Telling stories, screening lives: notes towards an anthropological biography

Abstract

Anthropological work that focuses on individual lives, what Zeitlyn calls a ‘sample of one’ (Zeitlyn, 2008, , 16, 154), has long hovered on the edge of disciplinary respectability. At best it is viewed as a fieldwork methodology, a way of collecting data; at worst, a kind of popularisation. This essay is a response to an emerging interest in anthropological biography. Drawing on the rich history of innovative work with individuals, it presents an argument for taking seriously ‘person‐centered ethnography’ (Langness and Frank 1981). Through a juxtaposition of classic texts and films, the paper articulates a case for recognising person‐centred ethnography as an unusually generative anthropological form, offering a critical context for the development of contemporary practice. Finally, in seeking to distinguish what might constitute anthropological biography as a particular mode of inquiry, I propose a realignment of the life‐writing project with humanistically oriented work in biographical studies.