The Ethnographic Self As Resource

It is commonly acknowledged that anthropologists use personal experiences to inform their writing. However, it is often assumed that only fieldwork experiences are relevant, and that the personal appears only in the form of self-reflexivity. This book takes a step forward from anthropology at home and auto-ethnography and shows how anthropologists can include their memories and experiences as ethnographic data in their writing. It discusses issues such as authenticity, translation, and ethics, as well as the self and offers a new perspective on doing ethnographic fieldwork.

Peter Collins received his PhD in Social Anthropology from the University of Manchester in 1994 and is currently Senior Lecturer in the Department of Anthropology at Durham University. He was previously a Lecturer in Development Studies at the University of Manchester. He is the author of numerous articles, and his primary research interests are religion, space and place, narrative theory and qualitative methods.
Anselma Gallinat received a PhD in Social Anthropology from the University of Durham in 2002 and has worked as a Research Assistant and Associate on applied projects. She is currently a Lecturer in Sociology at Newcastle University (UK). She has worked on questions of sociocultural change, narrative, identity, and most recently memory and morality in eastern Germany.