Malmö University Publications
Change search
CiteExportLink to record
Permanent link

Direct link
Cite
Citation style
  • apa
  • ieee
  • modern-language-association-8th-edition
  • vancouver
  • Other style
More styles
Language
  • de-DE
  • en-GB
  • en-US
  • fi-FI
  • nn-NO
  • nn-NB
  • sv-SE
  • Other locale
More languages
Output format
  • html
  • text
  • asciidoc
  • rtf
Writing and Methodology: Literary Texts as Ethnographic Datra and Creative Writing as a Means oif Investigation
Malmö högskola, Faculty of Culture and Society (KS), School of Arts and Communication (K3).ORCID iD: 0000-0001-9076-4730
2016 (English)In: Methodological Reflections on Researching Communication and Social Change / [ed] Norbert Wildermuth, Teke Ngomba, Palgrave Macmillan, 2016, p. 161-182Chapter in book (Refereed)
Abstract [en]

The chapter will discuss the relation between writing and ethnography from two radically different perspectives. Firstly, writing as method. In academic research, the writing process is often regarded as merely a means of conveying results, and ”good writing” is even met with suspicion. Drawing from my own experience of both literary, journalistic and academic writing I will discuss the interrelations between these three writing practices, with specific focus on creative forms of academic writing and even the deployment of fictional elements in ethnographic research. Examples will be taken from the extensive discussion on the relation between Literature and Anthropology after Anthropology’s “literary turn” in the 1980s, which has implications for many other disciplines, not least Media and Communication studies. I will argue that writing itself constitutes a methodology that is under-researched in the context of Communication for Development. The second part of the chapter will ”turn the tables” and look at literary texts (books, films or other formats) as ethnographic data. Again, primarily founding my argument on my research in South Africa and Argentina, I will claim that literature may hold key information about processes of development and social change that cannot be assessed by other means. I will specifically focus on the notion of the conceptual repertoire (Appadurai) and fiction’s role in the production of collective memory and self-understanding.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Palgrave Macmillan, 2016. p. 161-182
Series
Palgrave Studies in Communication for Social Change, ISSN 2634-6397, E-ISSN 2634-6400
Keywords [en]
Writing, Ethnography, Literature, Anthropology
National Category
Social Anthropology
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:mau:diva-9334DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-40466-0_9ISI: 000401622500009Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-85178153036Local ID: 21968ISBN: 978-3-319-40465-3 (print)ISBN: 978-3-319-40466-0 (print)OAI: oai:DiVA.org:mau-9334DiVA, id: diva2:1406366
Available from: 2020-02-28 Created: 2020-02-28 Last updated: 2025-01-30Bibliographically approved

Open Access in DiVA

fulltext(394 kB)507 downloads
File information
File name FULLTEXT01.pdfFile size 394 kBChecksum SHA-512
535dc3c8973ddd4b10c29f050156d479081944ea98bf5325b6fc9555a9eb2da8a7b8c8b32df69176e734e93ac22c838f6bebb7fd014f88c1b5990b840391865f
Type fulltextMimetype application/pdf

Other links

Publisher's full textScopus

Authority records

Hemer, Oscar

Search in DiVA

By author/editor
Hemer, Oscar
By organisation
School of Arts and Communication (K3)
Social Anthropology

Search outside of DiVA

GoogleGoogle Scholar
Total: 509 downloads
The number of downloads is the sum of all downloads of full texts. It may include eg previous versions that are now no longer available

doi
isbn
urn-nbn

Altmetric score

doi
isbn
urn-nbn
Total: 197 hits
CiteExportLink to record
Permanent link

Direct link
Cite
Citation style
  • apa
  • ieee
  • modern-language-association-8th-edition
  • vancouver
  • Other style
More styles
Language
  • de-DE
  • en-GB
  • en-US
  • fi-FI
  • nn-NO
  • nn-NB
  • sv-SE
  • Other locale
More languages
Output format
  • html
  • text
  • asciidoc
  • rtf