In preparation for writing an ethnographic monograph on fieldwork in Yemen, I compare and contrast my field diary, written in 1978–9, with Paul Rabinow’s Reflections on Fieldwork in Morocco (1977). The underlying question is what post-fieldwork reflections reflect meaningfully about the immediacy of ethnographic fieldwork? I criticise the reflexivist trope of privileging ‘writing culture’ over the significance of ‘being there’ in the field. Point by point, I examine the implications of graduate training in anthropology, culture shock, health problems, language skills, the unreflective male voice, visual ethnography and the rhetoric of narrative writing.
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Reflections on Fieldwork in Yemen
The Genealogy of a Diary in Response to Rabinow's Reflections of Fieldwork in Morocco
Daniel Martin Varisco
In Anthropology of the Middle East
- Published (Print):
- 01 Dec 2006
- Article Type:
- Research Article
- Pages:
- 35–62 (28 total)
The Incitement to Fieldwork
Ward Keeler
likely to want to learn about. Suppressing information about how the fieldwork encounter actually took place, this well-known critique asserts, dissembles the power imbalance between the anthropologist and his or her objects of study (cf. Clifford and
In Social Analysis
- Published (Print):
- 01 Mar 2020
- Article Type:
- Research Article
- Pages:
- 80–101 (22 total)
Fieldwork Assignments in the Anthropology of Religion
A Practical Guide
Andrew Buckser
This article discusses structural, logistical, and administrative issues associated with the use of participant observation assignments in teaching the anthropology of religion. Fieldwork presents extraordinary opportunities for teaching students about the nature of cultural difference, but it also poses pedagogical challenges that require careful planning and supervision. The article reviews problems including the scope and nature of the observation, student preparation and guidance, connecting with fieldsites, presentation formats, issues of ethics and confidentiality, and university administrative considerations.
In Religion and Society
- Published (Print):
- 01 Mar 2010
- Article Type:
- Research Article
- Pages:
- 177–184 (8 total)
Classic Fieldwork, Critique and Engaged Anthropology
Into the New Century
George E. Marcus
Classic conditions of fieldwork research, to which anthropology remains committed, are difficult to establish today within far-reaching projects of neoliberal economy, governance and philanthropy. The forms of collaboration on which these projects insist, and those that ethnography encourages for its own research purposes, must be reconciled. On the bargains or adjustments that anthropology makes with neoliberal projects, within which it establishes scenes of fieldwork, depends its capacity to produce critique - its primary agenda since the 1980s. These issues are what are at stake in the widespread current discussions of, and hopes for, an 'engaged' anthropology.
In Anthropological Journal of European Cultures
- Published (Print):
- 01 Sep 2012
- Article Type:
- Research Article
- Pages:
- 35–42 (7 total)
What can we learn from a ‘liar’ and a ‘madman’? Serendipity and double commitment during fieldwork
Stefan Le Courant
In order to do my PhD fieldwork among undocumented migrants in a detention centre, I had to become a volunteer for an NGO providing legal assistance. In this paper I examine the effect of this double commitment through the study of two figures: a ‘liar’ and a ‘madman’. I question the grounds upon which field anthropological practice is based, namely, the ideas of long‐term fieldwork and serendipity. I hypothesise that anthropological knowledge is constructed in the successive oscillations between various positions and points of view on the field and not in the quest for the right distance from the subject under scrutiny.
In Social Anthropology/Anthropologie sociale
- Published (Print):
- 01 May 2013
- Article Type:
- Research Article
- Pages:
- 186–198 (12 total)
RETURNING TO THE ARCHIVE IN SEARCH OF EVERYDAY PRACTICES IN FIELDWORK
Karin Gustavsson
This article concerns itself with the early twentieth-century documentation of different phenomena in the Swedish countryside considered crucial to an understanding of rural lifestyle in the past. This research was motivated out of a concern for a vanishing peasant culture. Vast quantities of photographs, drawings and descriptions of houses and settlements were compiled into archives and later on, this material was used as the base for the Atlas of Swedish folk culture published in 1957. Inspired by Fleck’s notion of “thought collective” and Latour’s ideas of “craftsmanship”, the article returns to the archives in order to examine the everyday practices of the fieldworkers and the different tools and techniques used to document the vanishing peasant material culture.
In Ethnologia Europaea
- Published (Print):
- 01 Mar 2014
- Article Type:
- Research Article
- Pages:
- 61–75 (14 total)
Managing Danger in Fieldwork with Perpetrators of Political Violence and State Terror
Jeffrey A. Sluka
The ethnography of state terror is “high risk” research and there are real personal dangers for anyone who conducts fieldwork on this issue. Managing such dangers has particularly become an issue for those conducting primary research with perpetrators of state terror—the “rank and file” who apply the electric cattle prods and pull the triggers—and all of the researchers I know who have taken this path have been threatened in one form or another. Th is article reviews the core literature and latest developments in managing the physical dangers inherent in the ethnography of political violence and state terror, particularly fieldwork or primary research with the actual perpetrators themselves, makes practical recommendations for managing such dangers, and presents some ideas for developing risk management plans or protocols for researcher survival in perilous field sites.
In Conflict and Society
- Published (Print):
- 01 Jun 2015
- Article Type:
- Research Article
- Pages:
- 109–124 (16 total)
Picturesque Savagery on Display
Exhibition of Indigenous People, Science and Commerce in Argentina (1898–1904)
Diego Ballestero
structural advantages offered by urban spaces when conducting fieldwork. He was born in Posen in 1872. Between 1890 and 1896 he studied at the universities of Freiburg, Berlin and Munich. At Munich, he obtained his doctorates in philosophy (1894) and medicine
In Anthropological Journal of European Cultures
- Published (Print):
- 01 Sep 2022
- Article Type:
- Research Article
- Pages:
- 65–88 (24 total)
Feelings in the Field
The Emotional Labour of the Ethnographer
Maria Concetta Lo Bosco
Ethnographic fieldwork has defined anthropology both as a discipline and practice ( Gupta and Ferguson 1997 ). It is broadly conceived as that unique and irreplaceable rite of passage which will ultimately turn an apprentice anthropologist in a
In Anthropology in Action
- Published (Print):
- 01 Jun 2021
- Article Type:
- Research Article
- Pages:
- 8–17 (10 total)
Plans, Changes, Improvisations
Navigating Research on the Fertility Quests of Mozambican Women and Men
Inês Faria
In this article, I look at the pragmatics of the fieldwork process with a focus on my own personal experience. Rather than an analytical piece, as I have developed elsewhere ( Faria 2018 ), I opt here for a more descriptive and informal tone. I
In Anthropology in Action
- Published (Print):
- 01 Jun 2021
- Article Type:
- Research Article
- Pages:
- 18–26 (9 total)