Abstract
Anthropologists, in their attempt to understand the multiple life ways of human beings, have long insisted on having an emic, or insider’s point of view. Bronislaw Malinowski, whose methods were the precursor of anthropological fieldwork as now practiced, emphasized that the ethnographer’s final goal is “to grasp the native’s point of view, his relation to life, to realize his vision of his world” (1922: 25). As anthropologists who have turned our attention to the study of the mentally retarded, we attempt to remain faithful to this point of view. One of the methods we employ for this purpose is the taking of life histories.
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Whittemore, R.D., Langness, L.L., Koegel, P. (1986). The Life History Approach to Mental Retardation. In: Langness, L.L., Levine, H.G. (eds) Culture and Retardation. Culture, Illness, and Healing, vol 8. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-3711-6_1
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