Abstract: In a classic book of the same name, Joshua Fishman (2006) writes, “Do not leave your language alone.” His idea that language vitality requires the language community’s intentional efforts could easily be applied to culture as well. In the face of unprecedented threats— including (but not limited to) climate- and politically-induced migration, economic pressures, and the attractions of new forms of cultural production in an increasingly networked world—sustaining cultures and the communities that maintain them requires active, intentional “work.” Doing this “work” relies also on presence in and direct engagement with communities. Too often, however, I have encountered people simply resigned to cultural and linguistic shift. Mei banfa 没办法. Bkod pa med བཀོད་པ་མེད།, “There’s nothing to be done.” Building on observations from fieldwork with Tibetans in Western China during the summer and fall of 2023, this article articulates a vision of cultural transmission that builds out from essential principles of presence and “work.”

Abstract: La Divina Pastora , endearingly known as “La Divin,” is a dark-complexioned statuary image of the Virgin Mary and the patroness saint of Siparia, a Roman Catholic parish in southern Trinidad. Reputed for her miraculous medico-spiritual cures, the Madonna of Siparia has historically drawn an ardent following from within and outside the Catholic Church, including Hindus, mostly the descendants of South Asian indentured workers. She is a dressed image, which means that her dress helps shape, and is shaped by, the interactions and relationship between the miracle-working Madonna and miracle-searching devotees. Nevertheless, virtually no studies have devoted their attention to La Divin’s dress beyond symbolic and decorative values and functions. Based on the premise that this lack of inquiry and analysis has impaired understandings of faith in the Madonna of Siparia, this article weaves together insights and data from long-term ethnographic and archival research to explore the spiritual and social properties and performance of La Divin ’s dress and dressed body.

Abstract: State - sponsored media in Turkey presents aşure as a “national dessert,” often at the expense of Alevi communities who prepare the dish for the sacred commemoration of the Karbala Massacre (680 CE/61 AH). These popular representations of aşure focus almost entirely on pluralist notions of belonging and tolerance, to the strategic exclusion of Alevi mourning narratives and repertories of sacred music and poetry. While the state presents aşure as a national dessert, Alevi religious organizations reconstruct it through activist discourses and understand aşure as a form of resistance and a response to the increasing authoritarian regime in Turkey. Through a close examination of Muharrem commemorations in Istanbul and a critical analysis of state-sponsored media depicting those practices, in this article I demonstrate that aşure, caught between state pluralism and Alevi activism, is fragmented, with different groups adopting various versions based on their perspectives.

Abstract: The festival of Holi—also called Phaguwa in the Bhojpuri language—is considered the harbinger of spring in parts of Nepal. In this article, I describe the festival of Holi as it is celebrated in Barwa, a village in southern Nepal. While Holi is largely celebrated as a “festival of colors,” I argue that foodways and musical practices add essential intercaste dynamics to the festivities. I discuss how communal agency and reciprocity in the face of sociopolitical neglect brings communities together in a multisensorial celebration, while also highlighting intercaste dynamics. I embrace the poetics and performance of autoethnography as a means of processing memories and recent ethnographic experiences that continue to shape my understanding of this festival, the Terai (southern Nepali plains), and its peoples.

Abstract: Grace Sherwood, the “Witch of Pungo,” has been a foundational part of southeastern Virginia folklore for over two hundred years. In 1706, she endured a trial by water in the Lynnhaven River after neighbors accused her of performing witchcraft. In the decades that followed, she became the subject of local legends as people recounted the events that took place at the site of “witch’s duck.” Starting in the nineteenth century, writers used these stories to add flavor to published accounts of Sherwood’s trial records, and in the twentieth century this hybrid story of legend and history became an essential part of the region’s cultural identity. Legend entrepreneurs were essential to this process. These individuals were local journalists and community leaders committed to preserving Virginia Beach culture and folklore, and they became passionate defenders of Sherwood’s legend. Their advocacy also shaped the contours of how that legend developed over time. Through effective use of community events, media, and their own writing, these legend entrepreneurs added new details to the folklore surrounding Sherwood’s life and trial and standardized the way people told her story. Understanding their work provides compelling insight into the development of modern folklore and the role individuals play in shaping it.

Abstract: "What I Lost in Cuba: The Journey from Ethnography to Fiction" traces the path from anthropological research to fictional writing in the creation of a historical novel, Letters from Cuba . The novel isbased on my maternal grandmother's story. She was a Jewish immigrant from Poland who found refuge in Cuba on the eve of WWII. Drawing on her story, filling in gaps with my imagination, while also setting the novel in the rural town where she lived and where I did research, I address the question of how fiction, ethnography, and folklore can blend to form a blurred genre that allows for a speculative understanding of a complex historical moment.

Abstract: What follows is an account of an anthropological journey taken over the course of several decades. This journey involved theories, but also different disciplines, as well as shifts between languages, countries, and continents. The whole process has involved stories of identity (imagined, constructed, or both), changes of place (teaching in seven countries on three continents and in four languages), looking for a safe haven, and my firm belief in the importance of understanding the motives that govern human beings. Anthropological theories arise from specific cultural and social circumstances, and they continue to develop, as well as draw their inspiration, from different historical events. Theories are related to itineraries, and in my case, I find myself completing a full circle as I come back to Brazil—where my professional journey took off more than two decades ago. With all the stops along the way, this was a journey through different perspectives leading to a rather obvious conclusion about understanding others. Contrary to what some believe, understanding others and the multiplicity of cultures and life-forms is not about building bridges, it is about understanding that we all live on the same island.

Abstract: This article engages the transformation of fieldwork as an idea based on specific methodological practices, and the way different conceptions of fieldwork circulated and adapted to the study of the folklore of Jews. Doing fieldwork is not a theory, but as a concept and practice it travels between different disciplinary and ethnographic contexts. This article engages a number of synchronic episodes in which fieldwork was applied to Jewish subjects, tracing the scholarly contexts from which it was borrowed, among them: networks of corresponding authors at the end of nineteenth century in Central Europe; Russian political agendas of “going to the people”; Russian imperial expeditions to Siberia; German diffusionist works in Africa; Boasian anthropology; and studies of Japanese culture from a distance during the Second World War. On the diachronic level, these different crossroads of Jewish folkloristics with other ethnographic initiatives reflect a turbulent history of mobility, displacement, and immigration that underlies Jewish life in the twentieth century. These different adaptations, paths in which fieldwork was translated to the study of Jews, enables an examination of fieldwork as an idea that keeps traveling, or better, in Tim Ingold’s terms, “meshwork”—a texture of interwoven threads.

Abstract: Turkey hosted more than forty German scholars from various disciplines during late 1930s and early 1940s who had to leave their country before World War II due to their ethnic origin and ideology. They took part in the higher education reform of Turkey that was initiated by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founder of the Turkish Republic, and contributed to the establishment of the new cultural repertoire of that country with their intellectual capital, knowledge, and expertise in their specific disciplines. The Jewish German professor Erich Auerbach was a Romanist who set up the Philology Faculty of Istanbul University together with Professor Leo Spitzer and wrote a book between 1943 and 1945 entitled Mimesis , in which he introduced the German philological tradition to Turkish university students. This book then became famous in the universities of Pennsylvania State, Princeton, and Yale, in the US, where Auerbach continued his career from 1947 until he died there in 1957. This book is still used by literature students, teachers, and literary critics in the US.