Mirrored Images: American Anthropology and American Culture, 1960-1980

(Hardback)

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Fieldwork has long been seen as central to anthropology as a critical source of ethnographic data and analytic insight. In the late 1970s, earlier assumptions about fieldwork method and epistemological grounding were challenged in so-called reflexive ethnographies. These ethnographies, specifically focused on the field project, were part of the general interpretive turn in American social science which itself was concurrent with the turmoil in American society in the late 1960s. This work reflects on the reflexive ethnographies, their method, intention, and claims, and situates them as incipient postmodern anthropological practice, as well as linking them to the American context of their production. Trencher examines American intellectual, political, and economic contexts from 1960 to 1980, as reconstructed through disciplinary and professional sources in Anthropology. This cultural context is then linked to changes in American ethnographic practice. Selected works are analyzed as cultural productions, the form and content of which was permeated by and revealed characteristically American constructs for interpreting social reality.

Reviews

"This is a most unusual book, at once a knowing and understanding history of an important aspect of anthropology...and a shrewd critique of an influential set of works.... It is clearly and engagingly written.... [S]he has applied a discerning intelligence to her analysis.... I wish we had more books and articles as well-researched and insightful as this."-Herbert S. Lewis Professor Emeritus Anthropology University of Wisconsin-Madison
"This is an illuminating study....[I]n her judicious evaluation of their work, Susan Trencher situates the members of this group in the intellectual, cultural, and anthropological contexts from which they emerged. Her book is an important contribution to the intellectual history of contemporary anthropology."-Melford E. Spiro Professor Emeritus of Anthropology University of California, San Diego

Author Bio

SUSAN R. TRENCHER is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at George Mason University./e