Being there : fieldwork in anthropology

Product Description The nature of anthropological fieldwork changes from generation to generation, reflecting current personal, moral and political issues. This collection addresses the central position of fieldwork in modern social anthropology, examining previous works on the subject and locating a discussion of the nature of fieldwork within the context of current theoretical debates. Central to this analysis are the personal accounts of six anthropologists, all trained in the tradition of social anthropology and working in a variety of different social, economic and environmental settings --- Italy, the Himalayas, Northern England, Bangladesh and Indonesia. Each example is a discussion of the close relationship which anthropologists establish with friends and informants in the field. Collectively they describe the varying ways in which that closeness affects the nature of the anthropologists' observation, as well as an understanding of themselves and their discipline. The study reveals that, although the younger generation of social anthropologists clearly derive their inspiration from the ideas and insights of an earlier generation, they are working with a set of very different political and personal circumstances.Accessible, beautifully written and jargon-free, Being There breaks new ground in the way in which its authors explain and reflect on their intentions and emotions, and the nature of their personal relationships with their informants. About the Author C.W. Watson teaches in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Kent at Canterbury. He is editor (with Roy F. Ellen) of Understanding Witchcraft and Sorcery in Southeast Asia (1994) and is the author of Kinship, Property and Inheritance in Kerinci, Central Sumatra (1994). Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. Being ThereFieldwork in AnthropologyBy C. W. WatsonPluto PressCopyright © 1999 C. W. WatsonAll rights reserved.ISBN: 978-0-7453-1497-6ContentsNotes on Contributors, vi, Introduction: The Quality of Being There C. W. Watson, 1, 1 Fictions of Fieldwork: Depicting the 'Self in Ethnographic Writing (Italy) Cris Shore, 25, 2 Location and Relocation: Home, 'the Field' and Anthropological Ethics (Sylhet, Bangladesh) Katy Gardner, 49, 3 On Ethnographic Experience: Formative and Informative (Nias, Indonesia) Andrew Beatty, 74, 4 Learning to be Friends: Participant Observation amongst English Schoolchildren (the Midlands, England) Allison James, 98, 5 The End in the Beginning: New Year at Rizong (the Himalayas) Anna Grimshaw, 121, 6 A Diminishment: a Death in the Field (Kerinci, Indonesia) C. W. Watson, 141, Index, 164, CHAPTER 1FICTIONS OF FIELDWORK: DEPICTING THE 'SELF' IN ETHNOGRAPHIC WRITING (ITALY)Cris ShoreRETHINKING THE CONCEPT OF 'FIELDWORK'The aim of this chapter is to reflect analytically on the fieldwork encounter, particularly those frequently cited 'critical experiences' during fieldwork (or so they sometimes appear with hindsight), when a situation suddenly becomes clear, or when anthropologists are forced to radically reflect on and reconsider their research project. What follows is an attempt to describe and analyse some of the formative events and influences that shaped my own fieldwork study of the Italian Communist Party (PCI) in the early 1980s. I want to illustrate the ways in which – and the mechanisms through which – those experiences generated critical anthropological insights, both personal and professional. First, however, I wish to contextualise this by raising some questions concerning the way fieldwork has traditionally been conceptualised in anthropology, and the problems this poses for anthropological theory and practice. Thinking about my own 'critical experiences' led me to question not only certain assumptions about the nature of this activity that we call 'fieldwork', but also the ways in which anthropologists represent (and often misrepresent) themselves within their ethnographic