Ethnography Analysis

Ethnography is defined as “A branch of anthropology dealing with the scientific description of individual cultures.” (Dictionary.com 2017) We’ve read two ethnographies so far that explores the culture of two different groups of people in two very different ways: “Culture and the Senses: Bodily Ways of Knowing in an African Community” By Kathryn Linn Geurts and “Real Black: Adventures in Racial Sincerity” By John L. Jackson. Both authors exploring each culture differently but were still able to magnificently capture the essence of each culture in one book. In this essay I will be discussing the main point of each ethnography, exploring their similarities, as well as how each ethnography taught me something new about lived experience. In “Culture and the Senses,” Geurts explores the culture of meaning through sensory experience of the Anlo-Ewe speaking people in Southeastern Ghana. Geurts described Anlo-Ewe sensory experience through 4 main claims about sensory orders, embodiment, identity, and well-being. She argues that:
1. “physiological evidence suggests human bodies gain sensory information in a variety of ways;
2. A Western model of five senses is a folk model;
3. An Anlo-Ewe model is different, and it privileges balance, kinesthesia, and sound;
4. The impact of this model (or approach) can be seen in four areas, each
One can know how they are represented to the world through their overall culture. It is upon the person to embody the ideologies and perspectives they were given in their culture to navigate their lives with these gifts. Jackson and Geurts shows us how two different cultures are able to embody sensory experience and racial subjectivity to navigate throughout the word. They put us in their shoes to see what the world is like from the perspective of the Anlo-Ewe people and the Harlemites. Readers are nor aware of how different cultures view life and how that can help us in our own