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Using long-term research in a Navajo community as an example, this paper examines how the social construction of anthropological research (including theoretical frameworks and writing strategies) shapes the silences and omissions in any particular historical period. Gender, ethnicity, age, and economic/political transformation also play roles unveiling some omissions while creating others as relationships shift and deepen over decades. I outline three major periods: the 1960s, when a social science model that emphasized theoretical problems, data analysis, and objectivist prose held sway; the 1970s, when feminist anthropology reoriented analysis to a focus on women, power, and authority; and the "dialogic turn," when ethnography began to include women's voices, the presence of the anthropologist in the text, and attention to the power relationship between the researcher and the interviewee. Each period entails its own omissions and silences, but acknowledging them allows anthropologists to make more provisional conclusions and be forward looking, seeking ways to shift our future theoretical frameworks and reinterpret our observations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]