"broken poem" ix
Preface xi
Acknowledgments xv
Introduction 1
1. Colonial Anthropology and Its Alternatives 17
2. Journeys toward Decolonizing 38
3. Reflections on Fieldwork in New Jersey 59
4. Undocumented Activist Theory and a Decolonial Methodology
78
5. Undocumented Theater: Writing and Resistance 101
Conclusion 136
Notes 149
References 161
Index 179
Carolina Alonso Bejarano is Associate Professor of Law at the
University of Warwick. She is also a DJ and a cartoonist.
Lucia López Juárez is an activist who fights for equal rights
for all people, a domestic worker, and a mother who cares for her
home.
Mirian A. Mijangos García is a singer, songwriter, and naturopath.
She is also a mother, an ethnographer, and an immigrants' rights
activist.
Daniel M. Goldstein is Professor Emeritus of Anthropology at
Rutgers University and author of Owners of the Sidewalk: Security
and Survival in the Informal City, also published by Duke
University Press.
"[Decolonizing Ethnography] offers an innovative way in which
ethnography, practiced by the people who have been traditionally
positioned as the ethnographic research objects, can be a powerful
tool of self-empowerment, public advocacy, and personal
transformation."
*LSE Review of Books*
"Decolonizing Ethnography does not just critique colonialist
academic practices, it seeks to do something different. ...
Accessibly written, interesting, and effectively argued, [this
book] will appeal to a wide range of readers interested in issues
of migration, activism, ethnography, and knowledge production. ...
Perhaps most importantly, Decolonizing Ethnography is a call to
anthropology to reconsider its purpose and expand its relevance
with research practices that redress the politicized nature of
anthropological research and of the social worlds in which our
research takes place."
*Anthropological Quarterly*
"This work demonstrates specifically an exemplary form of
ethnographic writing not necessarily as a model to follow, but as
an encouragement and license to expand the direction of critical
and reflexive thought that has been ascendant in American
ethnographic research for the past 30 years. There are many lively
'moves' in expressing the vitality of this collaboration, none more
powerful and exciting than the concluding script of activist
theater. Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through
faculty."
*Choice*
"For occupational science as a field of study increasingly
concerned with highlighting the daily experiences of Global South
and marginalised groups, this book should be a valuable inspiration
and guide. As a Eurocentric discipline, we have a way to go in
decolonising theory production and the means by which we do so.
This text may inspire us to continue on the path of liberation for
our discipline and the communities with whom we study and
collaborate."
*Journal of Occupational Science*
“Decolonizing Ethnography provides an excellent background on
engaged scholarship and a roadmap for how one team overcame
hierarchies to collaborate across difference. It is an excellent
tool for training students to design community-embedded research
and will be useful for a range of syllabi (it’s already on mine!).
The book also offers the rare chance to see undocumented
worker-activists as scholars and authors, and that itself is a
gift.”
*Ethnic and Racial Studies*
“As a collaboration, this book both advocates for and puts into
practice data gathering and reporting techniques that continue to
stand in opposition to anthropology’s standard modes of research.
The book’s clarity of writing, its resolute tone had this reviewer
conduct some soul-searching about her own position vis-à-vis the
decolonial challenge.”
*Anthropos*
“[Decolonizing Ethnography] is encouraging us to open our minds,
addressing the colonial impact in academia, to decolonize and
liberate ourselves from intellectual and academic colonization.
This is a call for anthropologists to empower others to speak for
themselves....”
*Anthropology Book Forum*
“[Decolonizing Ethnography] discusses how to use anthropological
knowledge to advance the causes of undocumented migrants in the
United States. . . . [It] take[s] the bold step of centralizing
migrants’ stories, dilemmas, and choices, and . . . reminds us that
each story is unique with endings that are impossible to know.”
*Latin American Research Review*
“[Decolonizing Ethnography] presents a wonderful examination of the
development of a research project through partnership. . . . In an
ethnographic analysis that is a cut way above most contemporary
anthropology, [the book’s] four participants share their hopes and
problems in joint project planning, implementation, writing, and
publishing.”
*Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute*
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