ON STANDS
‘Fieldnotes’
Fieldnotes are a series of reports from anthropologists working in the field that reflect the complexities of the ongoing process of research. Look for reports that both describe a range of topics and geographic areas and reflect on the practice of anthropology in the field.
Our first series of reports comes from A. Bishara, who wrote her fieldnotes while conducting research in Palestine over the summer of 2009.
Death in a Family
Tags: death, diet, fieldwork, Guatemala, health, nutrition
Added on Sunday, May 8th, 2011 to Fieldnotes sections.
I am living with a large extended family, an experience that has been both comforting (people are always everywhere) and lonely (what a social misfit I am living so far from my own strong kinship ties!). Seven siblings (now ages 50–35) inherited…
A Good Christian Daughter
Tags: Christianity, Dutch, Netherlands, Orthodox, refugees, subjectivity, Syriac, women's choirs
Added on Tuesday, October 5th, 2010 to Fieldnotes sections.
Syriac Woman: So, Sarah, where do your parents live? Sarah: Well, my mother lives in the U.S., and my father lives here in the Netherlands. Syriac Woman: Oh. So…they’re…divorced? Sarah: Yes…it happened a few years ago. Syriac Woman:…
The End of Summer, Part 2
Tags: alcohol, alcoholism, contraception, fieldwork, Kallawaya healer, medicine men, reproductive illness, sexuality, Sobreparto
Added on Friday, October 1st, 2010 to Fieldnotes sections.
So, what have I learned about medical anthropology in Bolivia? A lot, although I’ve only begun scratching the surface of all these topics. For a med-anth dork like myself, this is a great situation- it seems like every day, some new…
Courting La Paz, Part 1
Tags: Bolivia, chronic bodily pain, fieldwork, indigenous medicine, La Paz, language training, medical anthropology
Added on Wednesday, August 11th, 2010 to Fieldnotes sections.
When one arrives at a new fieldsite, the only things one can know with any certainty are the changes in one’s own experience. Lacunas of knowledge burst into one’s consciouness like the appearance of crystal-clear lakes dotting the ground…
Part 3: Eating Watermelon, Parsing Chaos
Tags: Palestine, U.S. news, Yasser Arafat
Added on Tuesday, February 9th, 2010 to Fieldnotes sections.
Research takes perseverance and grit, but there is no denying that it comes with certain pleasures, too. In Palestinian society, research feeds both mind and body. Once, I was interviewing two young men who were in a hurry to go on an afternoon…
Part II: So Many Interviewees, How Shall I Choose?
Tags: Journalism, Media, Palestine, refugees, U.S. news
Added on Friday, October 30th, 2009 to Fieldnotes sections.
This summer I’m doing interviews with Palestinian journalists and refugees in which I ask them to interpret and critique U.S. news articles. Why, you might ask, did I choose journalists and refugees as my commentators? Why didn’t I try to…
Re-Starting A Conversation
Tags: Jean Rouch, Media, Palestine, second Intifada, shared anthropology, U.S. news
Added on Monday, September 7th, 2009 to Fieldnotes sections.
This summer, after two years away, I’m back in my old field site, far from the Massachusetts university where I’ve just completed my first year of teaching. On the ride from Tel Aviv airport to Jerusalem, I take an informal census of the…
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