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SOA 111 Honors: Cultural Area Research Project: Ethnographies

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I've included some of the Carney Library's more recent ethnographies as well as a few older ones identified by Professor Rodrigues. You will need to search for the titles in our collection to get the call number.  If the book you want to read is checked out, you can request it through interlibrary loan.

Other Approved Titles Available at the Carney Library

Myths of gender : biological theories about women and men. Fausto-Sterling, A.

Pricing beauty: The making of a fashion model. Mears, A. 

"Sociologist Ashley Mears takes us behind the brightly lit runways and glossy advertisements of the fashion industry in this insider’s study of the world of modeling. Mears, who worked as a model in New York and London, draws on observations as well as extensive interviews with male and female models, agents, clients, photographers, stylists, and others, to explore the economics and politics—and the arbitrariness— behind the business of glamour." From the publisher's description.

Promises I can keep: Why poor women put motherhood before marriage. Edin, K. 

"Over a span of five years, sociologists Kathryn Edin and Maria Kefalas talked in-depth with 162 low-income single moms like Millie to learn how they think about marriage and family. Promises I Can Keep offers an intimate look at what marriage and motherhood mean to these women and provides the most extensive on-the-ground study to date of why they put children before marriage despite the daunting challenges they know lie ahead." From the publisher's description.

Shadow mothers: Nannies, au pairs, and the micropolitics of mothering. Macdonald, C.L. 

"Shadow Mothers shines new light on an aspect of contemporary motherhood often hidden from view: the need for paid childcare by women returning to the workforce, and the complex bonds mothers forge with the “shadow mothers” they hire." From the publisher's description.

Virtually virgins: Sexual strategies and cervical cancer in Recife, Brazil. Gregg, J.L. 

"While many accounts of sexuality in Brazil focus on the culturally dominant (male) point of view, this is the first account to capture women’s subjective experiences of their sexuality. It is also one of the first to show how women’s understandings of their sexuality affect their risk of contracting and experiences in dealing with diseases related to sexual behavior." From the publisher's description.

Selected List of Titles Owned by the Carney Library

Search our collection to find the call number and check on the availability (i.e., whether someone has the book checked out).

A crisis of births: Population politics and family making in Italy. Krause, E. 

A precious liquid: Drinking water and culture in the valley of Mexico. Ennis-McMillan, M.

A return to servitude: Maya migration and the tourist trade in Cancun. Castellanos, M.B.

Allah made us: Sexual outlaws in an Islamic African city. Gaudio, R.P.

American Allegory: Lindy Hop and the Racial Imagination. Hancock, B.H.

Challenging gender norms: Five genders among Bugis in Indonesia. Davies, S.J.

Child soldiers in Africa. Honwana, A.M.

Dude, you're a fag. Pascoe, C.J.

Exile and return among the East Timorese. Wise, A.

Fresh fruit, broken bodies: Migrant farmworkers in the United States, Holmes, S.M.

From war to peace on the Mozambique-Malawi borderland. Englund, H.

Fusion of the worlds: An ethnography of possession among the Songhay of Niger. Stoller, P.

Getting to know Waiwai: An Amazionian ethnography. Campbell, A.T.

Hidden heads of households: Child labor in urban northeast Brazil. Kenny, M.L.

Hidden truth: Young men navigating lives in and out of juvenile prison. Reich, A.

Imagining transgender: An ethnography of a category. Valentine, D. 

Junkie business: The evolution and operation of a herion dealing network. Hoffer, L.D.

Katun: A twenty-year journey with the Maya. Hull, C.L.

Labor of luck: Casino capitalism in the United States and South Africa. Sallaz, J.

Little Brazil: An ethnography of Brazilian immigrants in New York City. Margolis, M.L.

Making the Mexican diabetic: Race, science, and the genetics of inequality. Montoya, M.J. 

Mexican New York: Transnational lives of new immigrants. Smith, R.C.

Mosquito trails ecology, health, and the politics of entanglement. Nading, A.M.

Neither man nor woman: The Hijras of India. Nanda, S.

Out in the storm: Drug addicted women living as shoplifters and sex workers. Caputo, G.A.

Paradox of hope: Journeys through a clinical borderland. Mattingly, C.

Pathways of memory and power: Ethnography and history among an Andean people. Ambercrombie, T.A. (Also available through Google Books)

Reckoning with homelessness. Hopper, K.

Reproducing race: An ethnography of pregnancy as a site of racialization. Bridges, K.M.

Righteous dopefiend. Bourgois, P & J. Schonberg. 

Romance on a global stage: Pen pals, virtual ethnography, and "mail-order" marriages by Constable, N.

Security and suspicion: An ethnography of everyday life in Israel. Ochs, J.

Shadowed lives: Undocumented immigrants in American society. Chavez, L.R.

Shelter blues: Sanity and selfhood among the homeless. Desjarlais, R.

Siva and her sisters: Gender, caste, and class in rural South India. Kapadia, K. (Also available through Google Books)

Slaughterhouse blues: The meat and poultry industry in North America. Stull, D.D.

The time of the gypsies. Stewart, M. (Also available through Google Books)

The Trobrianders of Papua New Guinea. Weiner, A.B.

Veiled sentiments: Honor and poetry in a Bedouin society. Abu-Lughod, L.

Wayward women : sexuality and agency in a New Guinea society. Wardlow, H.

We have already cried many tears: Portuguese women and migration. Brettell, C.

White saris and sweet mangoes: Aging, gender, and body in North India. Lamb, S. 

With no direction home: Homeless youth on the road and in the streets. Finkelstein, M. 

Women of value, men of renown. Weiner, A.