Tag: fieldwork

No Longer a Field

By Guest Contributor | May 15, 2020

by Rachel Howard (Fieldwork in a Time of Coronavirus series) Suspending my fieldwork due to the COVID-19 pandemic inspired a set of questions about the nature of ethnographic research: about how it is different from other kinds of research. About how the rituals that mark our initiation into the discipline proscribe a kind of boundary-making in which the field becomes a liminal time of exception. And about how these boundaries, especially in the context of a global health emergency, disappear. {+}

Fieldwork and the Nation Under Threat: Rethinking Critique, Recentering Relationships

By Guest Contributor | May 8, 2020

by Josh Babcock (Fieldwork in a Time of Coronavirus series) Singapore emerged early as a global success story in COVID-19 containment and response, with low infection rates, stable food systems, and functional medical infrastructure. In March, the WHO commended Singapore for its swift, “all-of-society, all-of-government approach.” Media routinely referred to Singapore as a “model” and “lesson” for the world. A Trump staffer even tried to take credit for the response, and Barbara Streisand made waves after tweeting in praise of {+}

Introduction: Fieldwork in a Time of Coronavirus (new series)

By Guest Contributor | May 1, 2020

Anthrodendum welcomes guest blogger Josh Babcock. Ph.D. Candidate in Sociocultural and Linguistic Anthropology at the University of Chicago. His research examines the public co-construction of language and race in the making of a multimodal image of Singapore. Fieldwork—a core dimension of ethnography—has, for generations of researchers, been seen as a necessary method in many kinds of qualitative investigations, and a rite of passage in its practitioners’ professionalization. Despite severe critique from both within and outside its host disciplines, fieldwork remains a {+}

El Cruce de la Muerte: Fieldwork and Carework at the Crossroad of Death

By Trauma and Resilience | November 7, 2019

Anthrodendum welcomes guest blogger Amarilys Estrella, Visiting Assistant Professor in the Department of Social and Cultural Analysis at New York University. Her research examines the role of human rights discourse in transnational activism against anti-Black racism. El Cruce de la Muerte: Fieldwork and Carework at the Crossroad of Death by Amarilys Estrella In July of 2017, one year after having moved with my family to the Dominican Republic for my dissertation research, I survived a car accident. Our car crashed {+}

Writing, Silence, and Sensemaking After Fieldwork Trauma

By Trauma and Resilience | November 6, 2019

Anthrodendum welcomes guest blogger Kimberly J. Lewis, Associate Director of the Office of Scholars and Fellowships at the University of Richmond. She earned her PhD in Anthropology from Brown University in 2019 and her research interests include higher education, academic labor, and inclusive pedagogy. She is on Twitter @kimjunelewis. Writing, Silence, and Sensemaking After Fieldwork Trauma by Kimberly J. Lewis Crashing During my first summer of graduate fieldwork, I was on an overnight bus that skidded and tumbled off the {+}

Writing for Them, Writing for Us: Resilience in Practice

By Trauma and Resilience | November 2, 2019

Anthrodendum welcomes guest editors Beatriz Reyes-Foster and Rebecca J. Lester. Writing for Them, Writing for Us: Resilience in Practice In part two of our series, Humanizing Fieldwork, we considered the everyday challenges of conducting fieldwork abroad and at home. As all anthropologists know, the ethnographic fieldwork experience is not immune to the unexpected, and emergencies affecting the physical and emotional well-being of the field worker can and do occur. What do we do when fieldwork flips violently on itself, like {+}

The Challenges of Conducting Fieldwork in a Place You Call Home

By Trauma and Resilience | August 17, 2019

Anthrodendum welcomes guest blogger Saira Mehmood. She will be a Visiting Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Spelman College in the 2019-2020 academic year. You can follow her on Twitter @SairaAMehmood. The Challenges of Conducting Fieldwork in a Place You Call Home Saira A. Mehmood I conducted my dissertation fieldwork in my hometown of New Orleans. As a woman of color, I have noticed many other anthropologists of color also conducting fieldwork in places they call home. {+}

Methods of Motherhood: The Borderlands of Scholarship, Motherhood, and Trauma

By Trauma and Resilience | August 13, 2019

Anthrodendum welcomes guest blogger Melinda González. She is a PhD Candidate at Louisiana State University in the department of Geography and Anthropology, pursuing a doctorate in Anthropology. She is currently conducting dissertation research on post-Hurricane Maria community organizing in the Puerto Rican diaspora. Melinda is a first-generation college graduate, single mother, published and performance poet, and capoerista. You can learn more about her at PhDdreams.com. Methods of Motherhood: The Borderlands of Scholarship, Motherhood, and Trauma Melinda González “Una {+}

The Embodiment of Kintsugi

By Trauma and Resilience | August 9, 2019

Anthrodendum welcomes guest blogger Shir Lerman Ginzburg, project director in the Department of Pediatrics and the Preventive Intervention Research Center (PIRC) at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx. She earned both her PhD in medical anthropology (2016) and her MPH (2015) from the University of Connecticut. Her primary research interests include mental health (particularly depression and anxiety), idioms of distress, obesity, diabetes, mindfulness, Hispanics, and Puerto Rican identity. She also has an interest in the Zika Virus and health disparities. {+}

Humanizing Fieldwork

By Trauma and Resilience | August 5, 2019

Anthrodendum welcomes guest editors Beatriz Reyes-Foster and Rebecca J. Lester. Humanizing Fieldwork: Trauma and Resilience in Ethnographic Fieldwork, Part II The first collection of posts in this series demanded that we recognize the fact that fieldwork can hurt, and that we have fostered a disciplinary culture where that hurt has been normalized and even celebrated. In this next installment, our contributors recognize the challenges of navigating mental illness before and during fieldwork as well as the multiple structural constraints faced {+}