What is the ethnography’s hypothesis? What questions does the author pose and how does she or he answer those questions with the data?

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Anth 111 Introduction to Cultural Anthropology
Spring 2022, Prof. Hillary Crane
Critical Book Review Essay
One key goal for this course is that you learn to understand and critically evaluate the work of anthropologists. In this assignment, you will read an ethnography (or an ‘ethnographic monograph’) of your choosing and write an essay assessing its strengths and weaknesses by drawing on evidence from the text itself.
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Choosing the book:
Choose an ethnography that relates to an anthropological topic and area of the world that interests you. Your book should be based on ethnographic field research. Meet with your professor to discuss possible books and to get approval of your choice.
Make certain that the book you select is a full-length ethnography and not an edited volume. If you find an edited volume that you really, really want to use, you may, with permission, but it will make the assignment much more difficult.
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Reading the book:
Although this assignment is quite a bit like the Journal Article Review assignment, ethnographies are written differently, with a fair amount of detail. While reading ethnographies, you should keep the following in mind: [1]
Read for the big picture, not the small details
Ethnographies are often full of details (such as the number of houses in a village, elaborate kinship terminology, or specific proscribed actions in a ritual) that the anthropologist has recorded to present an ethnographic portrait of a community or an event. Together, these details reveal cultural themes and patterns; these themes and patterns are what you should be reading for. In this sense reading an ethnography is much like reading a novel.
Read for an understanding of the issue that occupied the anthropologist’s imagination, and not just the place being described
For example, Kondo’s Crafting Selves is an ethnography of a Japanese candy factory that describes the factory, its routine, and employees in detail. However, Kondo’s point is not just to describe these to the reader, but rather through them to understand, describe and explain how identities are multiple, gendered, and crafted in contexts of power. When reading an ethnography you should be able to see the issues the author is interested in pervading the many different parts of the ethnography.
Read for the anthropologist’s argument
What is the ethnography’s hypothesis? What questions does the author pose and how does she or he answer those questions with the data?
Read to get a glimpse of the fieldwork experience
How long was the anthropologist in the field and under what circumstances? (i.e. Was the research full-time, did she live in the community and/or with a local family? Did the researcher have full access to the community being studied or, for example, was he only allowed to talk to men in the community?) Does the anthropologist speak the local language? What kind of interactions did she or he have with the people being studied? What kind of voice does the ethnographer give to the people being described?
Writing the paper:
After reading the book, write a 6½ -8 page paper that evaluates your ethnography.
It should include:
· an introduction that lays out an argument you want to make about the book. For example:
[Following a very brief description of the book]…The author of this book attempts to sketch what it means to be a woman in a rural Russian community and approaches the subject by telling the story of one farm woman’s life, and using her story to illustrate how women’s identities are undergoing change in her culture. The author’s inclusion of elaborate quotes and personal narratives from the women being studied gives the reader a clear understanding of what it is like to be a member of that community. The author’s theoretical stance, however, is not very clearly supported by the ethnographic data and the argument gets lost amid the many contradictory perspectives presented.
· a brief summary of the book, locating it geographically and topically while also describing what questions it is trying to answer and the approach it takes. Your task in this paper is in part to assess whether or not the author met her goals. To communicate your argument to your reader, you need to explain early on what the goals and approach of the book were.
· a critique and analysis of the book. Does it meet its stated goals? Does it give you a clear sense of the community being studied? Do you feel like you know what it’s like to be a member of that community? Does the ethnographic evidence support the author’s theoretical claims? Does the book present both insider’s explanations for why they do things the way they do as well as explain cultural phenomena in terms of theory (i.e. does it present both emic and etic perspectives and explanations)? You don’t need to answer these questions directly, but they can inspire you to think of some critiques you may have of the book. Your critique can be developed in several paragraphs, each with a different topic. This should be the bulk of your paper. Any claims you make about the book should be backed with textual evidence (or lack thereof, if your critique is that the book should have included something it didn’t). Look to examples of book reviews in academic journals (like Anthropological Quarterly, American Ethnologist, or American Anthropologist) for ideas of how essays like this are often organized.[2]
· if appropriate, a comparison of the book with course materials. How are they alike and different? If they take different theoretical approaches, does one approach seem more convincing than the other? Why? If they both describe the same community, do you feel one gives you a more complete, or more nuanced picture? Why? (Don’t overemphasize this though. Only work in other course materials if the comparison helps you with your argument. On the whole, you should be evaluating the book on its own merits.)
· a conclusion that includes your overall assessment (building on the sections above)
· a bibliography and appropriate citations (e.g. Smith 2001, p. 14). You only have to reference the book you’re reading, but if you bring in any other materials, make sure you give them proper credit.

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