1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910791292903321

Autore

Howe James <1944->

Titolo

Chiefs, scribes, and ethnographers [[electronic resource] ] : Kuna culture from inside and out / / James Howe

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Austin, : University of Texas Press, 2009

ISBN

0-292-79347-2

Edizione

[1st ed.]

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (361 p.)

Collana

The William and Bettye Nowlin Series in Art, History, and Culture of the Western Hemisphere

Disciplina

305.897/83

Soggetti

Cuna Indians - Historiography

Cuna Indians - Public opinion

Cuna Indians - Social life and customs

Ethnology - Panama - Authorship

Indians in literature

Indian anthropologists - Panama

Participant observation - Panama

Public opinion - Panama

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

Introduction: Literacy, representation, and ethnography -- A flock of birds : the coming of schools and literacy -- Letters of complaint -- Representation and reply -- North American friends -- The Swedish partnership -- Collaborative ethnography -- Post-rebellion ethnography, 1925-1950 -- The ethnographic boom, 1950- -- Native ethnography -- Chapin's lament.

Sommario/riassunto

The Kuna of Panama, today one of the best known indigenous peoples of Latin America, moved over the course of the twentieth century from orality and isolation towards literacy and an active engagement with the nation and the world. Recognizing the fascination their culture has held for many outsiders, Kuna intellectuals and villagers have collaborated actively with foreign anthropologists to counter anti-Indian prejudice with positive accounts of their people, thus becoming the agents as well as subjects of ethnography. One team of chiefs and secretaries, in particular, independently produced a series of historical and cultural



texts, later published in Sweden, that today still constitute the foundation of Kuna ethnography. As a study of the political uses of literacy, of western representation and indigenous counter-representation, and of the ambivalent inter-cultural dialogue at the heart of ethnography, Chiefs, Scribes, and Ethnographers addresses key issues in contemporary anthropology. It is the story of an extended ethnographic encounter, one involving hundreds of active participants on both sides and continuing today.