Document Type

Article

Program

Anthropology (Pitzer)

Publication Date

2006

Keywords

Ethnography, Communities, Laments

Abstract

Wilce draws our attention to the formulaic nature of anthropologists ethnographies, both considered as a distinctive genre and as inflected by larger modernist discourses of destruction and loss (which he terms neolament). His intriguing discussion of the laments that end many anthropological texts helped me to recognize similar laments that I heard when I conducted interviews in the Piedmont region of North Carolina. The latter examples raise issues about the politics of lamenting modernity and questions about what makes a lament effective.

Comments

Please note that this article and "Magical Laments and Anthropological Reflections" by James M. Wilce can also be found at http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/507195.

Rights Information

© 2006 University of Chicago Press

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