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Article published In:
The Afterlife of the Life History
[Journal of Narrative and Life History 2:1] 1992
► pp. 61–74

Writing Life Histories From the Field

| University of Alaska-Fairbanks

Abstract This article raises issues of rendering oral narratives as text, the different needs of audiences in oral and literate settings, and how the relationship of narrator and collaborator influences the information and its presentation. Successfully addressing these issues demands that the anthropologist also consider the literary impact of the work. I conclude that the literary consideration raised in this genre of writing is basic to the most important of anthropological concerns, the cross-cultural communication of understandings. (Participant observation; life-history interviewing, editing, and narrative construction; cultural representation; writing for culturally diverse audiences)

Published online: 4 August 2015
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/jnlh.2.1.07lif
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Cited by

Cited by 2 other publications

Setel, Philip
1994. Power, "Text," and the Representation of Historical Consciousness in the Autobiography of Assefa Woldegebriel. Journal of Narrative and Life History 4:3 ► pp. 193 ff. DOI logo
Zeitlyn, David
2008. Life-history writing and the anthropological silhouette. Social Anthropology 16:2 ► pp. 154 ff. DOI logo

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