Abstract

There is surprisingly little fieldwork done on the United States by anthropologists from abroad. America Observed fills that gap by bringing into greater focus empirical as well as theoretical implications of this phenomenon. Edited by Virginia Dominguez and Jasmin Habib, the essays collected here offer a critique of such an absence, exploring its likely reasons while also illustrating the advantages of studying fieldwork-based anthropological projects conducted by colleagues from outside the U.S. This volume contains an introduction written by the editors and fieldwork-based essays written by Helena Wulff, Jasmin Habib, Limor Darash, Ulf Hannerz, and Moshe Shokeid, and reflections on the broad issue written by Geoffrey White, Keiko Ikeda, and Jane Desmond.  Suitable for introductory and mid-level anthropology courses, America Observed will also be useful for American Studies courses both in the U.S. and elsewhere.

Jasmin Habib is Associate Professor teaching in the Department of Political Science at the University of Waterloo and the Global Governance Program at the Balsillie School of International Affairs. She is the editor-in-chief of Anthropologica (the journal of the Canadian Anthropology Society) and editor of the Cultural Spaces book series with the University of Toronto Press.

“America Observed poses and answers a critical question for anthropology today: why do so few scholars from outside the United States write ethnographies about ‘America’, and what are the consequences of this lacuna?” · Andrew P. Lyons, Wilfrid Laurier University

“This book serves to generate a much-needed discussion about the absence of international ethnographic research in the U.S. and about the nature of the discipline that discourages this kind of research. Furthermore, the ethnographies presented here teach us something substantial about ‘American’ culture and illustrate that ethnographic research undertaken by non-U.S. anthropologists can be particularly insightful.” · James Armstrong, SUNY Plattsburgh

Virginia R. Dominguez is Edward William and Jane Marr Gutgsell Professor of Anthropology, Jewish Studies, Global Studies, Caribbean Studies, and Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in the U.S.  She is a recent past president of the American Anthropological Association, recent past editor of American Ethnologist, and co-founder of the International Forum for U.S. Studies.