Journal of Comparative Research in Anthropology and Sociology (Dec 2014)
The anthropology of storytelling and the storytelling of anthropology
Abstract
These research notes concern what anthropologists currently do, and can do, with stories. Although pleas for narrative have become increasingly widespread in contemporary anthropology, an anthropologist of storytelling cannot but recognise that all anthropological production is to a certain extent a story. A question ensues: what kind of story is an ethnography? These research notes propose an answer by providing, first, a working definition of story tailored to this specific purpose. Secondly, they propound a brief illustration of the three main thematic interests of the anthropology of storytelling: the relational dynamics between the people involved in the storytelling situation; the content of the story, and the storytelling techniques. Thirdly, these aspects are examined in order to claim that an anthropology of storytelling among contemporary anthropologists is a necessary condition to respond concretely to the above-mentioned plea for narrative.
