Gendered Lives Transitions and Turning Points in Personal, Family, and Historical Time.

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  • Author(s): Brettell, Caroline B.1
  • Source:
    Current Anthropology. Aug2002 Supplement, Vol. 43 Issue S4, pS45-S61. 17p.
  • Additional Information
    • Subject Terms:
      Historical research; Anthropological research; Social conditions of women; Time; Rural men; Rural women; Women in agriculture
    • Subject Terms:
      Portugal; Europe
    • Abstract:
      Drawing on more than 20 years of anthropological and historical research in northern Portugal, this article explores the temporal dimensions of women's and men's lives in rural agricultural societies. The first part critically evaluates the process by which lives are reconstructed in time using both written and ethnographic records, looking particularly at methods of transcription, translation, and transformation. The second part explores how a multiplicity of records can be used to construct a narrative about culturally meaningful turning points in the lives of men and women. Three topics that are meaningful in the ethnographic and historical context of northern Portugal are explored: migration, marriage and family formation, and inheritance. The paper compares differences in the sequencing of these events in the lives of men and women and in the synchrony or asynchrony of personal time in relation to family time. Whenever relevant, the data on Portugal are compared with those from other parts of Western Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]