Preserving quantifiable ethnographic records of disappearing human lifeways

The human evolutionary sciences place high value on quantitative data from traditional small‐scale societies that are rapidly modernizing. These data often stem from the sustained ethnographic work of anthropologists who are today nearing the end of their careers. Yet many quantitative ethnographic data are preserved only in summary formats that do not reflect the rich and variable ethnographic reality often described in unpublished field notes, nor the deep knowledge of their collectors. In raw disaggregated formats, such data have tremendous scientific value when used in conjunction with modern statistical techniques and as part of comparative analyses. Through a personal example of longitudinal research with Batek hunter‐gatherers that involved collaboration across generations of researchers, we argue that quantifiable ethnographic records, just like material artifacts, deserve high‐priority preservation efforts. We discuss the benefits, challenges, and possible avenues forward for digitizing, preserving, and archiving ethnographic data before it is too late.     

Anthropology and television: Ethnographic‐ethnological topics on German television

The following paper gives an overview of the various programs with ethnographic‐ethnological content shown on Channels I and III of ARD, a public broadcasting company in Germany, from 1965 until 1989. Research focused on ethnographic‐ethnological content of documentary films in general and thus also included television programs whose theme as a whole differed from this topic. Based on a review of the data of a total of 280 programs, 4 categories of program are classified: 1. Eth nographic television programs; 2. Television programs with ethnographic elements; 3. Television programs with an ethnological topic; and 4. Border‐line cases, i.e. programs which are remarkable from an anthropological point of view but which cannot directly be classed with one of the categories above. Most of the programs with ethnographic‐ethnological content are broadcast on Channel III which addresses target groups with specific interests. This aim was more visible during the first years of the existence of Channel III at the end of the Sixties and during the Seventies than it is nowadays. The change is reflected in the quality of programs containing ethnographic‐ethnological topics over the years. In general a shift can be noted from programs with an outstanding visual quality (although they always have been rare) to programs which derive from the journalistic tradition of television and put a major stress on commentary. Through the years a change in the topics presented becomes apparent. The Seventies were the period when the majority of programs shown were on tribal societies. From the end of that decade until the mid‐Eighties there was an increase in the number of programs covering other non‐tribal ethnic groups. Moreover, topics such as ethnic minorities, even in Europe, urban groups or the various daily life‐styles of people within a whole state or country, emerged, and more emphasis was given to social and political aspects. The research reveals that television as a medium is open to different programs with ethnographic‐ethnological content. Apart from the quality of the programs offered, the abundance and variety of programs available reflects a wide interest in foreign nations and cultures. Anthropologists should acknowledge that fact in order to make ethnological knowledge available to a wider audience.     

To be Makiran is to see like Mr Parrot: the anthropology of wonder in Solomon Islands

This article lays out a general thesis for the development of a comparative ethnographic approach to the anthropology of wonder. It suggests that wonder is both an index and a mode of challenge to existing ontological premises. Through analytical engagement with the theme of wonder in Western philosophy and the anthropology of ontology, it extends this thesis to include the corollary that different ontological premises give rise to different wonders. Ethnographically, the article supports these claims via analysis of wonder discourses among the Arosi of Solomon Islands. These discourses, it is argued, both respond to and promote ontological transformations in a context where the premises at stake are neither those of the Cartesian dualism commonly ascribed to modernity nor of the relational non‐dualism commonly ascribe to anthropology's ethnographic ‘others’, but of a non‐Cartesian pluralism termed poly‐ontology.     

Pikisi kwaiyai! (pictures tonight!): The screening and reception of ethnographic film in the Trobriand Islands,Papua New Guinea

Ethnographic films hold great historical value for the communities in which they were filmed, yet people in source communities often lack access to them. Visitors engaging in ‘visual repatriation’ of ethnographic film can enrich both sides of the ethnographic exchange. I review my experiences screening ethnographic films with Trobriand Islanders, their reactions, and the various ways in which local communities regain ownership of these films, including re‐narration and renaming. My findings reiterate how source communities' reception of, and uses for, ethnographic film can sharply differ from the filmmakers' original agenda.     

The anthropologist as photographer: The visual construction of ethnographic authority

“The Anthropologist as Author"—Clifford Geertz's formulation is emblematic of a theme of anthropology in the 1980s, ethnographic writing. Ethnographic photography, however, was barely a subject of consideration. Reviewing Evans‐Pritchard's The Nuer, a book widely re‐read in the writing culture debate, this article investigates not only the author's visual construction of ethnographic authority. It also reveals ethnographic photography as a medium, which can undermine this authority in a subtle yet compelling manner. Thus concentrating on the medium itself this paper investigates the uneasy relationship between photography and anthropology, and proposes an approach to ethnographic photography that goes beyond the questions of representation.¹     

The Reliable Beauty of Aroma: Staples of Food and Cultural Production among Italian‐Australians1

This paper takes an ethnographic journey into Italian‐Australian cultural production through an examination of the Italian term for both the flavour and taste of herbs, aroma. Here, I explore the ways in which staple foods and their commensalities engender staple cultural production without necessarily overdetermining the culture produced. Taking the material indeterminacy of culture as a theoretical starting point, I argue that this is the reliable beauty of aroma as well as is its capacity to capture the realities of culture as lived experience. When culture is approached from this direction, stature is returned to ethnographic subjects as people living lives rather than as automatons of cultural form. From this vantage, a theoretical preoccupation with order and structure may be seen to hinder rather than enhance an apprehension of ethnographic fact.     

The intimate arctic: An early anthropologist's diary in the strict sense of the term

A lively debate has taken place in anthropology in recent years on field‐work and its representation in ethnographic accounts. At the same time, historians and cultural critics have dissected the ideology and rhetoric of early explorations. Here I examine the writings of the anthropologist and explorer Vilhjalmur Stefans‐son (1879–1962) in the light of current debates about textual representation, drawing upon recent discussions of ethnography, gender, and the power relations of early twentieth‐century explorations. Stefansson went on lengthy expeditions into the Alaskan and Canadian Arctic and wrote extensively on his encounters with indigenous groups, I argue that while Stefansson was a perceptive ethnographer and explorer, he was silent in both his publications and his diaries about important aspects pertaining to his fieldwork, in particular the ethnographic contributions of his Inuit companions and his intimate relations with a native woman named Pannigabluk. This silence, I suggest, contradicts the narrative trope Stefansson generally adopted, summed up in his concept of the friendly Arctic’     

Beyond Malinowski and After Writing Culture: On the Future of Cultural Anthropology and the Predicament of Ethnography

Following out certain implications of the 1980s Writing Culture critique, this paper envisions a future for anthropology that remains focused on innovations in the ethnographic research process. A sense of change in the world, conceived in the 1980s as postmodernity and now widely discussed as globalisation, suggests the need for an alternative paradigm of ethnographic practice, different in significant ways from that which shaped social‐cultural anthropology over the previous eighty years. Based on working through the implications for the norms and forms of both fieldwork and ethnographic writing of the multi‐sited design of many current research projects, this paper outlines such an alternative paradigm. Further, the paper argues that the explicit disciplinary dynamic driving such innovation in ethnography is, in contrast to the so‐called crisis of representation of the 1980s, a more urgent crisis of reception for anthropology.     

Language in fieldwork: Making visible the ethnographic impact of the researcher's linguistic fluency

This paper analyses the impact of the researcher's linguistic fluency or competence (or lack thereof) on the data collection process during fieldwork and subsequent analysis. We focus on researcher interaction with the field in a largely monolingual setting in Japan, and the multilingual setting of an international school in Indonesia. Researcher positionality during fieldwork shifts with their (perceived) linguistic fluency, which in turn affects the data. Despite the emphasis on reflexive ethnography, anthropological research rarely interrogates the impact of the researcher's linguistic fluency on the field. We attribute this silence to the perception that highlighting researcher language ability may compromise their ethnographic authority. In this paper we use self‐reflexivity to make visible the ethnographic impact that the researcher's language ability has on fieldwork processes. We argue that being self‐reflexive about our linguistic fluency, or lack thereof, does not necessarily compromise our analysis.     

Beyond authenticity: The discourse of tourism in ethnographic and experimental film

This paper explores the relationship between postmodern ethnographic and experimental filmmaking. Recent shifts in both modes of film praxis away from modernist paradigms of anthropology and aesthetics have disclosed a rich field of nonscientific, non‐visionary common ground. Theoretical issues that help to define this inter‐penetration of film modes include allegory, tourism and intertextuality. Films by Jonas Mekas, Trinh Minh‐ha, David Byrne and Paula Gaitan are discussed with the aim of indicating the scope, the potential and the problems of postmodern ethnography.     

Powering popular conceptions: The !Kung in the Marshall family expedition films of the 1950s

The paper develops a theoretical framework for the study of ethnographic film out‐takes in relation to material that is included in released ethnographic film, in this case, the films by John Marshall on the Kalahari San. The significance of what is included in relation to that which is excluded is called the theory of structured absences. This theory is then applied to the study of the 700,000 feet of 16 mm out‐takes not used by Marshall in his released films on the Ju/'hoansi.

The difficulties of analysing archival film are discussed, and issues of representation in relation to exposed footage, released films, and the director's own theory of documentary, are critically examined. The anthropological significance of Marshall's filmic contribution on the Kalahari San is assessed.     

Transnationalism and the Karen wrist‐tying ceremony: An ethnographic account of Karen settlement practice in Brisbane

When settling, people often use cultural schema from their original homeland to build familiarity in unfamiliar surrounds. This paper draws on ethnographic fieldwork conducted by the first author in Brisbane, with the Karen community from Burma, during which participant observation and interview methods were used. We present an ethnographic account of the Brisbane Karen wrist‐tying ceremony. The ceremony acts as an insight into the challenges for Karen whilst settling into Australia. It reflects multiple accounts of history and tradition, but simultaneously speaks to emerging, contemporary Karen contexts. This research contributes to richer understandings of settlement: it frames transnational cultural practice as a flexible mode of integration, rather than an exclusionary mode of othering. We propose that the integrative discourse of the ceremony creates familiarity and social connection in local and diasporic spaces. This acts as a counter to the challenges of Karen settlement including the negotiations of local/global identity politics.     

Palestinians in film: Representing and being represented in the cinematic struggle for national identity

The Israeli‐Palestinian conflict has frequently been the focus of Western‐produced documentary films, which seek to explain the core of the problem. Claims to a truthful representation of reality have traditionally been linked to a parallel assumption of ethnographic authority over Palestinians who, unlike Israelis, had until recently little access to filmic means of representation. Through a number of documentaries, produced by both Palestinians and non‐Palestinians, the paper analyzes the crucial impact of the Intifadah on the development of local media in the Occupied Territories. The paper argues that by taking up film and ethnographic techniques as they had been developed in the West, documentaries produced by Palestinians have successfully generated alternative views of the conflict.     

Equivocal locations: being ‘red’ in ‘Red Bologna’

This article addresses a classic ethnographic problem in the study of Italy: how is it that people can subscribe simultaneously to seemingly contradictory ideologies, such as Catholicism and Communism? It does so by describing examples from Italy's ‘showcase city’ of the left, ‘Red Bologna’, in which to be ‘red’ is ubiquitous but each person's ‘red’ is a different thing: being ‘red’ (differently) is the idiom in which real political distinctions are expressed over issues like religion or immigration. In parallel, I discuss the relationship between the ‘field’ as a location and the ‘field’ as a conceptual topic. My account replicates internal ethnographic differences at the analytical level by highlighting the differences between being left‐wing in Bologna and its meaning as a concept in anthropology. Hence the ‘equivocal location’: a field‐site that is productively different, from what an inexperienced ethnographer expected from it, from conceptual discussions in anthropology, and from itself.     

Cargo Cults and the Politics of Alterity: A Review Article

This review article is a critical evaluation of recent ethnographic contributions and theoretical debates concerning cargo cults. It examines how Foucault's genealogical and discursive methodologies can be used in a way that undercuts their valuable insights. The recent self‐reflexive turn, where anthropology focuses on the moral politics of its own discourses, can lead to a silencing of the moral political discourses of others. Moreover self‐reflexivity can become an authorising strategy for academics keen to downplay race and resistance in millenarian movements where these are important features.     

The flight of the self: Exploring more‐than‐human companionship in rural Pakistan

The construct of multispecies anthropology has helped explain some of the ways through which humans develop sensory and embodied connectedness with the more‐than‐human. Yet there is a need to fully comprehend how such connectedness leads to the discovery of the inner self. Through an ethnographic study carried out with rural South Punjabi pigeon flyers in Pakistan between 2008 and 2018, this paper argues that companionship with pigeons allows people to generate a meaningful relationship with their animals, explore their inner emotions and achieve a deeper understanding of the self. This paper takes inspiration from Donna Haraway's critique of Jacques Derrida's cat encounter, and philosophical thoughts of a 12th‐century Muslim mystic poet, Farid ud‐Din Attar, to examine how becoming‐with pigeons enables the flyers to structure their lifeworlds, develop entrenched companionship and shape their social choices to achieve wellbeing despite everyday social troubles and emotional anxieties.     

Drinkers,non‐drinkers and deferrers: Reconsidering the beer/footy couplet amongst Australian Rules football fans1

There is a common perception that football and alcohol go hand in hand and that players and fans routinely engage in excessive and irresponsible drinking. In Australia, this is manifest in the stereotypical ‘Pissed Aussie Rules fan’. Following research with Australian Rules football fans in South Australia, we identified three categories of fans according to their (non)engagement with alcohol: Drinkers, Non‐Drinkers and Deferrers. Deferrers were self‐identified drinkers who separated alcohol consumption from spectating, for fear of ‘contamination’. Our identification of counter‐stereotypic ways in which fans engage with alcohol (or not) challenges the assumptive worlds in which popular commentary on football and drinking operates. This was, to our knowledge, the first ethnography of drinking behaviour amongst Australian Rules football fans. It demonstrates the advantage of using ethnographic research techniques to understand the relationship between identity and consumption.     

Media spectacles: The production and reception of Tamil Cinema advertisements

Contemporary popular arts in Third World locations are agents of emergent modernities produced in the context of global interactions. This paper focuses on hand‐painted Tamil cinema advertisements that dominate the urban landscape in Chennai (Madras). Based on ethnographic research I demonstrate that the production network of these objects—methods of training, application of technology, and stylistic criteria—is constantly mutating. Reception of the advertisements unpacks a complex semiotics of internationalism and neo‐traditionalism as well as a mix of commercial and esthetic messages. I argue that these cinema advertisements are emblematic of the modernity of post‐colonial visual culture in India.