Anthropology Inside Out
Fieldworkers Taking NotesFieldworkers Taking Notes
Published on 21. July 2020
Book
Paperback/Softback
236 pages
978-1-912385-21-8 (ISBN)
Description
Fieldworkers' notebooks are full of sensations and observations in which the subjectivity of the ethnographer seeps through. Not really science. Much closer to life. Yet in classical anthropology they are invisible to the reader. In this book the focus is reversed, turning Anthropology Inside Out as it explores the vibrant backstage life of field notes. What happens when we put them centre stage? Aimed at both curious novice and experienced practitioner, the chapters read as a catalogue of experimental practices teetering on the edge of the tradition: intuitively observational drawings; notes pervaded with paranoia; collective notetaking;crisis-ridden personal confessions; layers of notes in photographs and archives; old flip-flops that trigger memories in mind and body. This exploration of what field notes are, can do and could be, concludes with a constellation of shimmering notes on notes from Michael Taussig, a meta-commentary on anthropologists' fetishistic relationship with the most personal of professional tools.
Reviews / Votes
'This extremely timely and original book starts a long overdue discussion within anthropology. The authors are to be commended for filling a gap in the methodology literature, which was so glaring until now as to be invisible to most of us.'Professor Thomas Hylland Eriksen, Department of Social Anthropology, University of Oslo; 'The book is steeped in love for the materiality of the process of learning about life -inner life as well as the life out there. The chapters open up for reflections on the artistic and scientific aspects of the anthropological endeavour and become experimental in their expansion of the genre of anthropological work and thinking.'Professor Inger Sjorslev, Senior Lecturer Emeritus, Department of Anthropology,University of Copenhagen.More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Oxon
United Kingdom
Target group
College/higher education
Illustrations
64 colour figures
Dimensions
Height: 234 mm
Width: 156 mm
Thickness: 15 mm
Weight
538 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-912385-21-8 (9781912385218)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Persons
Astrid Oberborbeck Andersen is Assistant Professor at the Department of Culture and Learning, Aalborg University. Anne Line Dalsgard is Associate Professor in the Department of Anthropology at Aarhus University, Denmark. Mette Lind Kusk is Assistant Professor at the School of Social Work at VIA University College Aarhus, Denmark. Maria Nielsen holds a master degree in anthropology from Aarhus University. She is enrolled as a PhD student at the department of Anthropology at Aarhus University. Cecilie Rubow is Associate Professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Copenhagen. Mikkel Rytter is professor MSO in the Department of Anthropology, Aarhus University.
Content
Acknowledgements; Chapter 1 Introductory notes (Anne Line Dalsgard, Cecilie Rubow and Mikkel Rytter); Chapter 2 An ecology of notes in a utopian fieldwork (Ester Fritsch, Marianne Hedegaard and Cecilie Rubow); Chapter 3 Field notes from a field of notes: anthropology and the afterlife of notes in archives (Marianne Holm Pedersen and Lars Christian Kofoed Romer); Chapter 4 The 'proto-language' of anthropological practice: an exhibition of original field notes (Sofie Isager Ahl); Chapter 5 The wind in the mirror: some notes on the unnoteworthy (Martin Demant Frederiksen); Chapter 6 The world in a grain of dust: the significance of the apparently insignificant (Maria Nielsen); Chapter 7 Life notes: when fields refuse to stay in place (Morten Schutt); Chapter 8 Risky notes: reading tense situations in Cairo 2015 (Mille Kjaergaard Thorsen); Chapter 9 ethnoGRAPHIC field notes: on drawn notes and their potentials (Mette Lind Kusk); Chapter 10 Visual note-making: photo-elicitation and photographic re-interpretations as collaborative anthropological techniques (Christian Vium); Chapter 11 Stimulating presence: on the materiality of field notes and a few Brazilian flip-flops (Anne Line Dalsgard); Chapter 12 Fourteen endnotes (Michael Taussig); Contributors; Index.