I haven’t been writing much because I moved back to Germany 6 weeks ago. I will be here for two semesters while I am teaching at Leuphana University near Hamburg. The first six weeks have been the usual rush of purchases (phones, bicycles, groceries, etc. etc.), trying to do things, and then somehow make it back home without getting lost. A big challenge for doing this is to find the easiest path between my apartment, and the university some 5-6 kilometers away. As is usual with me in new cities, I spend my share of time getting lost, wandering about new hallways, streets, and bike paths.
A big challenge for doing this is to find the easiest bike path between my apartment, and the university some 5-6 kilometers away. As is usual with bike paths, the best ways are often away from traffic, and through the backways and alleyways. In my new commute this means riding through a dirt path, which goes under a highway and along a river, and then pops out at the end of a shady dead-end cobblestoned lane which I suspect was once the old road.
At the end of this alley there seem to be always 2-3 parked vehicles with Lithuanian license plates. They seem to be a varying mix of two or three vehicles, especially vans and trailers. They disappear during the day, and often change. All of them though look like they are packed full of household goods. Chairs, tables, beds, children’s toys, and so forth. A washing machine was sitting there this morning. Once I saw a man cooking on a kerosene stove, and I have seen others sitting around smoking and chatting. I am almost to the point that we acknowledge each other, but not quite. I wonder what vehicles from Lithuania are here in this remote dead end lane?
Lithuania is now a Schengen country, and a member of the European Union, which means that Lithuanians are permitted to enter Germany without a visa, and to seek work. I wonder what story the people at the end of this alley have to tell?
Tony Waters is czar and editor of Ethnography.com. He came to us from the Sociology department at California State University at Chico where he has been a professor since 1996. In 2016 though he suddenly found himself with a new gig at Payap University in northern Thailand where he is on the faculty of the Peace Studies Department. He has also been a guest professor in Germany, and Tanzania. In the past, his main interests have been international development and refugees in Thailand, Tanzania, and California. This reflects a former career in the Peace Corps (Thailand), and refugee camps (Thailand and Tanzania). His books include: Crime and Immigrant Youth (1999), Bureaucratizing the Good Samaritan (2001), The Persistence of Subsistence Agriculture: Life Beneath of the Marketplace (2007), When Killing is a Crime (2007), and Schooling, Bureaucracy, and Childhood: Bureaucratizing the Child (2012). His hobby is trying to learn strange languages–and the mistakes that that implies. Tony is a prolific academic, you can read more of his work at academia.edu.or purchase one (or more!) of his books from Amazon.com.