologist95(3):671-86.
33.
—. 1994. Love, Stars and All ThatNew York: Pocket Books.
34.
Ong, Aihwa.1987. Spirits of Resistance and Capitalist Discipline: Factory Women in Malaysia. Albany: State University of New York Press.
35.
Page, Helan.1988. Dialogical Principles of Interactive Learning in the Ethnographic Relationship. Journal of Anthropological Research44(2): 163-81.
36.
Rapp, Rayna, ed. 1975. Toward an Anthropology of Women. New York: Monthly Review Press.
37.
Rosaldo, Michelle.1980. The Use and Abuse of Anthropology: Reflections on Feminism and Cross-Cultural Understandings. Signs5(Spring):389-417.
38.
Rosaldo, Michelle and Louise Lamphere, eds. 1974. Women, Culture and Society . Stanford: Stanford University Press.
39.
Sanday, Peggy.1992. Fraternity Gang Rape: Sex, Brotherhood, and Privilege on Campus. New York: New York University Press.
40.
Scheper-Hughes, Nancy.1992. Death Without WeepingBerkeley: University of California Press.
41.
Shostak, Marjorie.1981. Nisa: The Life and Words of a !Kung Woman. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
42.
Sistren with Honor Ford-Smith.1987. Lionheart Gal: Lifestories of Jamaican Women. Toronto: Sister Vision.
43.
Stacey, Judith.1988. Can There Be a Feminist Ethnography? Women's Studies International Forum11(1):21-27.
44.
Strathern, Marilyn.1987. An Awkward Relationship: The Case of Feminism and Anthropology . Signs12(2):276-92.
45.
—. 1992. After Nature: English Kinship in the Late Twentieth Century . New York: Cambridge University Press.
46.
Tedlock, Barbara.1995. Works and Wives: On the Sexual Division of Textual Labor. In Women Writing Culture, ed. Ruth Behar and Deborah Gordon.Berkeley : University of California Press.
47.
Trawick, Margaret.1990. Notes on Love in a Tamil Family. Berkeley : University of California Press.
48.
Tsing, Anna Lowenhaupt.1993. In the Realm of the Diamond Queen: Marginality in an Out-of-the-Way Place. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
49.
Underhill, Ruth. [1936] 1979. Papago WomanProspect Heights, IL: Waveland.
