CASCA 2014 CFP: Storytelling and the Imagination: Ethnographic Experiments

Storytelling and the Imagination: Ethnographic Experiments

In spite of the postmodern narrative turn in the 1990s and a
disciplinary commitment to "blurred genres," anthropology has remained
relatively conservative in representational strategies (Geertz 1988).
Although there is an impressive growing body of work (e.g. Behar 1993,
1996, 2007; Ghodsee 2011; Gottleib and Graham 2012; Jackson 1986,
2012; Narayan 2007; Rosaldo 2013; Stoller 1989, 1997, 1999),
experiments in ethnographic novels, memoirs, performances, and
creative nonfiction remain marginal to the larger field. This session
will offer anthropologists an opportunity to join invited Canadian
writer Camilla Gibb (trained as an anthropologist) in a session
showcasing imaginative ethnographic experiments in writing and
storytelling. Ethnographic papers in this session may include the
poetic, the dramatic, historical, magical, visual, or fictional on a
range of empirical studies. This session aims to "unsettle"
traditional ethnographic writing and reimagine the anthropologist as
artist/writer.

Organizer: Denielle Elliott

If you are interested, please submit abstracts before January 26 to
dae@yorku.ca

More information on CASCA 2014:
http://casca2014.apps01.yorku.ca/

More information on Camilla Gibb:
http://www.camillagibb.ca/

More information on Imaginative ethnography:
http://imaginativeethnography.org