Ethnographic Turning

Abstract

Ethnography is not native to my field of History of Religions. Here I reflect on my experience of a slow “ethnographic turn” in this field, where textual studies once dominated. Never trained in ethnographic methods, I recount my moves from experiencing archival work as fieldwork, then to the interviews and observations closer to “real” fieldwork, and finally to a self-centered experiential method that involves being there. At the same time, I transitioned from close work in Tamil Nadu, to the Hindu diaspora, and then to a new venue in global Singapore.