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Philip- Even though I was going to Nepal to study an occupational community, and even though as a novice undergrad, impressed by my professors' descriptions of ethnographic fieldwork, I had jokingly remarked that somebody should conduct an ethnography of anthropologists, I had no conscious intention to draw a connection between the two of them. Rather than focussing on the anthropology of bureaucratic institutions (which seemed of only tangential relevance then), my preparation was much more concerned with reading around the ethnography of professional learning (Edelman on Swedish railway shunters, Palsson on Icelandic trawler skippers and so on).
Philip Carl SALZMAN said:Piers, your fieldwork, and your reflections on it, are intriguing. May I ask: when you went to Nepal did you have in mind a study that would speak to the situation of anthropologists back home?
Piers Locke said:John- In fact this is not as off topic as it may seem. There is a connection between my interests in captive elephant management and academic life. My work in Nepal concerns an occupational community, with an interest in the process of professional identity formation. Similarly I have been interested in the making of anthropologists, not only considering fieldwork as initiation, but considering the various other kinds of departmental and disciplinary activities which constitute them (us) as such. Just as I found the handlers' expertise was undervalued and misunderstood by the bureaucracy to which they are subject, so too with anthropologists - I have been fascinated by the way so many create self-other narratives of themselves in opposition to the university and funding agencies, upon which they depend, but with whom they tend to have such problematic relations.
Only later (after the research experience) did I realise there were interesting (and productive) analogues between elephant training as a rite of passage (which became a major topic in my research) and ethnographic fieldwork (as I went through the ordeal that gave me the legitimate right to call myself an anthropologist). It's nothing new that we talk about our training in terms of initiation, but I still don't think enough has been done in applying the tools of anthropology to the making of anthropologists.
An addendum to this is the challenge that modern funding regimes (in the UK, that force us to process PhDs in 3 years) and changing research practices (new topics, according to new logistical constraints) present to our cherished ideals of initiation through immersion (there are some great reflections on communication technologies and the supposed isolation of fieldwork by Bob Simpson in the latest issue of Anthropology Today). There's also, I think, a very real danger that our ideals of what one has to do to be a real anthropologist aren't keeping up with our changing methodological realities, such that the younger generation will never feel like they have become authentic anthropologists in the same way. I know colleagues for whom their ideal of initiation as an anthropologist will always involving going somewhere else, very different, learning a language, and staying there a long time, even if alternative practices have acquired the legitimate consent of anthropologists administering the orthodoxies of our academic practice.
Piers Locke said:Philip- Even though I was going to Nepal to study an occupational community, and even though as a novice undergrad, impressed by my professors' descriptions of ethnographic fieldwork, I had jokingly remarked that somebody should conduct an ethnography of anthropologists, I had no conscious intention to draw a connection between the two of them. Rather than focussing on the anthropology of bureaucratic institutions (which seemed of only tangential relevance then), my preparation was much more concerned with reading around the ethnography of professional learning (Edelman on Swedish railway shunters, Palsson on Icelandic trawler skippers and so on).
Philip Carl SALZMAN said:Piers, your fieldwork, and your reflections on it, are intriguing. May I ask: when you went to Nepal did you have in mind a study that would speak to the situation of anthropologists back home?
Piers Locke said:John- In fact this is not as off topic as it may seem. There is a connection between my interests in captive elephant management and academic life. My work in Nepal concerns an occupational community, with an interest in the process of professional identity formation. Similarly I have been interested in the making of anthropologists, not only considering fieldwork as initiation, but considering the various other kinds of departmental and disciplinary activities which constitute them (us) as such. Just as I found the handlers' expertise was undervalued and misunderstood by the bureaucracy to which they are subject, so too with anthropologists - I have been fascinated by the way so many create self-other narratives of themselves in opposition to the university and funding agencies, upon which they depend, but with whom they tend to have such problematic relations.
Piers, One of the problems is dependence on being funded by a grant. In Britain there is one central funding agency and a very small number of grants for anthropology PhDs, most of which go to the leading departments. I was privileged at Cambridge by the large number of small funding bodies that most people had never heard of, making for a fertile field of clientship. Even so, the money ran out after a year and I ended up staying in Ghana for two and half years, mainly by generating self-employed income. I used to tell my students to go build an airfield in Kenya and finance their research from the proceeds, but I didn't have many takers. But if you look at how most writing-up students and post-docs support themselves, it seems a bit odd to insist on being wholly funded by a bureaucracy to travel to the other side of the world.
Hi Locke! I know you thru Gisele. I think we have once corresponded when I was a Buddhist monk. Being a Tharu and a student of anthropology, please allow me to say, to fix their ritual affilaition with the great tradition (Hinduism) is historically unfair. The Tharus were Buddhist in the past who practiced animism. Social Buddhism was never the same which we read in scriptural Buddhism. In fact, Tri-pitikas also reflects that local people always practiced folk cultures along with Buddhism. The Tharus adopted Hinduism only after 13th century, and still many of the Tharus are not perfect Hindus. On other hand, Ganesh cult is very new in the history of Hindu Religion. But the Tharus are very ancient indigenous group in the Tarai. They have been capturing wild elephants since time immemorial. We can link the genetic similarities among the Tharus, Burmees and Thais people, and their Elephant capturing culture. It could be plus point if we could study genetic, linguistic, and ecological affiliation (habitat and malaria) with other tribes from Nainital to Thailand or east asia.I wonder that why Mayadevi, the mother of Siddhartha Gotama dreamt about elephant rather than a horse or tiger or something else?? In essense, The elephant capturing cult is much older than Ganesha cult. Hereby, just participation observation cannot give the complete truth. We must look into historical facts despite the fact that tribes have no history!!!! Thanks1
The funding of field research is an important question. It appear from the discussion here and elsewhere that support in Britain is somewhat limited, as well as is the time allotted. This may not be a universal situation.
In Canada, over the last decades, there has been increasing support for both graduate studies and field research. This includes both direct grants to graduate students and indirect funding via professorial grants. In the latter case, the main government funded agencies, both federal and provincial, encourage team research, in which graduate students are funded from the large grants. As well, many graduate fellowships for study are much more generous than they used to be, and with the increasingly muscular Canadian dollar, this helps getting students into the field. Don't misunderstand; Canada is not heaven on earth for graduate students, who must still compete for grants, who often do not have long term funding security, and who do not usually have large amounts of discretionary cash. But perhaps the situation at the moment is not as dire in Canada as in some other places.
I wonder about ethnographers elsewhere in the world. In India, for example, are there research funds available that graduate students and professors could use for fieldwork? My impression is that most Indian anthropologists tend to do their fieldwork in India itself. Of course, India is a world of social and cultural richness, and highly worthy of the attention. Even so, would it not be further enriching for Indian ethnographers to work elsewhere? Is there funding for that?
To mention research support in another, wealthier, country, ethnographers from Japan have been doing fine work in Africa, which I happen to know about, and perhaps elsewhere as well. Do Japanese graduate students also do fieldwork abroad? (By the way, wouldn't it be nice to have a greater Japanese participation in OAC?)
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