Writing Life Histories From the Field

AbstractThis article raises issues of rendering oral narratives as text, the different needs of audiences in oral and literate settings, and how the relationship of narrator and collaborator influences the information and its presentation. Successfully addressing these issues demands that the anthropologist also consider the literary impact of the work. I conclude that the literary consideration raised in this genre of writing is basic to the most important of anthropological concerns, the cross-cultural communication of understandings. (Participant observation; life-history interviewing, editing, and narrative construction; cultural representation; writing for culturally diverse audiences)