Returning Home: Life Histories and the Native Community

Margaret B. Blackman | Department of Anthropology SUNY College at Brockport

Abstract Early life histories were written with little consideration of the native community as audience. Today's life histories make their way back to the native communities where they are sold to locals and tourists, absorbed into the school or community library, and even read. Publication of two life histories of Native American women invites reflection on how these books have been "read" in their native communities and their impact on their narrators and on native-initiated life-history research in these same communities. These works also raise the issue of whether anthropologist authors can write life histories for a culturally diverse audience or whether we must present life stories differently to the multiple audiences our works now address. (Life history interviewing and editing; issues of cultural representation; cross-cultural communication)

Published online: 04 August 2015
https://doi.org/10.1075/jnlh.2.1.06ret

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Cited by

Cited by 1 other publications

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This list is based on CrossRef data as of 05 february 2021. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.