Encounters: Experience and Anthropological Knowledge – serie

How are notions of ‘home’ made and negotiated by ethnographers? And how does the researcher relate to forms of home encountered during fieldwork? Rather than searching for an abstract, philosophical understanding of home, this collection asks how home gains its meaning and significance through ongoing efforts to create, sustain or remake a sense of home. The volume explores how researchers and informants alike are always involved in the process of making and unmaking home, and challenges readers to reimagine ethnographic practice in terms of active, morally complex process of home-making. Contributions reach across the globe and across social contexts, and the book includes chapters on council housing and middle-class apartment buildings, homelessness and migration, problems with accessing the field as well as limiting it, physical as well as sentimental notions of home, and objects as well as inter-human social relations. Home draws attention to processes of sociality that normally remain analytically invisible, and contributes to a growing and rich field of study on the anthropology of home.

What exactly is a crowd? How do crowds differ from other large gatherings of people? And how do they transform emotions, politics, or faith? In Crowds, contributors draw on their experiences and expertise to reflect on their encounters with crowds. Each chapter examines a particular crowd or conception of crowdedness to provide an analysis of how, when, where—and with whom—crowds form in different contexts, as well as their purpose and the practical effect the experience has on both the participants and their environment. The wide selection of case studies ranges from the crowds that form every year during the Hajj, to New Year celebrations in China, commuters on the Delhi metro, public prayer in Nigeria, online mobs in Bangladesh, and the crowds that have emerged during protest movements in Thailand and Syria. Crowds makes a key contribution to establishing an anthropological theory of crowds and will be an essential read for both students and researchers.

What exactly is a crowd? How do crowds differ from other large gatherings of people? And how do they transform emotions, politics, or faith? In Crowds, contributors draw on their experiences and expertise to reflect on their encounters with crowds. Each chapter examines a particular crowd or conception of crowdedness to provide an analysis of how, when, where—and with whom—crowds form in different contexts, as well as their purpose and the practical effect the experience has on both the participants and their environment. The wide selection of case studies ranges from the crowds that form every year during the Hajj, to New Year celebrations in China, commuters on the Delhi metro, public prayer in Nigeria, online mobs in Bangladesh, and the crowds that have emerged during protest movements in Thailand and Syria. Crowds makes a key contribution to establishing an anthropological theory of crowds and will be an essential read for both students and researchers.

How are notions of ‘home’ made and negotiated by ethnographers? And how does the researcher relate to forms of home encountered during fieldwork? Rather than searching for an abstract, philosophical understanding of home, this collection asks how home gains its meaning and significance through ongoing efforts to create, sustain or remake a sense of home. The volume explores how researchers and informants alike are always involved in the process of making and unmaking home, and challenges readers to reimagine ethnographic practice in terms of active, morally complex process of home-making. Contributions reach across the globe and across social contexts, and the book includes chapters on council housing and middle-class apartment buildings, homelessness and migration, problems with accessing the field as well as limiting it, physical as well as sentimental notions of home, and objects as well as inter-human social relations. Home draws attention to processes of sociality that normally remain analytically invisible, and contributes to a growing and rich field of study on the anthropology of home.

Conducting ethnographic fieldwork with children presents anthropologists with particular challenges and limitations, as well as rewards and insights. Children: Ethnographic Encounters presents ten vivid accounts of researchers’ experiences of working with children across a variety of cultural contexts. Part of the Ethnographic Encounters series, the book offers honest reflections on successes as well as failures and shows that in all cases – even those that ‘failed’ – anthropologists can learn something about children’s position in their social world. Going beyond the usual focus on North America and Europe, the text offers comparative insights into the nature of childhood in different societies. The chapters provide first-hand accounts of fieldwork with children in diverse geographical places such as Mexico, the Ecuadorian Amazon, Rwanda, central India, Thailand, Malaysia, and China. The book provides hope, encouragement and inspiration to anyone planning to undertake ethnographic fieldwork with children and provides important insights to students and researchers working in the growing field of anthropology of children and childhood, in childhood studies, and related fields.

Conducting ethnographic fieldwork with children presents anthropologists with particular challenges and limitations, as well as rewards and insights. Children: Ethnographic Encounters presents ten vivid accounts of researchers’ experiences of working with children across a variety of cultural contexts. Part of the Ethnographic Encounters series, the book offers honest reflections on successes as well as failures and shows that in all cases – even those that ‘failed’ – anthropologists can learn something about children’s position in their social world. Going beyond the usual focus on North America and Europe, the text offers comparative insights into the nature of childhood in different societies. The chapters provide first-hand accounts of fieldwork with children in diverse geographical places such as Mexico, the Ecuadorian Amazon, Rwanda, central India, Thailand, Malaysia, and China. The book provides hope, encouragement and inspiration to anyone planning to undertake ethnographic fieldwork with children and provides important insights to students and researchers working in the growing field of anthropology of children and childhood, in childhood studies, and related fields.

Focusing on the unacknowledged, personal and often unconscious dimension, Sex explores the intersection between sex and ethnography. Anthropological writing tends to focus on the influence of status markers such as position, gender, ethnicity, and age on fieldwork. By contrast, far less attention has been paid to how sex, sexuality, eroticism, desire, attraction, and rejection affect ethnographic research. In the book, anthropologists reflect on their own encounters with sex during fieldwork, revealing how attraction and desire influence the choice of fieldwork subjects, field sites and friendships. They also examine the resulting impact on fieldwork findings and the generation of knowledge. Based on fieldwork in Germany, Denmark, Greece, the USA, Brazil, South Africa, Singapore, Turkey, Israel, Morocco, and India, the contributors go beyond the common heterosexuality/homosexuality divide to address topics which include celibacy, polyamory and sadomasochism. This long overdue text provides perspectives from a new generation of anthropologists and brings the debate into the 21st century. Examining challenging and controversial issues in contemporary fieldwork, this is essential reading for students in anthropology, gender and sexuality studies, sociology, research methods, and ethics courses.

Focusing on the unacknowledged, personal and often unconscious dimension, Sex explores the intersection between sex and ethnography. Anthropological writing tends to focus on the influence of status markers such as position, gender, ethnicity, and age on fieldwork. By contrast, far less attention has been paid to how sex, sexuality, eroticism, desire, attraction, and rejection affect ethnographic research. In the book, anthropologists reflect on their own encounters with sex during fieldwork, revealing how attraction and desire influence the choice of fieldwork subjects, field sites and friendships. They also examine the resulting impact on fieldwork findings and the generation of knowledge. Based on fieldwork in Germany, Denmark, Greece, the USA, Brazil, South Africa, Singapore, Turkey, Israel, Morocco, and India, the contributors go beyond the common heterosexuality/homosexuality divide to address topics which include celibacy, polyamory and sadomasochism. This long overdue text provides perspectives from a new generation of anthropologists and brings the debate into the 21st century. Examining challenging and controversial issues in contemporary fieldwork, this is essential reading for students in anthropology, gender and sexuality studies, sociology, research methods, and ethics courses.

In Money: Ethnographic Encounters, anthropologists tell stories of their experiences with money in the field. Through vivid fieldwork accounts, they explore the ways money has influenced their perceptions and understandings of culture. These accounts raise critical questions. How do anthropologists come to know another culture through ordinary yet unexpected experiences with money? How is anthropological knowledge produced through these interactions?Money: Ethnographic Encounters offers students, teachers and researchers the opportunity to consider the work of anthropology through vigorous narrative. It also includes a Guide to Further Reading for students. With stories of fieldwork in such varied sites as Vietnam, Ghana, China, and Malawi, Money: Ethnographic Encounters is ideal for all students of anthropology.

In Money: Ethnographic Encounters, anthropologists tell stories of their experiences with money in the field. Through vivid fieldwork accounts, they explore the ways money has influenced their perceptions and understandings of culture. These accounts raise critical questions. How do anthropologists come to know another culture through ordinary yet unexpected experiences with money? How is anthropological knowledge produced through these interactions?Money: Ethnographic Encounters offers students, teachers and researchers the opportunity to consider the work of anthropology through vigorous narrative. It also includes a Guide to Further Reading for students. With stories of fieldwork in such varied sites as Vietnam, Ghana, China, and Malawi, Money: Ethnographic Encounters is ideal for all students of anthropology.

Violence takes many forms. From large-scale acts of terrorism to assaults on single individuals, violence is a defining force in shaping human experience and a central theme in anthropological study. Violence: Ethnographic Encounters presents a set of vivid first-hand accounts of fieldwork experiences of violence. The examples range across Latin America, Asia, the Middle East and Africa, and illustrate instances of state terror, insurgency, communal violence, war, prison violence, class conflict, security measures, and sexual violence. How do these anthropologists come to know a place through such violent experience? Why do they not leave such scenes? What insights follow from such experience? Violence: Ethnographic Encounters offers readers a broad anthropological study of violence through personal encounters.

Violence takes many forms. From large-scale acts of terrorism to assaults on single individuals, violence is a defining force in shaping human experience and a central theme in anthropological study. Violence: Ethnographic Encounters presents a set of vivid first-hand accounts of fieldwork experiences of violence. The examples range across Latin America, Asia, the Middle East and Africa, and illustrate instances of state terror, insurgency, communal violence, war, prison violence, class conflict, security measures, and sexual violence. How do these anthropologists come to know a place through such violent experience? Why do they not leave such scenes? What insights follow from such experience? Violence: Ethnographic Encounters offers readers a broad anthropological study of violence through personal encounters.

Food preparation, consumption, and exchange are eminently social practices, and experiencing another cuisine often provides our first encounter with a different culture. This volume presents fascinating essays about cooking, eating, and sharing food, by anthropologists working in many parts of the world, exploring what they learned by eating with others.These are accounts of specific experiences - of cooking in Mombasa, shopping for organic produce in Vienna, eating vegetarian in Vietnam, raising and selling chickens in Hong Kong, and of refugees subsisting on food aid. With a special focus on the experience and challenge of ethnographic fieldwork, the essays cover a wide range of topics in food studies and anthropology, including food safety and food security, cultural diversity and globalization, colonial histories and contemporary identities, and changing ecological, social, and political relations across cultures.Food: Ethnographic Encounters offers readers a broad view of the vibrancy of local and global food cultures, and provides an accessible introduction to both food studies and contemporary ethnography.