Writing in the wake of neoliberalism, where human rights and social justice have increasingly been subordinated to proliferating “consumer choices” and ideals of market justice, contributors to this collection argue that feminist ethnographers are in a key position to reassert the central feminist connections between theory, methods, and activism. Together, we suggest avenues for incorporating methodological innovations, collaborative analysis, and collective activism in our scholarly projects. What are the possibilities (and challenges) that exist for feminist ethnography 25 years after initial debates emerged in this field about reflexivity, objectivity, reductive individualism, and the social relevance of activist scholarship? How can feminist ethnography intensify efforts towards social justice in the current political and economic climate? This collection continues a crucial dialog about feminist activist ethnography in the 21st century—at the intersection of engaged feminist research and activism in the service of the organizations, people, communities, and feminist issues we study.

Feminist Ethnography, Second Edition, is an interdisciplinary and cross-cultural introduction to the methods, challenges, and possibilities of feminist ethnography. Dána-Ain Davis and Christa Craven use a problem-based approach—focused on inquiry and investigation—to present a feminist framework for thinking critically about how we document everyday experiences. The book begins with an introduction to feminist perspectives, their meanings over time, and a brief history of feminist ethnography. Then the authors examine feminist methodologies, answering the question, how does one do feminist ethnography, and investigates common challenges such as ethical dilemmas and logistical constraints faced during fieldwork. Finally, Davis and Craven discuss what it means to be a feminist activist ethnographer, including advocacy efforts and engagement with public policy, and ask students to consider: what is your vision for the future of feminist ethnography? New to this Edition: Six new interviews with feminist ethnographers include reflections on the intersections of trans studies, disability studies, and the Cite Black Women movement New section on safety, accessibility, and fieldwork to address the risks all ethnographers face, but in particular those who challenge long-held assumptions that ethnographers are (all) white, Western, able-bodied, well-funded, cisgender, and usually male Enhanced discussion of virtual ethnography in the wake of COVID-19 Added content on transgender/nonbinary experiences and disability studies

Naples draws on different research topics, such as welfare, poverty, sexual identity, and sexual abuse, to illustrate some of the most salient dilemmas of feminist research: the debate over objectivity, the paradox of discourse, the dilemma of "standpoint," and the challenges of activist research. By linking important feminist theoretical debates with case studies, Naples illustrates the strategies she developed for resolving the challenges posed be postmodern, Third World, postcolonial, and queer studies.

Indigenous Women and Violence offers an intimate view of how settler colonialism and other structural forms of power and inequality created accumulated violences in the lives of Indigenous women. This volume uncovers how these Indigenous women resist violence in Mexico, Central America, and the United States, centering on the topics of femicide, immigration, human rights violations, the criminal justice system, and Indigenous justice. Taking on the issues of our times, Indigenous Women and Violence calls for the deepening of collaborative ethnographies through community engagement and performing research as an embodied experience. This book brings together settler colonialism, feminist ethnography, collaborative and activist ethnography, emotional communities, and standpoint research to look at the links between structural, extreme, and everyday violences across time and space. Indigenous Women and Violence is built on engaging case studies that highlight the individual and collective struggles that Indigenous women face from the racial and gendered oppression that structures their lives. Gendered violence has always been a part of the genocidal and assimilationist projects of settler colonialism, and it remains so today. These structures—and the forms of violence inherent to them—are driving criminalization and victimization of Indigenous men and women, leading to escalating levels of assassination, incarceration, or transnational displacement of Indigenous people, and especially Indigenous women. This volume brings together the potent ethnographic research of eight scholars who have dedicated their careers to illuminating the ways in which Indigenous women have challenged communities, states, legal systems, and social movements to promote gender justice. The chapters in this book are engaged, feminist, collaborative, and activism focused, conveying powerful messages about the resilience and resistance of Indigenous women in the face of violence and systemic oppression. Contributors: R. Aída Hernández-Castillo, Morna Macleod, Mariana Mora, María Teresa Sierra, Shannon Speed, Lynn Stephen, Margo Tamez, Irma Alicia Velásquez Nimatuj

Through four case studies Contesting Publics: Feminism, Activism, Ethnography analyses the challenges facing activists to connect gender with issues of race and class. Lynne Phillips and Sally Cole examine women's projects for social change in Latin America. Using these examples, they argue that feminism can produce both new spaces for participation and new silences, exclusions and re-inscriptions of inequalities. The examples thus speak to a larger theoretical question: what is the meaning of 'public' in the spaces of a broadening and deepening democracy? Contesting Publics considers current debates among feminists on the merits of a variety of strategies, goals and issues, drawing out vital lessons for students, researchers and activists in anthropology and gender studies.

In the discipline's early days, anthropologists by definition were assumed to be white and male. Women and black scholars were relegated to the field's periphery. From this marginal place, white feminist anthropologists have successfully carved out an acknowledged intellectual space, identified as feminist anthropology. Unfortunately, the works of black and non-western feminist anthropologists are rarely cited, and they have yet to be respected as significant shapers of the direction and transformation of feminist anthropology. In this volume, Irma McClaurin has collected-for the first time-essays that explore the role and contributions of black feminist anthropologists. She has asked her contributors to disclose how their experiences as black women have influenced their anthropological practice in Africa, the Caribbean, and the United States, and how anthropology has influenced their development as black feminists. Every chapter is a unique journey that enables the reader to see how scholars are made. The writers present material from their own fieldwork to demonstrate how these experiences were shaped by their identities. Finally, each essay suggests how the author's field experiences have influenced the theoretical and methodological choices she has made throughout her career. Not since Diane Wolf's Feminist Dilemmas in the Field or Hortense Powdermaker's Stranger and Friend have we had such a breadth of women anthropologists discussing the critical (and personal) issues that emerge when doing ethnographic research.