Brown ethnography: Dirty Girls and other pop culture identities

مرکز و کتابخانه مطالعات اسلامی به زبان های اروپایی

منو

" Brown ethnography: Dirty Girls and other pop culture identities "
Hope Marie Medina

Document Type	:	Latin Dissertation
Language of Document	:	English
Record Number	:	52871
Doc. No	:	TL22825
Call number	:	‭3375199‬
Main Entry	:	Hope Marie Medina
Title & Author	:	Brown ethnography: Dirty Girls and other pop culture identities\ Hope Marie Medina
College	:	University of California, Davis
Date	:	2009
Degree	:	Ph.D.
student score	:	2009
Page No	:	259
Abstract	:	Eighteenth and nineteenth century anthropology and ethnography constructed the "Other" as visually spectacular, something to be interpreted and understood according to prevalent scientific theories of the time. The "Other" was voiceless and had no input in the official ethnographic record. Rey Chow asserts that "a new ethnography is possible only when we turn our attention to the subjective origins of ethnography as it is practiced by those who were previously ethnographized and who have, in the postcolonial age, taken up the active task of ethnographizing their own culture." This project argues that Chicano/a and Latino/a performers are engaged in a type of "brown" ethnography that not only gestures to the artists themselves, but also acts as a unifying metaphor that establishes the concept of "brown" as a site of knowledge and discursive practice instantiated by attendant social, cultural, and historical factors. Beginning with the premise that the brown body's racial inscription acts in similar ways as the written ethnographic text, each chapter endeavors to unpack the conscious and unconscious strategies Chicano/a and Latino/a performers employ to recuperate the construction of "brown" embodiment in their performances. The author's personal "brown" embodiment contextualizes the breadth of the project. Chapter One considers Guillermo Gómez-Peña's persona as the postmodern primitive who speaks back as a way to interrogate and dismantle the racist objectives of 18 th and 19th century scientifically based ethnographic practice. Chapter Two transitions to popular culture, examining El Vez's Gospel Show and his performative troping of Elvis Presley and other pop culture icons to articulate the Chicano/a experience, while constructing a brown performance utopia for his youth oriented audience. Chapter Three focuses on Jennifer Lopez and argues that her "betwixt and between" Puerto Rican identity allows fluid movement between brown, white, and other ethnic and racial identities. Chapter Four applies concepts from the previous chapters to Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez's bestselling novel, The Dirty Girls Social Club to enact a postmodern ethnography based on collaboration rather than participant-observation. The conclusion briefly examines the increased momentum brown ethnography has gained across various performance modes including stage, television, and the virtual world.
Subject	:	Communication and the arts; Social sciences; Performance studies; Latino/a studies; Ethnography; Popular culture; Race and ethnic studies; Latino/a; Gomez-Pena, Guillermo; El Vez; Valdes-Rodriguez, Alisa; Lopez, Jennifer; Cultural anthropology; Theater; Performing Arts; Hispanic American studies; 0737:Hispanic American studies; 0465:Theater; 0326:Cultural anthropology; 0641:Performing Arts
Added Entry	:	University of California, Davis