DISCUSSION PAPER #3

Due:         23 OR 28 Nov.
Length:   3 pp.
 

        The essays you've read by Besson and by Abrahams both aim to give their readers some critical insight into certain features of rural sociocultural organization. And the essays partly overlap in the topics discussed. Yet they are quite different.

        Please compare and contrast the materials and approaches of Besson (in her "Reputation and Respectability Reconsidered...") and of Abrahams (in his "Symbolic Landscapes and Expressive Events").

        A very great deal could be said in this essay, but you have only 3 pages and so must go right to the heart of the similarities and differences in ethnography and intent between these two. That doesn't mean there's a single "correct" response to this challenge, just that your essay will have to be swift and tightly presented.