Alternate Roots
«This slim, engaging volume tracks the development and spread of practices related to genealogies using an autoethnographic, textual approach. Scodari (media and women’s studies, Florida Atlantic Univ.) makes the case for conducting family histories in her role as a scholar, tracing how her interest emerged. While providing an overview of the major impetuses, players, and trends in genealogy, the book also interrogates their precepts. Popular engagement with family history can preclude a critical stance, which is why an autoethnographic, theoretically grounded approach to a genealogical excavation merits interest. Four chapters address media representations and practices. In two others Scordari emphasizes ‘race, ethnicity, and intersectional identities’ in the areas of ‘family history television’ and ‘genealogy television migration narratives,’ along with related practices and texts. The remaining two chapters deal with ‘identity and genetic ancestry’ in either ‘digital media’ or ‘genealogy television.’ By way of pointing up certain critical trajectories and applying practices, methods, and discoveries to her own life history, Scodari models the ways students can engage their own genealogies. The pointed critique of these practices is self-reflexive without being stymieing, certainly an aspiration for undergraduate research. Useful for collections in history, American studies, ethnic studies, and anthropology.»
In recent years, the media has attributed the increasing numbers of people producing family trees to the aging of baby boomers, a sense of mortality, a proliferation of internet genealogy sites, and a growing pride in ethnicity. Les mer
Given current tools, texts, practices, cultural contexts, and technologies, Scodari's study determines whether a critical genealogy around race, ethnicity, and intersectional identities is viable. She delves into the implications of adoption, orientation, and migration while also investigating her own genealogy, examining the racial, ethnic experiences of her forebears and positioning them within larger, cross-cultural contexts.
There is little research on genealogical media in relation to race and ethnicity. Thus, Scodari blends cultural studies, critical media studies, and her own genealogy as a critical pursuit to interrogate issues bound up in the nuts-and-bolts of engaging in family history.
Detaljer
- Forlag
- University Press of Mississippi
- Innbinding
- Paperback
- Språk
- Engelsk
- ISBN
- 9781496828224
- Utgivelsesår
- 2020
- Format
- 23 x 15 cm
Anmeldelser
«This slim, engaging volume tracks the development and spread of practices related to genealogies using an autoethnographic, textual approach. Scodari (media and women’s studies, Florida Atlantic Univ.) makes the case for conducting family histories in her role as a scholar, tracing how her interest emerged. While providing an overview of the major impetuses, players, and trends in genealogy, the book also interrogates their precepts. Popular engagement with family history can preclude a critical stance, which is why an autoethnographic, theoretically grounded approach to a genealogical excavation merits interest. Four chapters address media representations and practices. In two others Scordari emphasizes ‘race, ethnicity, and intersectional identities’ in the areas of ‘family history television’ and ‘genealogy television migration narratives,’ along with related practices and texts. The remaining two chapters deal with ‘identity and genetic ancestry’ in either ‘digital media’ or ‘genealogy television.’ By way of pointing up certain critical trajectories and applying practices, methods, and discoveries to her own life history, Scodari models the ways students can engage their own genealogies. The pointed critique of these practices is self-reflexive without being stymieing, certainly an aspiration for undergraduate research. Useful for collections in history, American studies, ethnic studies, and anthropology.»