– Watch the video: Clotheslines, an ethnographic film by Roberta Cantow from 1981, which explores womens work of doing laundry.
https://www.folkstreams.net/film-detail.php?id=307
– In the attached text:
Victor Turner “Symbols in Ndembu Ritual”
Slocum, Sally “Woman the Gatherer: Male Bias in Anthropology”
Butler, Judith “Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist Theory”
Eric Wolf Introduction to Europe and the People Without History
Michel Foucault The Birth of the Asylum”
** YOU DO NOT HAVE TO USE ALL AUTHORS, ONLY TWO IS REQUIRED. **
– Create a paper that explores how the application of theoretical ideas to an ethnographic text (the film) can shed light on specific ideas and concepts that you identify in the attached texts.
– In your anthropological analysis of the film you can look at how theoretical perspectives can shed light on and provide insight into the film. If you were looking at this film through the perspective or lens of one of the authors, what observations would you make of the film?
– In deciding what to focus on in your paper, consider how the ideas of two or more of the theorists work together to shed light on the film. (Consider theorists we have read as a class through Butler.) You can combine the theorists in your analysis in any way you would like. Keep in mind that you can relate theorist to one another by way of similarity, difference, or the development of an idea. Keep in mind that there are many possible lenses through which one can examine this film. For example, you might look at the interpretation of signs and symbols around laundry (e.g. Saussure and Turner), laundry as ritual (e.g. Turner and Gluckman), ideas expressed about society and the role of laundry (e.g. Spencer and Durkheim), the division of labor (e.g. Spencer and Marx), the focus on womens roles and gender (e.g. Slocum and Butler), etc.
Basic Structure of the paper:
– Provide an introduction to your paper with a clear statement or thesis briefly describing what you will be analyzing and how.
– In the body of your paper provide evidence (quotes and paraphrased passages) to support the points you are making in your discussion, and try to state how these pieces of evidence support your thesis.
– In your conclusion, wrap up your discussion by touching on your main points in the paper. You could also make a general comment on the applicability of the kind of analysis in which you engaged, including questions yet answered by your analysis.