Premium
stories, background knowledge and themes: problems in the analysis of life history narrative
Author(s) -
AGAR MICHAEL
Publication year - 1980
Publication title -
american ethnologist
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.875
H-Index - 78
eISSN - 1548-1425
pISSN - 0094-0496
DOI - 10.1525/ae.1980.7.2.02a00010
Subject(s) - narrative , ethnography , perspective (graphical) , sociology , anthropology , narrative inquiry , life history , cognition , narrative history , epistemology , linguistics , psychology , computer science , philosophy , ecology , artificial intelligence , neuroscience , biology
Life history data as discourse are examined, and recent perspectives from psychology, linguistics and anthropology are applied to the narrative. Each perspective illuminates some portion of the text, including its overall structure, the background knowledge necessary to understand it, and the narrator who produced it. Attention to complex ethnographic data promises to facilitate the integration of theory. [cognitive anthropology, discourse, life history, methodology, urban America]