I have been remiss in posting to Ethnography.com. For about ten years, this ws a forum I really enjoyed. There was a community of bloggers, and the quality of ethnography posted was unusual in both its geographic spread, and the vigor of its writings about places as diverse as Dominica in the Caribbean, Tunisia, Madagascar, Tanznia, Myanmar, Romania, and other places around the world. I think I am one of the few people in the world who actually enjoys editing ethnograhpic writing. …
Category: Ethnography
Bracelets in Difficult Times: The Importance of Ordinary People’s Stories
– by Sigrid van Roode –
The young man looked at me hesitantly. “Well, I don’t know….” he said. “I’ll have to ask my grandfather, but he’s praying right now. Would you like some more tea?” Three glasses of hot sweet tea later, his grandfather entered the tiny shop in Cairo, Egypt’s Khan el-Khalili market where I sat, surrounded by old and vintage silver jewellery. We exchanged greetings and pleasantries, shared some more tea, and eventually settled on a price for the bracelet I wanted to buy.…
Religious Ritual at the Credit Card Machine
Ritual Shrine Offerings Among the Exotic Nacirema Tribe
While it may seem that anthropologists have documented the most exotic rituals across the globe, the strangest rituals are still yet to be documented by scientists in the exotic tribe of the Nacirema. The strange beginnings of the exotic Nacirema tribe have been documented by Tocqueville (1835), and intimate body rituals have been documented by Miner (1956), but no scientist has brought to light the strangest worship ritual of any tribe on the planet.…
Thailand’s Most Famous Writer Finally Published in English
Thailand’s most famous and beloved writer– Rong Wongsawan’s work has been translated, edited and published in English for the first time. For admirers of Thailand and its culture, you can now get a glimpse of California culture through the writing and ethnography of Thailand’s most famous ‘man of the people’ for the first time in English.Working really hard on the YouTube channel. If you want to help please subscribe here: Laurelin the Other.
Ethnography.com launches on Youtube thanks to Chinese Smartphones in Africa
Greetings Ethnography.com aficionados!
My previous post “What Happens if Chinese Smartphones Teach English Lessons in Tanzania?” is now on Youtube. Keeping up with the times, Tony and I will be working together so that Ethnography.com articles will be in video format along with the transcription here on Ethnography.com. Please subscribe to Laurelin the Other– the Other meaning, the Ethnographer. Hit that like button and leave a comment on Youtube.…
British Colonialism and Railways to Nowhere in Northern Burma
In Northern Burma there is a railway bridge, the Gokteik Viaduct. It was completed in 1900 by a Pennsylvania steel company under contract to the British government, which had recently conquered northern Burma following the British-Burma War of 1884-1885.
The British Empire was focused on their version of free trade and they wanted to project British notions of mercantilism to all corners of the world, including southern China. So they decided to build a railway from their new colony in Burma with its port on the Indian Ocean, to Kunming in southern China. …
Understanding the Shaman’s Tribulations
Understanding the Shaman’s Tribulations
– By Taba Menia –
The scholarship of shamanism is closely related to ideas about traditional healing and their knowledge. Found across the world in concern with the relationship between health and the super-natural, Shamans are observed as custodians of the human realm. Becoming a shaman involves expertise in traditional knowledge and transcendental abilities. Many researchers have focused on the initiation in Shamanhood and their roles. However, few discuss the Shaman’s own accounts of their hardships
I came across Shaman understandings of their work when I was carrying out my fieldwork in Arunachal Pradesh, high in the Himalayas in the far east of India between December 2020 and March 2021.…
(Almost) Native Ethnography Meets the Heat of the Tunisian Desert
– by Imen El Amouri –
Before embarking on my ethnographic graduate research, I dove into literature on native anthropological research in North Africa and the Arab world. My personal anguish over social and political conditions in my parents’ (and sometimes my own) home country motivated me to study Tunisian society. With confidence, I started my fieldwork in a remote desert village in the south of Tunisia. The following vignette from my fieldwork has put my native gaze in question.…
One (dis)placed ethnographer’s movements during the pandemic: Is the on-line world a lesser ethnographic world?
– guest blog By Sarah Huxley –
The joys and pains of ethnography, as many an ethnographer might tell you, focus on the immersive, and experiential conundrums that ‘real life’ invariably spits up. That’s not to say that there is no/ little preparation, but rather to say that the very nature of the ethnographic methodology, that is– the ontology, allows for and acknowledges that, just as in life, research must have a space for the unknown, or uninvited dinner guest.…
The Fear of Dahalo Bandits on a Drive Through the Alaotra Night (Madagascar)
– guest blog by Anders Norge Lauridsen –
Why are we stopping? The shadows are growing longer and the twilight is near, but we still have a long way home to the village of Anororo ahead of us. A man at a run from the other tractor several ridges behind us catches up with our tractor and announces between his gasps for breath the bad news. The other tractor has broken down.…
Returning
– guest blog by Valerie Miller –
Returning is a problematic word for anthropologists. To turn is to go around, go another direction, move to a different position. But REturning would then mean to stay right where you are (by turning again), realizing the full circle. It is movement from A to B to A, movement from home to field to home. What happens when “returning home” no longer makes sense because field becomes home, or vice versa?…
What does a Chicken, Drums, Whiskey, Gossip, and International Diplomacy have in common?
With the Ethnography.com website’s updated ‘modern’ look and my ‘mysterious’ long-term disappearance from America, you may be wondering about the site’s header photos, and what the heck is going on over here? Maybe call this ‘flash ethnography’ mixed with ethnographic photography. Here are five short stories…
^ THIS IS THE CHURCH COURTYARD at the ethnographer’s primary Fulbright research site. It is an important Pentecostal church in town that is also a small community.…