Lila Abu-Lughod was born in 1952 to sociologist, Janet Abu-Lughod and the late Palestinian academic and intellectual, Ibrahim Abu-Lughod. Abu-Lughod studied at Carleton College (1974) and Harvard University (1984) and is currently a Professor of Anthropology and Women’s and Studies at Columbia University (Institute for Middle East Understanding 2015). She is married to Timothy Mitchell, a political theorist and historian who also works at Columbia University.
According to her biography on the Columbia University Anthropology website, Abu-Lughod’s work focuses on three broad issues: (a) the relationship between cultural forms and power, (b) the politics of knowledge and representation, and (c) the dynamic of gender and the question of women’s …show more content…
Wring Women’s Worlds, which was originally published in 1993, is the collection of these narratives. The book, which is centered around Grandmother Migdim and her family members, discusses: (1) patrilineality, (2) polygyny, (3) reproduction, (4) patrilateral parallel-cousin marriage, and (5) honor and shame. Some of the key topics that are discussed by the Bedouin men and women include: differences between the roles of sons and daughters; arguments between family members; co-wives, isolation, and intimacy; rivals and fighting; raising children, midwives, and adoption; birth control and rituals and remedies; the pleasure of weddings; poems; blood of honor and sex before marriage; girls being educated; arranged marriage; marrying Egyptians and tribal bonds; and piety and order. Throughout Writing Women’s Worlds, it is evident that Abu-Lughod was influenced by several feminist, post-structuralist, and postmodernist scholars, which I will demonstrate below. Presented in the book are four major themes: (1) feminist anthropology and ethnography, (2) writing against culture, (3) rituals and symbols, and (4) orientalism and postcolonialism. In this paper, I will only discuss the first two major themes.Feminist Anthropology, Ethnography, and Writing Against CultureAbu-Lughod is a well-known feminist …show more content…
In her essay “Can There Be a Feminist Ethnography?,” Abu-Lughod (1990) explores: (1) what ethnography means, (2) the objectivity question, and (3) the crisis in anthropology and the crisis in feminism. As Abu-Lughod (1990) mentions, it is essential to define ethnography since it is ambiguous. For example, ethnography can refer as both “the activity of doing anthropological research, and more commonly, to the written results of this research, the texts or ethnographies which are now recognized as constituting a distinctive semi-literary genre” (Abu-Lughod 1990: 8-9).
This question of, what is ethnography, is common amongst feminist scholars. Before Abu-Lughod’s (1990) essay, social analyst and sociologist, Judith Stacy, asked the same question in her essay titled, “Can There Be a Feminist Ethnography?” In addition, in 1994, anthropologist Kamala Visweswaran sought to answer the question in her book, Fictions of Feminist Ethnography. Furthemore, Visweswaran presents the additional questions: Is ethnography the same as literature? What is literature? These questions would soon be taken up by anthropologist Ruth Behar in her 2009 essay, “Believing in Anthropology as Literature,” published in the book Anthropology Off the Shelf: Anthropologists on Writing. In her essay, Behar (2009) admits that she feels “part of
According to her biography on the Columbia University Anthropology website, Abu-Lughod’s work focuses on three broad issues: (a) the relationship between cultural forms and power, (b) the politics of knowledge and representation, and (c) the dynamic of gender and the question of women’s …show more content…
Wring Women’s Worlds, which was originally published in 1993, is the collection of these narratives. The book, which is centered around Grandmother Migdim and her family members, discusses: (1) patrilineality, (2) polygyny, (3) reproduction, (4) patrilateral parallel-cousin marriage, and (5) honor and shame. Some of the key topics that are discussed by the Bedouin men and women include: differences between the roles of sons and daughters; arguments between family members; co-wives, isolation, and intimacy; rivals and fighting; raising children, midwives, and adoption; birth control and rituals and remedies; the pleasure of weddings; poems; blood of honor and sex before marriage; girls being educated; arranged marriage; marrying Egyptians and tribal bonds; and piety and order. Throughout Writing Women’s Worlds, it is evident that Abu-Lughod was influenced by several feminist, post-structuralist, and postmodernist scholars, which I will demonstrate below. Presented in the book are four major themes: (1) feminist anthropology and ethnography, (2) writing against culture, (3) rituals and symbols, and (4) orientalism and postcolonialism. In this paper, I will only discuss the first two major themes.Feminist Anthropology, Ethnography, and Writing Against CultureAbu-Lughod is a well-known feminist …show more content…
In her essay “Can There Be a Feminist Ethnography?,” Abu-Lughod (1990) explores: (1) what ethnography means, (2) the objectivity question, and (3) the crisis in anthropology and the crisis in feminism. As Abu-Lughod (1990) mentions, it is essential to define ethnography since it is ambiguous. For example, ethnography can refer as both “the activity of doing anthropological research, and more commonly, to the written results of this research, the texts or ethnographies which are now recognized as constituting a distinctive semi-literary genre” (Abu-Lughod 1990: 8-9).
This question of, what is ethnography, is common amongst feminist scholars. Before Abu-Lughod’s (1990) essay, social analyst and sociologist, Judith Stacy, asked the same question in her essay titled, “Can There Be a Feminist Ethnography?” In addition, in 1994, anthropologist Kamala Visweswaran sought to answer the question in her book, Fictions of Feminist Ethnography. Furthemore, Visweswaran presents the additional questions: Is ethnography the same as literature? What is literature? These questions would soon be taken up by anthropologist Ruth Behar in her 2009 essay, “Believing in Anthropology as Literature,” published in the book Anthropology Off the Shelf: Anthropologists on Writing. In her essay, Behar (2009) admits that she feels “part of