European University Institute Library

Decolonizing ethnography, undocumented immigrants and new directions in social science, Carolina Alonso Bejarano, Lucia López Juárez, Mirian A. Mijangos García, Daniel M. Goldstein

eng

Includes bibliographical references (pages 161-177) and index

illustrations

index present

non fiction

Decolonizing ethnography

bibliography

1080249077

Carolina Alonso Bejarano, Lucia López Juárez, Mirian A. Mijangos García, Daniel M. Goldstein

undocumented immigrants and new directions in social science

In August 2011, ethnographers Carolina Alonso Bejarano and Daniel M. Goldstein began a research project on undocumented immigration in the United States by volunteering at a center for migrant workers in New Jersey. Two years later, Lucia Lopez Juarez and Mirian A. Mijangos Garcia-two local immigrant workers from Latin America-joined Alonso Bejarano and Goldstein as research assistants and quickly became equal partners for whom ethnographic practice was inseparable from activism. In 'Decolonizing Ethnography' the four coauthors offer a methodological and theoretical reassessment of social science research, showing how it can function as a vehicle for activism and as a tool for marginalized people to theorize their lives. Tacking between personal narratives, ethnographic field notes, an original bilingual play about workers' rights, and examinations of anthropology as a discipline, the coauthors show how the participation of Mijangos Garcia and Lopez Juarez transformed the project's activist and academic dimensions. In so doing, they offer a guide for those wishing to expand the potential of ethnography to serve as a means for social transformation and decolonization. --, Provided by publisher

Colonial anthropology and its alternatives -- Journeys toward decolonizing -- Reflections on fieldwork in New Jersey -- Undocumented activist theory and a decolonial methodology -- Undocumented theater : writing and resistance