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“Ethnography in France”: Ethnographic Practices and Theories in Marcel Griaule Between the Empirical and Rhetorical

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Ethnography

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.

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Correspondence to Vincenzo Matera .

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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

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-51720-5_4

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  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-51719-9

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