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The Vulnerable Observer:

Anthropology That Breaks Your Heart
Front Cover
14 Reviews
Beacon Press, Nov 6, 1997 - Social Science - 208 pages
In classical anthropology, subjects of study are seen as vulnerable while their observers are instructed to remain detached and objective. Yet with the emergence during the last decade of a group of anthropologists with recognizable connections to the cultures in which they work, the lines between participant and observer, insider and outsider are no longer so easily drawn. In The Vulnerable Observer, the award-winning anthropologist Ruth Behar offers a new theory and practice for this humanistic anthropology. No longer looking over others' shoulders, she becomes one of the subjects of study as she reflects upon the observer as well as the observed. Eloquently interweaving ethnography and memoir, Ruth Behar reflects on fieldwork in Spain, Cuba, and the United States through her personal stories of loss as a young Cuban Jewish immigrant. Beginning with a poignant essay exploring the refuge she found in her fieldwork as her grandfather died, she proposes an anthropology that is lived and written in a personal voice in the hope that it will lead us toward greater depth of understanding and feeling for those about whom we write.
  

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Review: The Vulnerable Observer: Anthropology That Breaks Your Heart

User Review  - Laura - Goodreads

very good book with an interesting perspective Read full review

Review: The Vulnerable Observer: Anthropology That Breaks Your Heart

User Review  - Jennifer - Goodreads

An interesting and challenging book that I didn't always agree with, but the author grapples with hard questions about anthropology and the role of the anthropologist (and thus the role of any social ... Read full review

All 14 reviews »

Related books

Contents

The Vulnerable Observer
1
Death and Memory From Santa Maria del Monte to Miami Beach
34
My Mexican Friend Marta Who Lives across the Border from Me in Detroit
90
The Girl in the Cast
104
Going to Cuba Writing Ethnography of Diaspora Return and Despair
136
Anthropology That Breaks Your Heart
161
NOTES
178
INDEX
192
Copyright

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Doing Qualitative Research
Fieldwork
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From Google Scholar

Interpretive ethnography
Norman K Denzin - 2000 - Zeitschrift für Erziehungswissenschaft
Qualitative Inquiry
Arthur P Bochner - 2001 - Qualitative Inquiry
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References from web pages

SALON Daily Clicks | Sneak Peeks
Whether anthropology is your thing or not, Ruth Behar has issues in mind that may be too provocative to pass up. Behar, a Cuban-born Jew who teaches at the ...
www.salon.com/ sneaks/ sneakpeeks970128.html

JSTOR: The Vulnerable Observer: Anthropology that Breaks Your Heart
The Vulnerable Observer: Anthropology That Breaks Your Heart, by Ruth Behar. Boston: Beacon Press, 1996. 195 pp. $22.00 cloth. ISBN: 0-8070-4630-2. ...
links.jstor.org/ sici?sici=0094-3061(199811)27%3A6%3C668%3ATVOATB%3E2.0.CO%3B2-X

The Vulnerable Observer
T he era of the objective observer of other cultures is past, the anthropologist Ruth Behar asserts in ''The Vulnerable Observer.'' A sense of attachment to ...
www.nytimes.com/ books/ 97/ 03/ 23/ bib/ 970323.rv120521.html

Behar Publication: The Vulnerable Observer
The Vulnerable Observer: Anthropology that breaks your heart "To write vulnerably is to open a Pandora's box. Who can say what will come flying out? ...
www.edb.utexas.edu/ faculty/ scheurich/ proj8/ behar/ pub5.html

that arise from conflicting desires for both affinal and agnatic ...
8 6 2. americananthropologis T • vol . 9 9 , N o . 4 • december. 1 9 9 7. that arise from conflicting desires for both affinal and. agnatic solidarity. ...
www.blackwell-synergy.com/ doi/ pdf/ 10.1525/ aa.1997.99.4.862

Anthurium: A Caribbean Studies Journal - V4I2 - Paquet, The Vulnerable
The Vulnerable Observer: Anthropology That Breaks Your Heart. Boston: Beacon Press, 1996. Beverley, John. Testimonio: On the Politics of Truth. ...
anthurium.miami.edu/ volume_4/ issue_2/ paquet-thevulnerable.html

Anthroplogy
Ruth Behar, The Vulnerable Observer: Anthropology That Breaks Your Heart (Boston: Beacon Press, 1996). Edith Turner has written about The Vulnerable ...
www.ruthbehar.com/ Anthropology.htm

nordic journal of music therapy
Her text The Vulnerable Observer: Anthropology that Breaks your Heart (1996) provides us with richly textured landscapes that include the relationships ...
www.njmt.no/ bookreview_2006069.html

Critical Practices
Anthropology of Work. Critical Practices. Lucy Suchman. Xerox Palo Alto Research Center. I. f you are like me, you have on your shelves an abundance ...
www.anthrosource.net/ doi/ abs/ 10.1525/ awr.1999.20.1.12

UNIVERSITY OF NORTHERN BRITISH COLUMBIA
In The Vulnerable Observer: Anthropology that Breaks your Heart. Boston,. MA: Beacon Press. [UNBC Library GN346.4 B44]. OPTIONAL: ...
web.unbc.ca/ geography/ faculty/ catherine/ nres798_2005.pdf

About the author (1997)

Ruth Behar-ethnographer, essayist, editor, and poet-is professor of anthropology at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. She gained national prominence with her book Translated Woman: Crossing the Border with Esperanza's Story. Her honors include a MacArthur Fellows Award and a John Simon Guggenheim fellowship.

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