Life as an Insect Inside a Glass Jar: Language Learning Through Immersion (Sic Semper, Malinowski and the Tropical Beach...) What does it feel like to live as an insect inside a glass jar? The praying mantis was removed from its environment suddenly, and plopped into a clean, bright glass vessel, along with other things that … Continue reading Life as an Insect Inside a Glass Jar: Language Learning Through Immersion
Tag: Tanzania
The Place That Is Our Home
In 1978, Remmy Ongala left his home in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (not far from the city of Bukavu) for Tanzania. He boarded a boat across Lake Tanganyika to Kigoma, Tanzania's main port city on the great lake. From Kigoma, he then traveled by train to Dar es Salaam to eventually become one … Continue reading The Place That Is Our Home
Campbell’s Law, Planned Social Change, Vietnam War Deaths, and Condom Distributions in Refugee Camps
Donald T. Campbell was a psychologist in the heyday of the 1970s. During this time, the belief emerged that society was a social engineering project that could be planned and evaluated. The general idea was that if you collected enough data, you could plan and control social change in a way that led to … Continue reading Campbell’s Law, Planned Social Change, Vietnam War Deaths, and Condom Distributions in Refugee Camps
Ethnography, Tanzania, PhD degrees, and Something to Read at Bedtime
Someone told me once that a PhD is a license to write for other PhDs. As Donna Lanclos notes, this is different than making a living, and getting a full-time tenure-track job. Nevertheless, as Donna herself demonstrated with her own book about childhood in Northern Ireland, this is a license that we can … Continue reading Ethnography, Tanzania, PhD degrees, and Something to Read at Bedtime