Shadows In The Field Pdf -

At its core, Shadows in the Field is a critical intervention. Traditional ethnomusicology, with roots in 19th-century comparative musicology, often presented fieldwork as a heroic, objective extraction of data: the lone (usually Western) scholar travels to an exotic village, documents the "authentic" music, and returns home to write the definitive account.

Slobin deconstructs the grammar of writing. He asks why ethnographers always write in the past tense ("They sang ...") as if the culture has vanished. This chapter forces you to rethink how you write your own research notes. shadows in the field pdf