Geisha & Burakumin

[tainted_crimson]

Hello all, I'm in desperate need of a little assistance.

I'm presently working on a rather large paper that will, ideally, be a critical review of Liza Dalby's ethnography, Geisha, published back in 1983. It's an extremely famous work, and Dalby is renowned as the "American geisha"... which is the point I wish to contest, as Dalby was never an

Comments

[alarwyn]

Sorry I can't help you with paper/articles, but I couldn't help commenting...

When an anthropologist claims to have "become" the thing they're studying, isn't that the same as what we call going native? :D
Of course, I haven't read Dalby's book so there might be a difference, but it certainly sounds like it... And going native is always a bit controversial topic in anthropology IMO, as in a way all successful participant observation requires some amount of "going native"...

So at least if you need some theoretical background to back up your point, you might want to take a look at some of the various texts concerning the different aspects of "going native" while doing anthropological research.

Hope that helped, even a little! :P :D

[drizzle]

Interesting topic, although I don't know of any other anthropological studies in which a Westerner became a geisha for the purpose of ethnographical research.

Is there any way that you might be interested in changing your topic around a bit in order to do a comparative approach and look at Dalby's experience versus Japanese geisha? There would be a lot of information and resources that you could draw from.

[tainted_crimson]

The problem with doing a comparison between Dalby's experience vs actual geisha is that there's so little information for contemporary geisha. Most of the autobiographies out there are from war-time or immediately post-war geisha, and much of the work by westerners is of a historical nature.

[drizzle]

I was actually thinking about contemporary geisha. I have several books about modern day geisha, one of which "Geisha" by John Gallagher which talks about current recruitment and life in the flower and willow world.

There is a documentary called Hannari: Geisha Modern that you may want to check out. The only problem is that most current day geisha resources are mostly in Japanese. Good luck to you!

[tainted_crimson]

I haven't read Geisha: A Life either, but it does seem to fit the time period I'm looking for, so I'll keep it in mind.

Hmm... I'll have a look at the documentaries my school has, see if I can find something of this sort. Thank you!

[catsnstuff]

Are you thinking of this one?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrDGTUm2vBc
(The full doco is on YouTube in multiple parts.)

It's not an academic source, of course, but I found it really interesting

[frisbeeseppuku]

I've only watched the first few minutes, but the subtitles are really not accurate... they are translating about half of what she says. Nothing very important has been skipped so far, but it's very bad form, and I wouldn't use it as an academic source for that reason.

[i_broke_it_]

There's an article in Marie Claire this month about a white woman who actually did become a geisha, in 2007 I believe, maybe 2008: http://www.marieclaire.com/world-reports/news/japans-western-geisha

Also, Geisha: A Life is a very good book.

[tainted_crimson]

Thank you so very much! I hadn't heard of this anthropologist before and this is exactly the sort of material I needed.

[tainted_crimson]

That may be extremely useful in my argument, thank you!

[kenosis]

What is your argument?