Telling stories, screening lives: notes towards an anthropological biographyMots-cles

Anthropological work that focuses on individual lives, what Zeitlyn calls a 'sample of one' (Zeitlyn, 2008, Social Anthropology, 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.