James Clifford

Bio: James Clifford is an academic researcher from University of California, Santa Cruz. The author has contributed to research in topics: Ethnography & Poetics. The author has an hindex of 23, co-authored 38 publications receiving 20891 citations.

Writing Culture: The Poetics and Politics of Ethnography

Abstract: This seminal collection of essays critiquing ethnography as literature is augmented with a new foreword by Kim Fortun, exploring the ways in which Writing Culture has changed the face of ethnography over the last 25 years.

The Predicament of Culture: Twentieth Century Ethnography, Literature, and Art

Abstract: Introduction: The Pure Products Go Crazy Part One: Discourses 1. On Ethnographic Authority 2. Power and Dialogue in Ethnography: Marcel Griaule's Initiation 3. On Ethnographic Self-Fashioning: Conrad and Malinowski Part Two: Displacements 4. On Ethnographic Surrealism 5. A Poetics of Displacement: Victor Segalen 6. Tell about Your Trip: Michel Leiris 7. A Politics of Neologism: Aime Cesaire 8. The Jardin des Plantes: Postcards Part Three: Collections 9. Histories of the Tribal and the Modern 10. On Collecting Art and Culture Part Four: Histories 11. On Orientalism 12. Identity in Mashpee References Sources Index

Routes: Travel and Translation in the Late Twentieth Century

Abstract: Prologue: In Medias Res TRAVELS Traveling Cultures A Ghost among Melanesians Spatial Practices: Fieldwork, Travel, and the Disciplining of Anthropology CONTACTS Four Northwest Coast Museums: Travel Reflections Paradise Museums as Contact Zones Palenque Log FUTURES Year of the Ram: Honolulu, February 2, 1991 Diasporas Immigrant Fort Ross Meditation Notes References Sources Acknowledgments Index

The Predicament of Culture: Twentieth-Century Ethnography, Literature, and Art.

Abstract: The Predicament of Culture is a critical ethnography of the West in its changing relations with other societies. Analyzing cultural practices such as anthropology, travel writing, collecting, and museum displays of tribal art, Clifford shows authoritative accounts of other ways of life to be contingent fictions, now actively contested in postcolonial contexts. His critique raises questions of global significance: Who has the authority to speak for any group's identity and authenticity? What are the essential elements and boundaries of a culture? How do self and \"the other\" clash in the encounters of ethnography, travel, and modern interethnic relations? In discussions of ethnography, surrealism, museums, and emergent tribal arts, Clifford probes the late-twentieth century predicament of living simultaneously within, between, and after culture.

Qualitative methods for health research

Abstract: Qualitative methods for health research , Qualitative methods for health research , کتابخانه مرکزی دانشگاه علوم پزشکی تهران

Sorting Things Out: Classification and Its Consequences

Abstract: What do a seventeenth-century mortality table (whose causes of death include "fainted in a bath," "frighted," and "itch"); the identification of South Africans during apartheid as European, Asian, colored, or black; and the separation of machine- from hand-washables have in common? All are examples of classification -- the scaffolding of information infrastructures. In Sorting Things Out, Geoffrey C. Bowker and Susan Leigh Star explore the role of categories and standards in shaping the modern world. In a clear and lively style, they investigate a variety of classification systems, including the International Classification of Diseases, the Nursing Interventions Classification, race classification under apartheid in South Africa, and the classification of viruses and of tuberculosis. The authors emphasize the role of invisibility in the process by which classification orders human interaction. They examine how categories are made and kept invisible, and how people can change this invisibility when necessary. They also explore systems of classification as part of the built information environment. Much as an urban historian would review highway permits and zoning decisions to tell a city's story, the authors review archives of classification design to understand how decisions have been made. Sorting Things Out has a moral agenda, for each standard and category valorizes some point of view and silences another. Standards and classifications produce advantage or suffering. Jobs are made and lost; some regions benefit at the expense of others. How these choices are made and how we think about that process are at the moral and political core of this work. The book is an important empirical source for understanding the building of information infrastructures.

Critical questions for big data

Abstract: The era of Big Data has begun. Computer scientists, physicists, economists, mathematicians, political scientists, bio-informaticists, sociologists, and other scholars are clamoring for access to the massive quantities of information produced by and about people, things, and their interactions. Diverse groups argue about the potential benefits and costs of analyzing genetic sequences, social media interactions, health records, phone logs, government records, and other digital traces left by people. Significant questions emerge. Will large-scale search data help us create better tools, services, and public goods? Or will it usher in a new wave of privacy incursions and invasive marketing? Will data analytics help us understand online communities and political movements? Or will it be used to track protesters and suppress speech? Will it transform how we study human communication and culture, or narrow the palette of research options and alter what ‘research’ means? Given the rise of Big Data as a socio-tech...

Identity and Agency in Cultural Worlds

Abstract: Preface I. On the Shoulders of Bakhtin and Vygotsky 1. The Woman Who Climbed Up the House 2. A Practice Theory of Self and Identity II. Placing Identity and Agency 3. Figured Worlds 4. Personal Stories in Alcoholics Anonymous 5. How Figured Worlds of Romance Become Desire III. Power and Privilege 6. Positional Identities 7. The Sexual Auction Block IV. The Space of Authoring 8. Authoring Selves 9. Mental Disorder, Identity, and Professional Discourse 10. Authoring Oneself as a Woman in Nepal V. Making Worlds 11. Play Worlds, Liberatory Worlds, and Fantasy Resources 12. Making Alternate Worlds in Nepal 13. Identity in Practice Notes References Credits Index

Narrative configuration in qualitative analysis

Abstract: Narrative inquiry refers to a subset of qualitative research designs in which stories are used to describe human action. The term narrative has been employed by qualitative researchers with a variety of meanings. In the context of narrative inquiry, narrative refers to a discourse form in which events and happenings are configured into a temporal unity by means of a plot. Bruner (1985) designates two types of cognition: paradigmatic, which operates by recognizing elements as members of a category; and narrative, which operates by combining elements into an emplotted story. Narrative inquiries divide into two distinct groups based on Bruner's types of cognition. Paradigmatic‐type narrative inquiry gathers stories for its data and uses paradigmatic analytic procedures to produce taxonomies and categories out of the common elements across the database. Narrative‐type narrative inquiry gathers events and happenings as its data and uses narrative analytic procedures to produce explanatory stories.