Paulo and the Birds: Towards a Magical Realist Approach to Ethnography

Author: Weinberg, Michaela Django¹

Source: The Communication Review, Volume 11, Number 4, October 2008 , pp. 346-369(24)

Abstract:

This article explores how magical realism can be used as an analytic to study culture. I propose a magical realist epistemology that seeks to dismantle binaristic impulses by allowing for competing notions of reality to co-exist. This displacement of Western notions of “truth” compels Western ethnographers and their readers to imagine an alternative world where the magical and the mundane are mutually sustaining.

Document Type: Research article

DOI: 10.1080/10714420802511226

Affiliations: 1: Department of Communication, University of California, San Diego, USA

Links for this article

http://www.ingentaconnect.com/tandf/gcrv/2008/00000011/00000004/art00003
http://openurl.ingenta.com/content?genre=article&issn=1071-4421&volume=11&issue=4&spage=346&epage=369
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10714420802511226