In this article, we explore how short-term theoretically informed ethnography is emerging as an approach to doing research that is contemporary in both its subject matter and in its use for applied ...research projects designed to lead to informed interventions in the world. We argue that far from being a ‘quick and dirty’ route to doing qualitative research, short-term ethnography is characterized by forms of intensity that lead to deep and valid ways of knowing.
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This paper calls attention to potential textual sources of springtime Lenten rites and games (primarily texts related to the “springtime carrying-away of Death”) among the Western Slavs. Proceeding ...from the Slavic Eastern Orthodox liturgy of Great Lent, particularly Saint Andrew of Crete’s Great Canon and the Eastern Orthodox legend The Life of Saint Mary of Egypt, the author attempts to describe and examine the potential transformational textual processes that began with the Byzantine mission to the Slavs and continued through the “biliturgical period” only to, following the East-West Schism, revert from textual grapholect to the secondary orality of folklore. The paper summarizes, synthesizes and augments various previous research inquiries of the author, using methodological triangulation to offer a view of the subject matter from several different perspectives.
From 1971 to 1972, William E. Mitchell undertook fieldwork on suffering and healing among the Lujere of Papua New Guinea’s Upper Sepik River Basin. At a time when it was not yet common to make ...colonial agencies a subject of anthropological study, Mitchell carefully located his research on Lujere practices in the framework of a history of colonization that surrounded the Lujere with a shifting array of Western institutions, dramatically changing their society forever. This work has been well known among anthropologists of Oceania ever since, but the bulk of it has remained unpublished until now. In this major new work, Mitchell revisits his earlier research with a threepart study on: the history of colonial rule in the region; the social organization of Lujere life at the time; and the particular forms of affliction, witchcraft, and curing that preoccupied some of the people among whom he lived. This is a magisterial contribution to the ethnography of Papua New Guinea and it is sure to be an invaluable source for scholars of Oceania, of medical anthropology, and of the anthropology of kinship, myth, and ritual.
The term in the title is intended to suggest that today’s increasingly diverse, alternative forms of belief related to religion are less easily captured by the terms religion and spirituality. In ...addition to explaining the difficulty of defining these two terms and discussing similar, previously proposed, and useful concepts to overcome this difficulty, I present the process of creating of the term “religionesque” and its proposed use in empirical research. During my empirical fieldwork, I experienced the need for the missing term, which I believe should be introduced not only because of the analysis of certain alternative forms, but also because it nicely translates a term that already exists to some extent in the Hungarian language.
Since the early 1990s, Mongolia began its hopeful transition from socialism to a market democracy, becoming increasingly dependent on international mining revenue. Both shifts were promised to herald ...a new age of economic plenty for all. Now, roughly 30 years on, many of Mongolia’s poor and rural feel that they have been forgotten. Moral Economic Transitions in the Mongolian Borderlands describes these shifts from the viewpoint of the self-proclaimed ‘excluded’: the rural township of Magtaal on the Chinese border. In the wake of socialism, the population of this resource-rich area found itself without employment and state institutions, yet surrounded by lush nature 30 kilometres from the voracious Chinese market. A two-tiered resource-extractive political-economic system developed. Whilst large-scale, formal, legally sanctioned conglomerates arrived to extract oil and land for international profits, the local residents grew increasingly dependent on the Chinese-funded informal, illegal cross-border wildlife trade. More than a story about rampant capitalist extraction in the resource frontier, this book intimately details the complex inner worlds, moral ambiguities and emergent collective politics constructed by individuals who feel caught in political-economic shifts largely outside of their control. Offering much needed nuance to commonplace descriptions of Mongolia’s post-socialist transition, this study presents rich ethnographic detail through the eyes and voices of the state’s most geographically marginalized. It is of interest not only to experts of political-economy and post-socialist transition, but also to non-academic readers intrigued by the interplay of value(s) and capitalism.
The formation process of the ancient Turkish states covers the period starting from the family called ogu until becoming a state called urug, tribe, bodun and province respectively.Turkish tribes ...played a role in both the establishment and the division and disintegration of the Turkish states. In this regard, the issue of which Turkish tribes had an influence on the state formation process of the Karakhanids has been discussed by Western and Eastern scientists for a long time. While the dominant view focuses on the Karluk thesis, some of them are the Yama, Çiil and Uyghur assumptions, which are also expressed in the study. By trying to reach all the opinions in the literature, the article tried to answer the question of which Turkish tribes the Karakhanid dynasty was based on.
As one of the stylized motifs in Turkish decorative arts, "cloud" has an extremely dominant position in its field. As with other stylized motifs, the "cloud motif" contains many issues that need to ...be analyzed, especially regarding its origin, its place in historical examples, its function, its development and change. From this point of view, this study aims to present the function of the cloud motif in historical examples, its place in compositions, and its analysis with examples. Illuminated patterns take place in a wide range of traditional arts where many different materials and techniques are applied. Published examples of the cloud motif, which has been processed with many different materials and techniques from book arts to tile, weaving, stone, metal, pencil work in historical examples, have been selected and analyzed by grouping examples for the same purpose, and the function of the cloud motif types in the pattern has been tried to be classified with a selection of existing examples in this study. It has been determined that the "cloud motif" functions in ornamental design compositions almost in accordance with its name. This motif has the characteristic of acting almost independently among the fully stylized motif groups, which do not carry the strict principles of the composition drawing rules to which the others are bound. In this respect, it can also take on the character of a symbolic motif. On the other hand, it can preferably transform its own structure into systematic principles similar to other motif groups. It can be said that this changeability is made possible by the presence of twists, folds and attachment points in the anatomical structure of the "cloud motif". The presentation of these findings with solid data will be linked to the results of similar analyses. Here, the "cloud motif" in the decorative pattern design process is presented with its structural (anatomical) features and its classification according to its function in the composition is examined and presented with sample analyzes. In this study, the "cloud motif" was analyzed in terms of pattern design functions in the tradition of illumination and analyzed with existing examples. The classifications to be made with similar methodologies will allow "motif and design diversity" that will allow new interpretations
Exploring indigenous life projects in encounters with extractivism, the present open access volume discusses how current turbulences actualise questions of indigeneity, difference and ontological ...dynamics in the Andes and Amazonia. While studies of extractivism in South America often focus on wider national and international politics, this contribution instead provides ethnographic explorations of indigenous politics, perspectives and worlds, revealing loss and suffering as well as creative strategies to mediate the extralocal. Seeking to avoid conceptual imperialism or the imposition of exogenous categories, the chapters are grounded in the respective authors’ long-standing field research. The authors examine the reactions (from resistance to accommodation), consequences (from anticipation to rubble) and materials (from fossil fuel to water) diversely related to extractivism in rural and urban settings. How can Amerindian strategies to preserve localised communities in extractivist contexts contribute to ways of thinking otherwise?
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In the twenty-first century, land deals in the Global South have become increasingly prevalent and controversial. Transnational access to arable land in impoverished "land-rich" countries in Latin ...America, Sub-Saharan Africa, and Southeast Asia highlights the link between the shifting geopolitics of economic development and problems of food security, climate change, and regional and international trade. Drawing on ethnographic and archival research, Upland Geopolitics uses the case of Chinese agribusiness investment in northern Laos to study the unbalanced geography of the new global land rush. Connecting the current rubber plantation boom to a longer trajectory of foreign intervention in the region, Upland Geopolitics reveals how legacies of Cold War conflict continue to pave the way for transnational enclosure in a socially uneven landscape. Upland Geopolitics is freely available in an open access edition thanks to TOME (Toward an Open Monograph Ecosystem) and the generous support of Indiana University. DOI: 10.6069/9780295750507
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