Ethnographic Explorations

In Ethnographic Explorations: Surrender and Resistance, Whitaker and Atkinson, two experienced ethnographers, explore the complexities of fieldwork, analysis and writing from new perspectives. It takes the opportunity to reflect on Ethnography not just as a methodological perspective, but at a fundamental level. In general terms, Ethnography is seen not just in terms of a set of data-collection methods, but as a more profoundly transformational perspective. The book explores a series of tensions and differences in the conceptualisation and conduct of ethnography, among them: Surrender and Catch; Strangeness and Familiarity; Intimacy and Distance; amd Romanticism and Modernism. It emphasises disruptions and interruptions rather than an idealised model of smoothly untroubled research. The book covers a variety of theoretical and methodological perspectives, illustrated with research in many social settings. The book is intended for researchers at postgraduate and postdoctoral levels and at experienced researchers who want to read a different, sometimes challenging, take on ethnographic research and its outcomes.

Whereas most anthropological research is grounded in social, cultural and biological analysis of the human condition, this volume opens up a different approach: its concerns are the psychic depths of human cultural life-worlds as explored through psycho-analytic practice and/or the psychoanalytically framed ethnographic project. In fact, some contributors here argue that the anthropological interpretation of human existence is not sustainable without psychoanalysis; others take a less extreme radical stance but still maintain that the unconscious matrix of the human psyche and of the intersubjective (social) reality of any given cultural life-world is a vital domain of anthropological and sociological inquiry and understanding.

Monsters are culturally meaningful across the world. Starting from this key premise, this book tackles monsters in the context of social change. Writing in a time of violent upheaval, when technological innovation brings forth new monsters while others perish as part of the widespread extinctions that signify the Anthropocene, contributors argue that putting monsters at the center of social analysis opens up new perspectives on change and social transformation. Through a series of ethnographically grounded analyses they capture monsters that herald, drive, experience, enjoy, and suffer the transformations of the worlds they beleaguer. Topics examined include the evil skulking new roads in Ancient Greece, terror in post-socialist Laos's territorial cults, a horrific flying head that augurs catastrophe in the rain forest of Borneo, benign spirits that accompany people through the mist in Iceland, flesh-eating giants marching through neo-colonial central Australia, and ghosts lingering in Pacific villages in the aftermath of environmental disasters. By taking the proposition that monsters and the humans they haunt are intricately and intimately entangled seriously, this book offers unique, cross-cultural perspectives on how people perceive the world and their place within it. It also shows how these experiences of belonging are mediated by our relationships with the other-than-human.

The state has recently been rediscovered as an object of inquiry by a broad range of scholars. Reflecting the new vitality of the field of political anthropology, States of Imagination draws together the best of this recent critical thinking to explore the postcolonial state. Contributors focus on a variety of locations from Guatemala, Pakistan, and Peru to India and Ecuador; they study what the state looks like to those seeing it from the vantage points of rural schools, police departments, small villages, and the inside of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Focusing on the micropolitics of everyday state-making, the contributors examine the mythologies, paradoxes, and inconsistencies of the state through ethnographies of diverse postcolonial practices. They show how the authority of the state is constantly challenged from the local as well as the global and how growing demands to confer rights and recognition to ever more citizens, organizations, and institutions reveal a persistent myth of the state as a source of social order and an embodiment of popular sovereignty. Demonstrating the indispensable value of ethnographic work on the practices and the symbols of the state, States of Imagination showcases a range of studies and methods to provide insight into the diverse forms of the postcolonial state as an arena of both political and cultural struggle. This collection will interest students and scholars of anthropology, cultural studies, sociology, political science, and history. Contributors. Lars Buur, Mitchell Dean, Akhil Gupta, Thomas Blom Hansen, Steffen Jensen, Aletta J. Norval, David Nugent, Sarah Radcliffe, Rachel Sieder, Finn Stepputat, Martijn van Beek, Oskar Verkaaik, Fiona Wilson

Scholars in anthropology, sociology, ethnic studies, and Asian American studies consider traditional models for enthographic research. They explore the construction and displacement of self, community, and home integral to Asian American cultural journeys in the late 20th century

Drawing on extended ethnographic studies of management consultancies in the Oslo region of Norway, this book seeks to find a richer understanding of their role in contemporary work life and the attraction their practices exert on people. The author shows that management consultancy is an arena of meaning that should be analysed as a ‘cultural space’. With a detailed investigation into consultancy as a cultural phenomenon, Henningsen argues that its services can be viewed as a ‘micro-utopian’ vision which can lead to a happier working environment for individuals.

Dimensions of Social Exclusion focuses largely on social exclusion in the context of communities and social groups who have or have not been considered in discussing the benefits of mainstream inclusive society or development. Contemporary understanding of social exclusion has revived great interest among academics, researchers and policy makers in understanding problems from the perspectives of social exclusion. The decision to adopt the perspective of social exclusion has not been universal; rather the nature of this is very heterogeneous. In addition, the concept of social exclusion is not static; in reality, it is a process. The process is seen in the marginalization and discrimination of people in their everyday lives and interactions. The term ‘exclusion’ has become a part of the vocabulary in Europe and other developing societies like ‘poverty’ or ‘unemployment’; it is one of those words which seem to have both an everyday meaning and an underlying sense. It emphasizes the social aspects of concerns such as housing, health, employment, education, participation in social activities and festivities, social interaction and social intercourse. It excludes certain communities and groups from interaction and access to social resources through social arrangements, normative value systems and customs. Exclusion based on caste is one example and patriarchy is another, which is a form of systemic or constitutive exclusion. Having social, cultural, political and economic ramifications, it is also a complex and multi-dimensional concept. These dimensions are interwoven and are addressed in the different papers of the volume. This book revolves around the societal interventions and institutions that exclude, discriminate, isolate and deprive some groups on the basis of group identities such as caste or ethnicity. It covers a wide spectrum of societies and communities living in various cultural environments. The multidisciplinary nature of the book will render it helpful to students and researchers of sociology, anthropology, historical and political studies, demography, social work and gender studies in particular and the humanities in general.

World-wide migration has an unsettling effect on social structures, especially on aging populations and eldercare. This volume investigates how taken-for-granted roles are challenged, intergenerational relationships transformed, economic ties recalibrated, technological innovations utilized, and spiritual relations pursued and desired, and asks what it means to care at a distance and to age abroad. What it does show is that trans-nationalization of care produces unprecedented convergences of people, objects and spaces that challenge our assumptions about the who, how, and where of care.