Abstract
The chapter explores how ethnography in France—a relatively neglected scholarly practice till the late twenties—developed and was actually practiced and conceptualized during the two world wars up to the late fifties, when Marcel Griaule published his now classic Méthode de l’Ethnographie (1957), the first ethnographic handbook available in French. The chapter highlights how the idea of ethnography of Marcel Griaule was really variable and contingent, going from a documentary ethnography, to a semi dialogical and exegetical ethnography—as it emerges from the famous Conversation with Ogotemmeli—, to a new redefinition of ethnography as judiciary inquiry, as it was strongly expressed in Méthode.
The first three sections were written by Angela Biscaldi, the last three by Vincenzo Matera.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Balandier, G. (1959). Tendances de l’ethnologie Française. Cahiers internationaux de sociologie, juil-let-décembre, 27, 11–22.
Bateson, G. (1958). Naven: A Survey of the Problems Suggested by a Composite Picture of the Culture of a New Guinea Tribe Drawn from Three Points of View. Stanford University Press.
Biscaldi, A. (2019). La Serendipity dell’Antropologo nell’Epoca del Social Media. Antropologia,6(1), 185–198.
Calame-Griaule, G. (1986). Words and the Dogon World. Institute for the Study of Human Issues.
Clifford, J. G. E., & Marcus, G. E. (Eds.) (1998). Writing Culture: Poetics and Politics of Ethnography. University of California Press.
Clifford, J. (1988). The Predicament of Culture: Twentieth-Century Ethnography, Literature and Art. Harvard University Press,
Comaroff, J. (1992). Ethnography and Historical Imagination. Westview Press.
Crapanzano, V. (1995). Tuhami: Portrait of a Moroccan. University of Chicago Press.
Douglas, M. (1967). If the Dogon. Cahiers D’etudes Africaines,7(28), 659–672.
Dumont, J. P. (1978). The Headman and I: Ambiguity and Ambivalence in the Field-Working Experience. University of Arizona Press.
Dwyer, K. (1982). Moroccan Dialogues, Anthropology in Question. The Johns Hopkins University Press.
Fabietti, U. (1999). Antropologia culturale. L’esperienza e l’interpretazione. Laterza.
Fabietti, U., & Matera, V. (1997). Etnografia. Scritture e rappresentazioni dell’antropologia. Roma: Carocci.
Geertz, C. (1988). Works and Lives. Stanford University Press.
Griaule, M. (1965). Conversation with Ogotemmeli. An Introduction to Dogn Religious Ideas. Oxford University Press.
Griaule, M. (1957). Méthode de l’ethnographie. Presses universitaires de France.
Goody, J. (1967). Review to Griaule. Conversation with Ogotemmeli. American Anthropologist, LXIX, 239‒241.
Hannerz, U. (2010). Anthropology’s World. Life in a Twenty-First-Century Discipline. Pluto Press.
Hountondji, P. J. (1978). Sur la “philosophie africaine”, Critique de l’ethnophilosophie. Revue française de science politique, 28eannée, 2, 376–377.
Hymes, D. (1981).“In Vain I Tried to Tell You”: Essays in Native American Ethnopoetics. University of Pennsylvania Press.
Jamin, J. (1982). Objets trouvés des paradis perdus. À propos de la mission Dakar-Djibouti. In J. Hainard, & R. Kaehr (dir.), Collection Passion (pp. 69–113). Neuchâtel: Musée d’Ethnographie.
Jolly, É. (2001). Marcel Griaule, Ethnologue: La construction d’une discipline (1925–1956). Journal des africanistes, 71(1).
Jolly, É. (2009). Ethnologie de sauvegarde et politique coloniale: Les Engagements de Marcel Griaule. Journal des africanistes, 89(1), Retrieved from: http://journals.openedition.org/africanistes/7598.
Leiris, M. (1996). « L’Afrique fantôme » , Miroir de l’Afrique, édition établie, présentée et annotée par Jean Jamin. Paris: Gallimard. « Quarto » (ed. or. 1934).
Lettens, D. A. (1971). Mystagogie et mystification: évaluation de l’oeuvre de Marcel Griaule. Presses Lavigerie.
Levi-Strauss, C. (1953). Panorama de l’ethnologie (1950‒1952). Diogène,2, 96–123.
Levi-Strauss, C. (1973). Tristes Tropiques (trans. by J. & D. Weightman).
Malinowski, B. (1922). Argonauts of the Western Pacific. Routledge.
Malinowski, B. (1967). A Diary in the Strict Sense of the Term. London, RKP.
Matera, V. (1996). Raccontare gli altri. Argo.
Matera, V. (1998). Conoscere senza riconoscersi. Identità e intenzionalità nell’incontro etnografico. In U. Fabietti (Ed.), Antropologi e Informatori (pp. 59–76). Roma: Carocci.
Mercier, P. (1975). Histoire de l’anthropologie. Press Universitaire de France.
Michel-Jons, F. (1978). Retour au Dogon: Figure du double et ambivalence. Le Sycomore.
Rabinow, P. (1977). Reflections on fieldwork in Morocco. University of California Press.
Richards, A. (1967). African Systems of Thought: An Anglo-French Dialogue. Man,2, 286–298.
Ridington‚ R. (1988). Knowledge, Power, and the Individual in Subarctic Hunting Societies. American Anthropologist‚ 90(1): 98–110.
Sarevskaja, B. I. (1963). La Méthode de l’Ethnographie de Marcel Griaule et les questions de méthodologie dans l’ethnographie française contemporaine. Cahiers D’études Africaines,4(16), 590–602.
Speck, F. (1935). Naskapi: The Savage Hunter of the Labrador Peninsula. University of Oklahoma Press.
Sperber, D. (1985). On Anthropological Knowledge. Three Essays. Cambridge University Press.
Tedlock, D. (1983). The Spoken Word and the Work of Interpretation. University of Pennsylvania Press.
Van Beek, W. E. A. (1991). Dogon Restudied: A Field Evaluation of the Work of Marcel Griaule [and Comments and Replies]. Current Anthropology,32(2), 139–167.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2021 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Biscaldi, A., Matera, V. (2021). “Ethnography in France”: Ethnographic Practices and Theories in Marcel Griaule Between the Empirical and Rhetorical. In: Matera, V., Biscaldi, A. (eds) Ethnography. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-51720-5_4
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-51720-5_4
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-51719-9
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-51720-5
eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)