Scholars have long recognized that ethnographic method is bound up with the construction of theory in ways that are difficult to teach. This work argues that the reason for this is that ethnographic theorization is essentially improvisational in nature, conducted in real time and in necessarily unpredictable social situations.
This study of Hutu refugees from Burundi, driven into exile after their 1972 insurrection against the Tutsi was suppressed, shows how experiences of dispossession and violence are remembered and turned into narratives, and how this process helps to construct identities such as Hutu and Tutsi.
In this ethnography Liisa H. Malkki reverses the study of humanitarian aid, focusing on aid workers rather than aid's recipients. She shows how aid serves the needs of its recipients and providers.