Lalla,Barbara (Editor), Roberts,Nicole (Editor), Walcott-Hackshaw,Elizabeth (Editor), and Youssef,Valerie (Editor)
Format:
Book, Edited
Publication Date:
2013
Published:
Kingston, Jamaica: University of the West Indies Press
Location:
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
287 p., The authors consider the distinctive needs of research in Caribbean literature, language and culture and focus on honing research methods relevant to Caribbean material and with the insights of the Caribbean experience. The essays in the first part, Research Methodology, examine conceptual frames, data collection, and application and analysis of research. The second part details the research process, from proposal to proofreading. Throughout, the authors emphasize a Caribbean approach that is engaged with and aware of a range of existing theories but does not uncritically adopt external frameworks that are inadequate for a rounded Caribbean critical practice.
One of the central goals of archaeology is the definition of regional cultural succession. Since at least the 1960s, archaeology has purported to have moved beyond the strictures of Culture History, and yet the constructs of that paradigm (styles, periods, cultures) continue to be used routinely. This work aims to show that by doing so, one is still implicitly subscribing to that theoretical perspective's assumptions and biases.
For a truly cosmopolitan anthropology to come about, we need to reflect critically on the conditions of our knowledge production. Using the example of women's under-representation within anthropology, and the marginalization of the Caribbean. Argues that we need to think more about the social ground beneath our feet and recognize the differential access that anthropologists across the globe and at home have to the ongoing larger conversation that constitutes the discipline.
