ABSTRACT
Good conversations have no ending, and often no beginning. They have participants and listeners, but belong to no one, nor to history. Inscriptions of them broaden the community of conversationalists but close the discussion to those without access to the written word. As S. Gudeman and A. Rivera remind, ethnography as text is just a moment within a much broader conversation, within an exchange of knowledge and ideas that involves anthropologists, the people they study, and larger communities of conversationalists ‘in the field’ and ‘at home’. Stylistic conventions in ethnographic writing reveal much about who is included and who is excluded from ethnographic conversations. In anthropological life stories, a sub-genre of ethnography, the anthropologist becomes the facilitator and editor who helps their local collaborator reach an audience. Placing ethnographic texts within the context of broader collaborations that span other formats, including non-literary ones, is a strategy increasingly used by anthropologists engaged in collaborative work.
