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 From Siberia to North America: Regionalists, Anthropologists, and Exiled Ethnographers

Andrei A. Znamenski

in The Beauty of the Primitive: Shamanism and Western Imagination

This chapter outlines several sources of a later rise of popular interest in shamanism. The discussion starts on Siberian regionalist writers and ethnographers, who, in their attempt to shape and ... More

This chapter outlines several sources of a later rise of popular interest in shamanism. The discussion starts on Siberian regionalist writers and ethnographers, who, in their attempt to shape and underline the unique cultural identity of Siberia, looked into indigenous northern Asian archaic traditions. The focus then shifts to North America's American southwestern regionalists, who worked to ground themselves and their compatriots in soil that was not indigenous to them. Ethnographic books about Native Americans heavily affected the print culture of modern neo-shamanism in the West, so the world of American anthropology is explored and its attempts to capture the traditional cultures of indigenous peoples before their extinction — another project that was informed by German Romantic philosophy — are discussed. The chapter also shows how the shamanism idiom became gradually transplanted from Siberian ethnography to North American ethnology. Finally, a unique group of people — “exiled ethnographers” — is studied.Less

Mapping Musical Cultures

D. R. M. Irving

in Colonial Counterpoint: Music in Early Modern Manila

This chapter critiques the descriptions of prehispanic Filipino music that were made by early modern ethnographers, demonstrating the value of colonial historiography in the reconstruction of lost ... More

This chapter critiques the descriptions of prehispanic Filipino music that were made by early modern ethnographers, demonstrating the value of colonial historiography in the reconstruction of lost musical cultures. It shows how Filipinos were represented as analogues of antiquity, and how Spanish missionaries attempted to empathize with indigenous communities in learning their languages, documenting their ways of life, and engaging with their forms of literacy and complex traditions of poetry. The vocabularios and grammars of Filipino languages compiled by members of religious orders provide some of the most detailed sources of ethnographic information from the late sixteenth through the late eighteenth centuries. A great deal of organological information can also be gleaned from colonial historiography, as many types of instruments used by the mainstream Filipino population were documented thoroughly by European observers (before European instruments began to predominate).Less

Towards a Soviet Order of Things: The 1926 Census and the Making of the Soviet Union

Francine Hirsch

in Categories and Contexts: Anthropological and Historical Studies in Critical Demography

Looks at the connections between census‐taking, border‐making, and identity‐formation in the Soviet Union. It focuses on the All‐Union Census of 1926, which was the first census to categorize the ... More

Looks at the connections between census‐taking, border‐making, and identity‐formation in the Soviet Union. It focuses on the All‐Union Census of 1926, which was the first census to categorize the entire population of the USSR according to ‘nationality.’ It analyses the process through which ethnographers and statisticians used their expertise to formulate a census question about nationality and to create an official definitional grid. Also focuses on the activation of official nationality categories on the ground in Central Asia. In particular, it looks at how self‐identified Tajik and Uzbek leaders used the occasion of the census to mobilize their populations and vie for contested territories.Less

Life, with No Chance

M. Heather Carver and Elaine J. Lawless

in Troubling Violence: A Performance Project

This chapter describes a prison scene involving two female ethnographers entering a prison. The lights then fade except for a spotlight on a prisoner named Rose, who begins to tell her story.

Introduction

Suzanne S. Finney, Mary Mostafanezhad, Guido Carlo Pigliasco, and Forrest Wade Young

in At Home and in the Field: Ethnographic Encounters in Asia and the Pacific Islands

This introductory chapter provides a brief overview of the book as well as a summary of the emerging trends in ethnographic studies. It explains how contemporary fieldwork and ethnographic writing ... More

This introductory chapter provides a brief overview of the book as well as a summary of the emerging trends in ethnographic studies. It explains how contemporary fieldwork and ethnographic writing have evolved over time, and as this book reveals, the field now investigates subjects such as the laboratories of scientific communities and the “virtual worlds” of cyberspace that challenge previous norms of what constitutes appropriate topics of ethnographic research. Emerging trends in ethnographic writing highlight autoethnography, narrative, and politically engaged participant observation. Moreover, ethnographers today no longer always conduct remote fieldwork, writing about peoples and issues far from their home worlds and social identities; they conduct “homework.”Less

Where?

in Navigators of the Contemporary: Why Ethnography Matters

This chapter argues that the ethnographer of present situations must be not only a navigator but also a trader. She or she must bring different structures into intellectual conjunction. The ... More

This chapter argues that the ethnographer of present situations must be not only a navigator but also a trader. She or she must bring different structures into intellectual conjunction. The ethnographer intentionally mixes ideas, mirroring the social mixing of contemporary life. Ethnography also has a less than total commitment to the object of its inquiry, and therefore free to be rather purely intellectual. The ethnographer does not want (should not want) to go native, to become an islander or a genetic engineer, but as a result, he or she may be able to think and is almost certainly able to say things that people who are completely embedded cannot. Distance—not being completely there—can provide perspective and freedom to speak.Less

Who?

in Navigators of the Contemporary: Why Ethnography Matters

This chapter considers the role of ethnographers in refunctioned ethnography. In contrast to the bilateral encounter over a camp table, ethnography for present situations is normally constituted by ... More

This chapter considers the role of ethnographers in refunctioned ethnography. In contrast to the bilateral encounter over a camp table, ethnography for present situations is normally constituted by the ethnographer, multiple subjects in some relation to one another, and liaisons. The ethnographer who wishes to learn about present situations should expect to undertake multiple, essentially triangular, negotiations to produce ethnographic conversations. Or, to shift imagery: taken together, such encounters produce a conversational fabric, woven from negotiations among (and generally in this order): the ethnographer and the liaison; the liaison, on behalf of the ethnographer, and the subjects; and the ethnographer and the subjects.Less

When?

in Navigators of the Contemporary: Why Ethnography Matters

Ethnography for present situations is, obviously, concerned with the present. The present may be thought of as simultaneously a vantage point and the time under investigation. Since a vantage point ... More

Ethnography for present situations is, obviously, concerned with the present. The present may be thought of as simultaneously a vantage point and the time under investigation. Since a vantage point is invisible to one standing on it, refunctioned ethnography tends to pay attention to the near future and to the recent past in order to approach the present infinitesimally. The “present” with which ethnography of present situations is concerned contains a narrative. Conversations may be about how things are now, albeit a “now” that is constructed over against ideas about what the recent past and/or the near future mean. Ethnography for present situations attempts to identify, articulate, and interrogate the emergent—that which is coming out of our past and shaping our future but which we must cope with right now.Less

How?

in Navigators of the Contemporary: Why Ethnography Matters

This chapter develops a general narrative account, something less than a template, of how conversational ethnography is done. Ethnography for present situations is accomplished through six basic ... More

This chapter develops a general narrative account, something less than a template, of how conversational ethnography is done. Ethnography for present situations is accomplished through six basic activities: negotiation, evocation, attention, analysis, synthesis, and expression.Less

Reprise

in Navigators of the Contemporary: Why Ethnography Matters

This chapter reviews the preceding discussions and presents some concluding thoughts from the author. Part 4 of this book has situated refunctioned ethnography vis-à-vis the vagaries of politics, a ... More

This chapter reviews the preceding discussions and presents some concluding thoughts from the author. Part 4 of this book has situated refunctioned ethnography vis-à-vis the vagaries of politics, a critique of the university, and hence the social situation of the academic, who must find new ways to an intellectual. Refunctioned ethnography has much to say about how particular forms of politics are done in the context of globalization; about how the bureaucratic university may engage with the world; and indeed about how academics may engage with each other. Perhaps most surprising of all, the practice of ethnography has much to teach about how to be happy as an intellectual. Thus, it is in response to the current disorientation among intellectuals generally, not merely the unresolved quandaries within the academic discipline of cultural anthropology, that a refunctioned ethnography might begin anew, to start conversations with other people, who move through different spaces in our shared world, perhaps worth our attention.Less

Ethnography

in The Power of the Between: An Anthropological Odyssey

This chapter presents the author's thoughts about ethnography. From his vantage as an ethnographer, the central question is, how can an ethnographic work, based on long-term research, remain open to ... More

This chapter presents the author's thoughts about ethnography. From his vantage as an ethnographer, the central question is, how can an ethnographic work, based on long-term research, remain open to the world? What is it about certain ethnographic texts that, year after year, continue to attract readers? He suggests that there is no one way to write an ethnographic text. Each body of ethnographic material is unique and therefore requires a specifically contoured textual strategy. Beyond that textual specificity there are key elements that must be present in the text if ethnographers want their works to be read by a wide range of readers over a long period of time.Less

Making Sense: Knowledge and Understanding

Johannes Fabian

in Out of Our Minds: Reason and Madness in the Exploration of Central Africa

A story makes its sense as it unfolds. The texts that make up the corpus are stories, at least much of the time. Their sense is in their plot: they tell of the progress of exploration. European ... More

A story makes its sense as it unfolds. The texts that make up the corpus are stories, at least much of the time. Their sense is in their plot: they tell of the progress of exploration. European travelers, with their African, Afro-Portuguese, and Arab-Swahili auxiliaries, enacted scenarios set down in metropolitan scripts. In Africa, these scripts were rehearsed and formed in encounters with the people and the environment. Physically, travelers moved by walking or being carried. Mentally, their efforts were supported by sense and meaning. This chapter considers different motives; theories about race, magic, religion, cannibalism, knowledge, and recognition; aesthetic judgments and the subversiveness of beauty; and contradictions and truth. It also hints that ethnographic reality appears less in a travelogue's verifiable propositions than in the changes it worked on explorers as rational human beings. And that is another thing modern ethnographers may have in common with their predecessors.Less

Introduction: The Anthropology and Ethnography of Violence and Sociopolitical Conflict

Carolyn Nordstrom and Antonius C. G. M. Robben

in Fieldwork Under Fire: Contemporary Studies of Violence and Culture

This chapter focuses on the three principal concerns of this book: the everyday experiences of people who are the victims and perpetuators of violence; the relationship between field-workers and the ... More

This chapter focuses on the three principal concerns of this book: the everyday experiences of people who are the victims and perpetuators of violence; the relationship between field-workers and the people studied, including the distinct research problems and experiences of ethnographers who study situations of violence; and the theoretical issues that emerge from studying topics that involve personal danger. These remarks elaborate on the notion implicit in this book, that the lived experience of violence, the epistemology of violence, and the ways of knowing and reflecting about violence are not separate. Experience and interpretation are inseparable for perpetrators, victims, and ethnographers alike. Anthropology on this level involves a number of responsibilities above and beyond those associated with more traditional ethnography: responsibilities to the field-worker's safety, to the safety of his or her informants, and to the theories that help to forge attitudes toward the reality of violence.Less

Seduction and Persuasion: The Politics of Truth and Emotion Among Victims and Perpetrators of Violence

Carolyn Nordstrom and Antonius C. G. M. Robben

in Fieldwork Under Fire: Contemporary Studies of Violence and Culture

How is fieldwork affected when people not only ask ethnographers for compassion but also for collaboration and even complicity? What happens to the dialectic of empathy and detachment when victims ... More

How is fieldwork affected when people not only ask ethnographers for compassion but also for collaboration and even complicity? What happens to the dialectic of empathy and detachment when victims and perpetrators of violence engage in a politics of truth and try to make ethnographers accept their accounts as the only correct version? This chapter notes these problems in the contested historical reconstruction of Argentina's “dirty war” as told by its chief protagonists and survivors. Because of the high political and emotional stakes of this violent conflict, strategies of persuasion and concealment were played on the author by generals, bishops, politicians, former guerrilla commanders, and human rights leaders. The chapter uses the term “ethnographic seduction” to describe these strategies.Less

Time Immemorial

Kerwin Lee IZlein

in Frontiers of Historical Imagination: Narrating the European Conquest of Native America, 1890-1990

This chapter discusses the anthropologists and ethnographers' view of the history of the American frontier. Anthropologists such as Franz Boas described the encounter of Europeans and Native ... More

This chapter discusses the anthropologists and ethnographers' view of the history of the American frontier. Anthropologists such as Franz Boas described the encounter of Europeans and Native Americans as a conflict between incommensurable culture that opened up a national memory divided by ethnicity and plot. Victorian ethnographers told a grand story of social evolution that described Native Americans as representatives of an earlier state of human experience through which Europeans had already passed. By the 1920s, the culture concept of ethnography tended to be cased in language that was at best ahistorical.Less

Looking Backward and Forward

Terence E. Hays

in Ethnographic Presents: Pioneering Anthropologists in the Papua New Guinea Highlands

The author has painted a picture of the historical circumstances leading up to and influencing the first incursion of professional ethnographers into the Papua New Guinea Highlands. The fieldworkers ... More

The author has painted a picture of the historical circumstances leading up to and influencing the first incursion of professional ethnographers into the Papua New Guinea Highlands. The fieldworkers of the 1950s in the Highlands provided a rich array of concerns for those who entered the region subsequently, and the vitality of their interests is shown by the fact that many of these themes are still important today. This chapter shows the legacy of these early fieldworkers to those who immediately followed them, reviews something of the politics and social climate of those times, and relates the analytical concerns of the early fieldworkers to themes that are current today. It looks first at the legacy of ideas in the 1960s and through to the early 1970s.Less

Epilogue: On Public Ethnography

Michael Burawoy

in The Extended Case Method: Four Countries, Four Decades, Four Great Transformations, and One Theoretical Tradition

This epilogue raises two broad questions—questions connected to the fourth element of the extended case method, that is, in the extension, elaboration, reconstruction of theory. The first question ... More

This epilogue raises two broad questions—questions connected to the fourth element of the extended case method, that is, in the extension, elaboration, reconstruction of theory. The first question is, whose theory do we reconstruct? The second question is, to whom is our theory addressed? Are we addressing academic audiences—our home community of scholars, specialists in the production of theory—or are we focused on lay audiences?Less

Dying

James Kelly

in Where Night Is Day: The World of the ICU

This chapter explores the notion of death and dying from the perspective of nurses working in the intensive care unit (ICU). It begins by considering the work done by ethnographers, with particular ... More

This chapter explores the notion of death and dying from the perspective of nurses working in the intensive care unit (ICU). It begins by considering the work done by ethnographers, with particular emphasis on their research method called scaffolding. It then compares medicine and nursing in terms of being close to patients who are dying, noting that nurses have a privileged proximity to the world of illness. It also explains how medicine has slowed the tempo of death and cites evidence showing that the majority of patients who die in the ICU die with the decision to withdraw care. Finally, it discusses nurses' compassion for dying patients and their families.Less

Adrift: Reluctant Nomads

Devika Chawla

in Home, Uprooted: Oral Histories of India’s Partition

This chapter describes the author’s experience in writing the stories of her interviewees. The author said that the stories themselves or the act of reading or listening to them made her fidgety. She ... More

This chapter describes the author’s experience in writing the stories of her interviewees. The author said that the stories themselves or the act of reading or listening to them made her fidgety. She defines her experience as narrative lightheadedness, an atmospheric attunement identified as “an attention to the matterings, the complex emergent worlds, happening in everyday life.” Her nervousness and sense of being adrift is an ethnographic encounter in sociocultural work, in which the field or homes are considered physical locales, and participants are considered material bodies. The author added that her feelings results from an ethnographic representational quandary of reliving her participant’s narrative.Less