As an undergrad enthralled by these eccentrics who did this thing called ethnographic fieldwork, which usually sounded like one helluva an adventure, I thought that somebody should conduct an ethnography of anthropologists. Nothing original in that, I'm sure. Now that I have realized that dream to become one of those peculiar people, I am no less fascinated by what it means to be an anthropologist, and of how crucial the academy, rather than the field, is to being one.

So perhaps the academy can serve as the field? Or would that be too self-indulgent? In defense of this accusation, I would point to work by anthropologists like Don Brenneis, whose ethnographies of the audit culture in the British University system (with comparative reference to other countries as well) surely serves an applied purpose - exploring the conditions to which we are subject, and in which our work is facilitated, obstructed or what-have-you. Surely the study of intellectual history needs a strong grounding not only in the personalities, but also the institutional contexts that stimulate production of this stuff we call knowledge?

Many of us feel afflicted (rightly or wrongly) by a bureaucratic system that expects so much of us that we crumple under the pressure, that we feel forced to choose between fulfilling careers or fulfilling personal lives, that mercilessly pits us against each other, or that distorts our very purpose as scholars. I am reminded here of Tim Ingold's lecture in 2003 to inaugurate the newly created Department of Anthropology at Aberdeen, in which he discusses its significance as 'the academic's last line of defense'

At the University of Kent, I began a little project motivated by some of these concerns. I had the privilege of interviewing the senior and recently retired anthropologists who had inspired me, nurtured me, and helped make me as an anthropologist. I became a historian of the department, an imagined entity to which many people have had strong sentimental attachments, although I then got a lectureship at the University of Wales, Lampeter. This rather diverted me from the task of transcribing and analysing all those hours of interviews charting the career biographies, activities and interconnections that constitute the history of anthropology at Kent since first founded by Paul Stirling in 1965. So much teaching? How do I fit my research in?

I hope that this work can produce material of interest to more than its alumni, but also provide the basis for anthropological analysis of academic life. Are anthropologists particularly prone to telling themselves stories about themselves? Is it a coincidence that anthropologists of all social scientists should be so pre-occupied with their ancestors? Does the university itself demand our attention as a valid area of enquiry?

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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.

Piers Locke said:
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.

Keith- The ESRC does provide a reasonable number of funded PhD studentsips, mainly on a quota basis these days. And in an institution lacking ESRC recognition, this means I am presented with an additional challenge in attracting research students. I think it's the world beyond the funded PhD studentship that's more challenging (hence John Gledhill's worried words at the 2009 ASA meeting regarding the poor level of success in our funding apps to an ESRC less inclined to fund us). Sometimes I think the easiest way to do more field research would be to apply to do another PhD again! (although so many of these now have their themes stipulated in advance).

However- I think your point about alternative means is significant. I have noticed that the ideal candidates to complete an anthropology PhD based on foreign fieldwork in three years are the ones already possessing extensive field and linguistic abilities, often through prior experience in the NGO sector. When I was at Kent, the contrast between the anthropologists, typically relying on their wits, and the conservationists, typically supported by wealthy orgs, was acute - the conservation biologists seemed to get it all handed to them on a plate - funding, accomodation, field guides...

Keith Hart said:
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.

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?)
Piers said, "I have noticed that the ideal candidates to complete an anthropology PhD based on foreign fieldwork in three years are the ones already possessing extensive field and linguistic abilities, often through prior experience in the NGO sector."

I've noticed that some of the Ph.D. students at McGill have prior expience in the field. A few have been undergraduate interns in NGOs in the region to which they are returning to for fieldwork. A number of others did M.A. field research, usually for three to six months, in the region. So returning for Ph.D. research, they are off and running immediately. Do such students finish more quickly? I'm not sure. Are their Ph.D. fieldwork findings richer? I'm not sure. I guess we need more ethnography of anthropologists!
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
Hi Ranjan- a pleasure to hear from you. And how is Gisele? You raise some interesting points, albeit not entirely pertinent to this thread (but they do take on a life of their own, often shifting in other directions). It is interesting that by virtue of the Kapilvastu connection some contemporary Tharu have sought to historically identify themselves with the Buddha for expedient reasons within the arena of identity politics (a topic well documented in ethnographies like Arjun Guneratne's 'Many Tongues, One People' about the Tharu and William Fisher's 'Fluid Boundaries' about the Thakali). I think it crucial we appreciate how ethnic groups emerge in historical relationship to the state (and how claiming an identity as Hindu or as Buddhist has different advantages at different times for different sections of a population sharing an ethnonym, the membership of which itself may be disputed).

You mention an 'elephant capturing cult', which I consider misleading since practices of captive elephant management in South Asia have primarily developed at the sponsorship of the state (initially as a weapon of war, and long before Ganesh emerged as the deity we know him today for instance), and also since this ignores the pragmatic reasons for capturing elephants (a dangerous and demanding endeavour certainly not conducted as a form of worship). I argue then that the elephant may have developed various ritual and symbolic significances (in both Buddhist and Hindu religious practice, and in both Buddhist and Hindu polities), but that these meanings articulate with captive elephant management practices rather than constituting them (which is not to deny their motivating and justifying significance - contemporary Nepali government handlers for instance, as both masters and devotees, must apologise to the being they ride as an animal but worship as a god, and this is highly significant for configuring human-elephant relations and regimes of care).


Ranjan Lekhy said:
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
Yes Sir, you are absolutely true. I am really sad that most of students in India do their fieldworks by empting their own pockets. I am searching research-grant here in India and Nepal, but many organizations refuse because they no any budget for this. I also tried abroad (some Canadian and European organizations) but they have condition that a grant-seeker must be a student of Canadian or European institutes. How sad!



Philip Carl SALZMAN said:
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?)
Ranjan- It certainly is difficult for South Asian anthropologists. For myself, I shall have a whole new funding environment to learn about when I take up my new post in New Zealand next year. Perhaps an option for you would be to consider a philanthropic organisation with fewer restrictive citizenship criteria, such as the Wenner-Gren (who typically support the UK and commonwealth ASA conferences).
In case this is of interest (I can provide further information)

Ethnographies of Academic writing in a global context:
the politics of style

Friday, July 16th 2010
The Open University. Milton Keynes, UK

This one day seminar aims to bring together researchers who are using
ethnography as a key methodology/epistemology for exploring academic
writing and literacy practices in a global context. A specific focus of the
seminar will be the politics of style and key questions will be:

• How can ethnography contribute to understandings about what’s
involved and at stake in academic text production in a global context?

• How can ethnography contribute to understandings about the
significance attached to ‘style’ in academic text production and evaluation?

• What range of analytic tools are researchers using to explore the
nature of academic writing, including ‘style’?

• How can current work in Linguistic Ethnography (which has to date
tended to focus on spoken interaction) contribute to research, analysis and
theory on academic writing in a global context?

Underlying themes to be explored are: participation and access, locality and
globalization, the status of English, the affordances/limitations of resources -
including digital technologies.

The potential impact of research on professional user groups will be considered
through representation from editors of international journals and
professional ‘language consultants’.
Theresa Lillis, t.m.lillis@open.ac.uk

Advisory committee:
International: Isabelle Delcambre (Université de Lille III, France); Ana Moreno,
(University of León, Spain); Tiane Donohue (Dartmouth, USA and Cirel-
Theodile, Université de Lille III, France); Nancy Eik-Ness (Norwegian University
of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway); Lucia Thesen (University
Cape Town, South Africa); Mary Jane Curry (University of Rochester, USA)

Open University: Jackie Tuck, Sally Baker, Lynn Coleman, Mary Lea, Robin
Goodfellow, Lucy Rai, Ann Hewings, Philip Seargeant.
Thanks Dr. Piers! It is really a piece of hope for me. And Congratulation in advance for your New Zealand Academic Voyage!

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