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In this extended meditation, Jean Lave interweaves analysis of the process of apprenticeship among the Vai and Gola tailors of Liberia with reflections on the evolution of her research on those tailors in the late 1970s. In so doing, she provides both a detailed account of her apprenticeship in the art of sustained fieldwork and an insightful overview of thirty years of changes in the empirical and theoretical facets of ethnographic practice. Examining the issues she confronted in her own work, Lave shows how the critical questions raised by ethnographic research erode conventional assumptions, altering the direction of the work that follows.As ethnography takes on increasing significance to an ever widening field of thinkers on topics from education to ecology, this erudite but accessible book will be essential to anyone tackling the question of what it means to undertake critical and conceptually challenging fieldwork. Apprenticeship in Critical Ethnographic Practice explains how to seriously explore what it means to be human in a complex world—and why it is so important.
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QQSFOUJDFTIJQ JO SJUJDBM UIOPHSBQIJD SBDUJDF U I F M F X J T I F O S Z N P S H B O M F D U V S F T Í Õ Õ Ï SFTFOUFE BU IF OJWFSTJUZ PG PDIFTUFS PDIFTUFS FX PSL BQ Q S FOU J D F TIJ Q JO SJUJDBM UIOPHSBQIJD SBDUJDF J E A N L AV E The University of Chicago Press G P S F X PS E C Z IPNBT JCTPO CHICAGO AND LONDON Jean Lave is an anthropologist, now professor emerita at the University of California, Berkeley. She taught at UC Irvine from 1966 through 1988 and UC Berkeley from 1989 to 2006, and continues to teach in the Berkeley geography department. She is the author of Cognition in Practice: Mind, Mathematics, and Culture in Everyday Life (1988); coauthor of Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation (1991) and Understanding Practice (1993); and coeditor of History in Person: Enduring Struggles, Contentious Practice, Intimate Identities (2000). The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637 The University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London © 2011 by The University of Chicago All rights reserved. Published 2011. Printed in the United States of America 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 1 2 3 4 5 ISBN-13: 978-0-226-47071-9 (cloth) ISBN-13: 0-226-47072-6 (paper) ISBN-10: 0-226-47071-7 (cloth) ISBN-10: 0-226-47072-5 (paper) Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Lave, Jean. Apprenticeship in critical ethnographic practice / Jean Lave ; foreword by Thomas P. Gibson. p. cm. — (The Lewis Henry Morgan lectures ; 1993) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN-13: 978-0-226-47071-9 (hardcover : alk. paper) ISBN-13: 978-0-226-47072-6 (pbk. : alk. paper) ISBN-10: 0-226-47071-7 (hardcover : alk. paper) ISBN-10: 0-226-47072-5 (pbk. : alk. paper) (African people—Social life and customs. people)—Social life and customs. Apprentices. 1. Vai 2. Gola (African 3. Tailors—Liberia— 4. Ethnology—Liberia. I. Title. II. Series: Lewis Henry Morgan lectures ; 1993. DT630.5.V2L38 2011 331.25'922089963—dc22 2010028189 d This paper meets the requirements of ANSI/NISO F Z39.48-1992 (Permanence of Paper). IJT CPPL JT EFEJDBUFE UP UIF UBJMPST BOE UIFJS BQQSFOUJDFT JO BQQZ PSOFS DPOUFOUT PSFXPSE CZ IPNBT JCTPO ¼ JY DLOPXMFEHNFOUT ¼ YJJJ 1 OUSPEVDUJPO QQSFOUJDFTIJQ BOE SJUJDBM SBDUJDF ¼ Í 2 OTUJUVUJPOBM SSBOHFNFOUT BOE UIF OJGPSN ¼ ÏÓ 3 FDPNJOH B BJMPS ¼ ÒÑ 4 FTUJOH FBSOJOH SBOTGFS ¼ ÕÍ 5 VMUJQMZJOH JUVBUJPOT ¼ ÍÍÕ 6 FTFBSDI PO QQSFOUJDFTIJQ FT