~ a group blog on a variety of topics related to anthropology, sociology, and ordinary people ~
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.…
English is the dominant global language of the world, it is the language of power, and control. But it is not the only language, and different people have different levels of command over the use of the same language. It is interesting to watch how this happens, often in unexpected ways, for example by the arrival of Chinese cell phones here in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.
I recently bought the cheapest smartphone I could find, when it seemed my primary phone had been burned by excess voltage coming out of the electrical sockets in rural/provincial Tanzania (Kigoma).…
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.…
What is Ethnography?
Often, people do not understand my work as an ‘ethnographer.’
Perhaps, they assume I am creating a life of luxury for myself and just sitting somewhere. Or, they will ask me, are you a writer for the news? Then I reply, no, I am not that kind of writer. Often, those kinds of writers are financed by different corporations, they will arrive suddenly at such-and-such place, they will find a few people, they will ask a few questions, maybe hiring an interpreter, then they leave as fast as they arrived, and send their work to the newspaper or the evening news.…
The writings of an important Thai writer & journalist are just beginning to surface in the English language. I feel confident enough to say that I am the first anthropologist & ethnographer indebted to ‘Rong Wongsawan, because my mentor Dr. Tony Waters is conducting this translation work, with the help of his Thai students, and with the approval of Rong Wongsawan’s family. What makes this story more interesting is that I only know and speak two languages– English and Kiswahili, and I’m currently conducting Fulbright fieldwork in central Africa– in Kigoma, Tanzania.…
Since returning to Kigoma, Tanzania on the shores of Lake Tanganyika in central Africa for my Fulbright research, I have been looking for two of my Congolese friends. I was told that they crossed the Lake, and returned to two of the cities in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo to live– to be together with their family and relatives.
People should not be reduced only to suffering, and narratives only to exodus, which I recognized in my anthropology classes at California State University, Chico. …
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 resembled its original home– a few sticks, pebbles, and an ant to nibble on. I think people who struggle to learn a language through immersion in a very different culture know best what it might feel like to be the praying mantis you captured when you were a child, or to become that child again.…
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 of the most famous and well-loved ‘Tanzanian’ songwriter-musicians, Dr. Remmy.
For me, that small city of Kigoma that Dr.…