Ethnography,Advocacy and Feminism: A Volatile Mix. A View from a Reading of Diane Bell's Ngarrindjeri Wurruwarrin

Ethnography may lie at the heart of anthropological methodology but its claims are contested. Feminist anthropologists in particular have debated the challenges a critical academic discipline poses for a consciously politicised positioning of the ethnographer, examining the constraints this might impose on the ethnographic project. Such dilemmas are compounded in the context of advocacy work. This critique of a feminist ethnography (Diane Bell's Ngarrindjeri Wurruwarrin), which emerged from advocacy work in a litigious Australian context, suggests that the truth demands of advocacy work sit uneasily with both the partiality of critical ethnography and the politics of the feminist project.