Ethnological Field Work Research Articles

Preserving the Feitao Ritual in an Era of Globalization: The Heritage Ecology of Maonan Ethnic Minority in Modern China

This article examines the dynamics of the Feitao ritual, a traditional practice of the Maonan ethnic minority, within the broader context of globalization and heritagization in China. It addresses the challenge of preserving the cultural identity and memory of ethnic minorities amidst economic development imperatives, a dilemma common to many late-developing countries. By focusing on transforming the Feitao ritual from a communal practice to a performative spectacle, this study unravels the intricate process of heritage ecology within minority rituals. Utilizing a combination of ethnological fieldwork and interviews, this article explores the perceptions and approaches toward the post-heritagization of the ritual among the Maonan community members and policymakers. It also emphasizes on the evolution of the ritual into a significant tourist attraction, showcasing the performative transformation of religious practices by an ethnic minority in China. The central argument of this article is that this ritual is formed in ecological interactions; it also symbolizes a self-defense for the rights and a pursuit of recognition for a minority group. It has been a vital medium for the Maonan people to construct and uphold a positive self-perception. This study endorses a faith-aware and community memory-focused approach to preserve the cultural heritage of ethnic minorities. The authors contend that this approach is essential to safeguard the cultural memory and identity of minorities in developing countries like China against the homogenizing forces brought by globalization in China.

From the glass to the plate

Since a long time ago, the Madeira Island is known all around the planet for its wine, not only as drink but also as an ingredient of the famous sauce Madère. This paper is about how this beverage made the leap into the gastronomy during the 2nd half of the 18th century, in both sides of the British Atlantic. Cookbooks and other kinds of documents from this period are explored to collect evidence related to this issue. An ethnological fieldwork within the Madeira Wine Company completed the historical approach to understand the potential outcomes of this study in what concerns the storytelling making about this drinkable heritage and the self-perception of producers as guardians of a true living tradition.

Ethnological Fieldwork. New Fields and Forms.

Ethnological Fieldwork. New Fields and Forms.

Secularism and Ethnic Minorities: Comparative Case Studies on Ethnic, Religious, and Political Cognitions in Pakistani-Controlled Kashmir, Central Russia, Romania, and Northern Scandinavia

According to my study, “political secularism” means the separation of political power from religious institutions, while “social secularism” is a theory and endeavor to eliminate religiosity from not only public but also private life, considering it an obsolete way of thinking. I examine four case studies based on my ethnological fieldwork in Hunza (in the Pakistani-controlled Kashmir), the Middle Ural (Russia), Transylvania (Romania), and Sápmi (northern Scandinavia). I outline and compare ethnic minorities (Hunzakuts, Tatars, Szeklers, Samis) according to their historical background, contemporary social environment, relation to the majority, their political endeavors, and the role of religion(s) among them. Based on my fieldwork notes, interviews, and sociological data, I analyze the similarities and differences of ethnic complexity, terminological confusions, problems of “lived religion,” and the impact of social and political secularism. Since their religiosity differs from the majorities’ ones, I found that secularism has a complex role and reception. Political secularism is essential for defending these minorities from assimilation, but most of these minorities reject social secularism since religion is part of their multifunctional ethnic discourse space. Religiosity is part of their survival strategy. Notwithstanding, ethnic minorities’ religious institutions participate in political activity and propagate their claims for self-governance.

Entertainment as ritual: the Post-Reform transformation of Hát bội in Southern Vietnam

Purpose This article traces the transformation of hát bội, a form of traditional opera in Southern Vietnam, from its primary role as entertainment into a religious activity after the Reform (Đổi Mới) were enacted in 1986. Design/methodology/approach This research is based on ethnological fieldwork complemented by a review of historical documents and of the available literature on hát bội, cultural policies and on data collected from interviews with artists and spectators at the festival at the shrine to the Lady of the Realm. Findings Before 1986, hát bội was performed either as a stand-alone entertainment during the fair portion of community festivals or as part of religious ceremonies. The Reform and the accompanying relaxation of state control over religion and culture promoted the resurgence of popular religious fairs across the nation. New opportunities for hát bội to revive opened, artists left state-sponsored troupes to join private companies that catered to religious festivals. But almost exclusive involvement in religious rites has led to artistic stasis for private hát bội troupes. Originality/value This research constitutes novel insights of how the Reform in Vietnam affects the transformation of a traditional performance form.

Etnoloogilised välitööd religioosses kontekstis Komimaa kristlaste näitel

Ethnological Fieldwork in the Context of a Religious Community, Based on the Example of Christians in the Komi Region The article is based on fieldwork conducted in the Kulymdin district of the Komi Republic in the years 2008–2015. In the article, I reflexively discuss my own position as a non-religious researcher conducting fieldwork among evangelical Christians. The salience of the issues I deal with is not limited to work with religious communities, and probably also comes up in conducting various ethnological research. Yet dealing with the religious sphere has its own special characteristics that see the research confronted with certain questions not only from the subjects, but also from colleagues. On one hand, the article deals with my thoughts, experiences and feelings in studying religious people as a non-believer. I also look at the reactions of the believers toward myself, and analyse how my position as a researcher has affected our interactions. I bring out various ideological points of departure and contextual circumstances that form the backdrop to our communication and have shaped our dialogue. In addition to our various personal experiences and attitudes, the specific sociocultural environment in which our interaction took place has also had a role. I also reflect on various motivations that may have led people to take part in interaction and I deal with the difficulties involved in elucidating my own objectives. As an ethnologist, I have a specific goal when I conduct fieldwork, and later, in presenting the gathered material as a scholar, I take a certain authoritative position. At the same time, the subjects in our mutual interaction also have their own reasons and objectives. The subjects’ opinion of what the result of our interaction should be may be significantly different from mine. The ideal in research and presentation of material gathered in fieldwork is generally considered to be an empathetic yet impartial approach, in spite of the fact that difficulties and limitations are acknowledged in achieving an ‘objective’ view. At the same time, a neutral or impartial approach to religious matters is not acceptable for evangelical Christians. As a researcher, I see Christianity as one possible mode of existence in the world and framework for making sense of that world, yet believers would see such a standpoint as mistaken. The fact that I have not converted and have no conscious desire to do so puts limits on our dialogue. Our interactions are thus not functional for believers in what for them is the most important aspect. Yet I have not voiced scepticism in the evangelical world view, either. Although the believers have doubt in my ability as a non-believer to genuinely understand their experiences, there are a number of reasons that they might see a point in communicating with me. Analysing the motivation and strategies of the believers in the communication between us, I identify three angles of approach: the attempt to force their own means of interpretation on outsiders, the making of discursive compromises to close the conceptual gap between the two parties, and the readiness to leave the entire decision-making competence up to ‘scholars’. My goal in bringing out these perspectives is to analyse the ambivalence in researcher–believer interaction. Enquiry into the polysemantic and multidimensional aspect of our interaction helps us to better see and make sense of ways in which the search for and efforts to establish a certain common ground take place between ethnological fieldwork and religious objectives – which are always to some extent irreconcilable. As our ways of understanding and intuiting the world vary, there will inevitably be a certain cognitive distance between us. By acknowledging the fundamental cognitive differences between us, we can still be understanding of each other and be mutually beneficial partners.

The GO-ACTIWE randomized controlled trial - An interdisciplinary study designed to investigate the health effects of active commuting and leisure time physical activity

Regular physical activity is efficacious for improving metabolic health in overweight and obese individuals, yet, many adults lead sedentary lives. Most exercise interventions have targeted leisure time, but physical activity also takes place in other domains of everyday life. Active commuting represents a promising alternative to increase physical activity, but it has yet to be established whether active commuting conveys health benefits on par with leisure time physical activity (LTPA). A 6-month randomized controlled trial was designed to investigate the effects of increased physical activity in transport (bicycling) or leisure time domains (moderate or vigorous intensity endurance exercise). We included 188 overweight and class 1 obese sedentary women and men (20–45years) of which 130 were randomized to either sedentary controls (n=18), active commuting (n=35) or moderate (n=39) or vigorous (n=38) intensity LTPA. At baseline and after 3 and 6months, participants underwent a rigorous 3-day biomedical test regimen followed by free-living measurements. In a sub-sample, physical activity level and energy expenditure were monitored by means of personal assistive technology and the doubly labeled water technique. Additionally, the delivery, reception and routinization of the exercise regimens were investigated by ethnological fieldwork. One year after termination of the intervention, participants will be invited for a follow-up visit to investigate sustained health effects and continuous physical activity adherence. By combining biomedical, technological and humanistic approaches, we aim to understand the health benefits of physical activity in different domains of everyday life, as well as how to improve adherence to physical activity.

Beyond the Mato Oput Tradition: embedded contestations in transitional justice for post-massacre Pajong, northern Uganda

Human beings to a great extent are what community stories narrate about them. This paper is informed by an ethnological field research carried in one of the remotest villages of Mucwini Sub-county in Kitgum district, northern Uganda, scrutinizes people’s stories as they echo concerns about justice from different perspectives of victimhood in the aftermath of a Lord’s Resistance Army-commanded massacre which claimed the lives of 56 people in a night, the majority of whom (21) were from the Pajong clan. After a decade, all direct violent confrontations have no doubt ceased, however, the search for peace still is utterly skewed by the contesting voices echoing “justice” for the past evil deeds. Basing on ethnological fieldwork, this study essentially employed a qualitative approach to data collection and analysis although with minimal involvement of quantified data (collected through a structured questionnaire and processed in with the aid of Statistical Packages for Social Sciences software). The findings of this study are discussed within a theoretical framework built on Habermas’ theory of communicative rationality (1996), Freire’s pedagogy of hope (1992) and Seligman’s pedagogy of tolerance (2004) which reveal that in the event of a transitional society (emerging from past violent conflict) like post-massacre in Pajong-A village, where much contestation seems to arise not from the form of the pursued transitional justice but rather from the content in terms of prioritization about the very pursuit of transitional justice. The case of post-massacre scenario in Pajong-A village in particular and northern Uganda in general reiterate the shortcomings of applying the generally agreed Mato Oput tradition among the Acholi people, in the aftermath of a large scale devastation with implications beyond customary prescriptions.

Temiar Religion 1964–2012: Enchantment, Disenchantment and Re-enchantment in Malaysia’s Uplands by Geoffrey Benjamin (review)

Reviewed by: Temiar Religion 1964–2012: Enchantment, Disenchantment and Re-enchantment in Malaysia’s Uplands by Geoffrey Benjamin Sandra Khor Manickam Temiar Religion 1964–2012: Enchantment, Disenchantment and Re-enchantment in Malaysia’s Uplands Geoffrey Benjamin Singapore: NUS Press, 2014. 480 pp., ISBN: 978-9971-69-706-8 Temiar Religion by Geoffrey Benjamin is an unconventional book. The material ranges from the 1960s to the 2000s, it contains Benjamin’s 1967 PhD thesis and letters between Benjamin and Edmund Leach, and it ends in the contemporary period with chapters that can stand on their own. Yet it is precisely this variety of material on Temiar religion that makes the book an insightful and compelling read. Temiar Religion not only discusses the religions and religious practices and beliefs of an Orang Asli community in Malaysia through the better part of 50 years, it is also a compilation of thinking about the sociology of religion, a history of anthropology of the Orang Asli (the general term for Malaysia’s indigenous people of which Temiar is the largest group) (p. 20), and a document that traces change in Temiar society. It is the sort of book that professors put on their required reading list for first-year undergraduate classes on anthropology, religion and/or Malaysia with the realization that it should stand in students’ bookcases at least until some of them undertake a PhD and long after. In his foreword to the book, political scientist and anthropologist James C. Scott aptly describes the book as a ‘sustained, scrupulous, long-term observation and analysis’ of religions among Temiar of Malaysia (p. ix). Scott points out that Benjamin has reformulated thinking about the Orang Asli several times over: moving scholars away from thinking about the presence of different indigenous groups as due to successive migration waves (the layer cake theory) to differences brought about due to in-situ hybridization in the Malay Peninsula;1 and from understanding labels such as ‘race’ as primarily [End Page 161] biological differences to more of an indication of specific lifeways and cultural matrices.2 The book is the earlier basis of much of his later (though earlier published) work. Benjamin’s study is a thoughtful and considered study of Temiar and their religious practices and beliefs, as well as the process of studying and writing about them. The unity of the chapters lies in the analysis of Temiar religious practices and beliefs as part of wider Malaysian society, but nonetheless readers will notice the varied tone and purpose of the chapters which illustrate writings and analyses separated by nearly 50 years of research. The book may be divided into two parts: the first part comprises the 1967 PhD thesis and associated chapters based on fieldwork in the 1960s, while the second part is scholarship based on newer ethnological fieldwork from the 1960s until 2012. The earlier section comprises detailed research on the underlying beliefs and practices of Temiar religion which reflects not only the amount of time Benjamin was able to devote to the study of Temiar religion in the 1960s, but also how much of his initial fieldwork was groundbreaking for trying to seriously understand Temiar animism as religion, not superstition. This first section also refers to the term ‘enchantment’ in the book’s subtitle, referring to Max Weber’s ideas of religious change in society which I will return to when discussing the second part of the book which corresponds to ‘disenchantment and re-enchantment’. Benjamin’s 1967 doctoral thesis (based on fieldwork in 1964/6) (p. 41) comprises Chapters 3–8, ending with Chapter 9 which reproduces letters written to Benjamin by notable British anthropologist and Benjamin’s supervisor Edmund Leach. Chapters 3–7 on the cosmos, species, souls, and spirit mediumship (respectively) correspond to the component parts of Temiar religious beliefs which Benjamin argues link to an overall logic or conceptual system of religion in which the cosmic (Temiar ideas of a celestial axis from sunrise to sunset), mundane (everyday prohibitions and values attributed to seasonal fruits, other foods and how they link to the village and the forest), and personal levels (the emphasis on souls possessed by humans which corresponds to the opposition between...

Kenneth Lizzio. Ritual and Charisma in Naqshbandi Sufi Mysticism

This ethnological study of a branch of the Naqsbandiyya Mujaddidiyya order based in Pakistan’s tribal area combines ethnological fieldwork with a historical and textual analysis that evinces recent theories in transpersonal psychology. Suggestive of an original approach to the study of Sufism, its chief aim is to correct the anthropologist’s tendency to focus exclusively on the social, political and economical aspects of Sufi orders while neglecting the esoteric and spiritual ones. The author...

Frederick Johnson's “River Desert Algonquin” Materials at the University of Pennsylvania Museum: A Collection History

AbstractThis paper is a collection history of a relatively unknown assemblage of Algonquin ethnographic materials from the “River Desert” community in Maniwaki, Quebec, Canada—a people now known as the Kitigan Zibi Anishinabeg. The objects were collected by Frederick Johnson, a student of Frank Speck at the University of Pennsylvania, in 1929. My objective is to analyze the Johnson collection within the historical context of Algonquin research during the early 20th century—a time of intensive ethnological field work with Canadian aboriginal communities, of accumulation and sale of objects to finance fieldwork, and of ambitious acquisitions by museums.

Ethnological Fieldwork in a Firm and Ethnicization of Domination in Côte-d'Ivoire

L'analyse méthodologique d'une enquête réalisée dans une entreprise en Côte-d'Ivoire permet de montrer comment les relations nouées par les acteurs avec l'ethnologue épousent les logiques en jeu et reflètent les contradictions liées à la structure hiérarchique. L'examen de la fonction assignée à l'observateur, dans les rapports sociaux internes à l'entreprise, livre ainsi une connaissance sur le mode de constitution du pouvoir en Côte-d'Ivoire, enfermé dans un procès d'ethnicisation de la domination. Cette dernière est définie comme allogène et dénoncée comme telle, ou comme endogène et sa légitimité à s'appliquer dans le domaine de la production industrielle est alors rejetée.

Valeur marchande, amour maternel et survie : aspects de la circulation des enfants dans un bidonville brésilien

Je ne sais pas. Je crois que j'avais deux ou quatre ans quand ma mère est partie. Elle a été obligée de partir. Mon père buvait, la battait et cassait tout dans la maison. Mon père habitait avec une tante qui l'avait élevé, et cette tante s'occupait de nous. Puis mon père s'est remarié et sa femme était horrible avec nous. Maintenant ça va, mais à l'époque, elle était trop jeune peut-être… elle nous battait. Alors je suis allée chercher ma mère. Ma mère est allée voir le juge et comme ça elle a pu nous reprendre mais elle était déjà très malade ; une tante s'occupait d'elle. Nous habitions dans la cour avec une autre famille : la mère de cette famille m'aidait beaucoup et je passais tout mon temps chez elle. Quand ma mère est morte G'avais 15 ans), elle m'a donnée à cette voisine — elle était si gentille pour moi que je l'appelais « maman ». C'est plus tard que j'ai connu son fils, qui vivait ailleurs, et je me suis mise en ménage avec lui. Alors, tu vois, j'avais quatre mères : la tante de mon père, ma vraie mère, la femme de mon père et ma belle-mère.Solange, 22 ans, mère de 4 enfants

Anthropological Field Research: Margaret Mead, Muse of the Clinical Experience

THE PRIMARY PRODUCT OF FIELDWORK is the ethnography, a comapping of experience and mind and a simultaneous mapping of mind on mind. Fieldwork is the context within which and for which anthropological methods are devised, yet fieldwork is an orientation in time and space that is not one's own, a culture-contact situation in which the cultures we investigate may gain or lose in translation. What informs these modelic activities is just beginning to be seriously considered in anthropology. Margaret Mead welcomed this development. She herself had written, on occasion, about the nature and goals of anthropological fieldwork, ' and it is my purpose here neither to repeat or summarize her consciously expressed views that are available nor to improve on her style of expressing them, nor to say that she meant other than she expressed. Consideration here will rather be confined to what I observed as a colleague in the intimacy of fieldwork situations and discussions on the technic, and what I perceive to have been her assumptions, consciously expressed or no, of the goals and nature of anthropological fieldwork. In her occasional commentaries on method, she was not concerned with making explicit the "theological bases" of her scientific activities in the field. Because of this, some have asserted that there were no fundamental assumptions. That conclusion might easily have been reached if one came entr'acte into the intersects of her current thinking about a problem and insisted, after a brief interchange, on locating her intellectual coordinates. This would not be possible. She would never, for example, have written or spoken "The Tale of the Polyploid Horse" to illustrate a fallacy of strict "scientific" thinking of technologists as Bateson did (1979:55), but she would, in conference, refer to "Gregory's horse" and have already applied its principle. (If you didn't know about "Gregory's horse," this was a signal for you to read up on it before the next conference.) What informs the modelic activities in anthropological field research is the experiential history of the investigator and the trajectory of his intellectual history of ideation with its emphases, nurtured or not within the historic arc of determinism of his culture (Romanucci-Ross 1979). Ruth Bunzel, one of Margaret's early contemporaries, said that in the early 1920s the then-"new ethnography" ran counter to the then-current studies of institutions; it rather emphasized how individuals coped with universal problems, as, for example: What was it like to be an adolescent in another society? What can we learn from life histories and dreams? How do artists think about what they are doing? In addition, in that era there was a shared urgency to work on these problems before colonialism

Ootacamund in the Nilgiris: Some Notes

THE TOWN OF OOTACAMUND in the Nilgiri Hills in South India was a foundation of the English early in the 19th century. The hills are in fact a mountainous plateau, some 40 miles long by 15 miles broad, at the junction of the ranges of the Eastern and Western Ghats, and higher than either of the ranges at that point. The Nilgiri summits go over 8,000 feet, high above the plains to the north and east. The plateau is excessively rugged, composed of many small ranges and many peaks, with many steep, narrow valleys between them. The eastern and northeastern part of the plateau is in general some 1,000 to 1,500 feet lower than the remainder. Ootacamund is roughly in the middle of the plateau, just to the west of the short Doddabetta-Snowdon range which is part of the line of demarcation between the higher and lower levels and which in Doddabetta contains the highest of the Nilgiri peaks (some 8,640 feet). From shortly after its foundation Ootacamund was the most important of the health-restoring and playground hill stations founded by the English in South India for the use of the governing classes of the Madras Presidency, Mysore State, and even more distant parts of South India. Since Independence also, it has retained some of its usefulness for some governmental activities and as a playground. Its early history has been recorded in a number of books, especially H. B. Grigg (and others), A Manual of the Nilagiri District in the Madras Presidency (Madras, Government Press, 1880) and Sir Frederick Price, Ootacamund, a History (Madras, Government Press, 1908).1 Both of these are based in part on early government files, government gazettes, and Madras journals, and probably there is little more to be gleaned from such sources. However, even yet, not everything that might be gained from aboriginal oral sources has been put on record. The present notes on several small points come from such sources and in one way or another supplement the large accounts. They are based on linguistic and ethnological fieldwork done on the Todas, one of the aboriginal communities, in the years 1935-1938. What is presented here was recorded only incidentally to the chief interests, and it is evident that at some points inquiry was not pushed far enough. It is evident, too, that inquiry among the Badagas, another of the communities of the area, would add something-in fact, would solve completely the second point examined.

Paddle and Anvil Appearance of Some Sonoran Pottery

While engaged in recent ethnological field work in the San Miguel Valley of northeastern Sonora, I had occasion to observe a potter at work. This area, in aboriginal times, was inhabited by the Opata Indian tribe. Today it is predominantly mestizo racially, and culturally is a blend of aboriginal, early Spanish, and Mexican traits. I was assured by many people that the potter, who is extremely Indian in appearance, was “pura indigina.”

The Application of Anthropological Knowledge to Modern Mass Society: An Anthropologist’s View

Are there any methods whereby we may understand the cultures of modern nation-societies both as to their detailed components and as to their total configurational characteristics? Anthropologists receive such queries because modern ethnological field work and other anthropological methods have been able to produce reliable descriptive analyses of so-called primitive tribes and small communities that are both comprehensive and detailed. And, on the basis of such data collected in a wide variety of cultures around the world, science has acquired not only a rich store of knowledge concerning the substantive varieties of human social behavior, but also a fairly elaborated theoretical apparatus regarding culture in general. With such knowledge and theory it is possible to explain and even to predict many human behaviors and attitudes that were formerly beyond the reach of science.

The Assiniboin Horse Medicine Cult

In a recent comment on contemporary ethnological field work among North American Indians Alfred L. Kroeber remarked, The days are over when an informant furnishing even a vocabulary felt marked, ashamed, and afraid. . . Indians of today sense the ethnologists' motivation far better, appreciate it, and respond accordingly.' During recent field investigations among the Assiniboin Indians the significance of Kroeber's observations on the change in Indian attitude toward ethnological research was brought home to me forcefully. With the passage of years many traditional cults of the Plains Indians have disappeared, but there has been compensation for the contemporary field worker in the greater willingness of the few remaining individuals who have had personal experience in the old way of life to discuss the more esoteric aspects of their traditional culture. Today, years after some of the old religious cults became defunct, their secrets have become declassified in the minds of elderly former members who survive. Not only are they willing but they are even happy to discuss with considerable objectivity the organization, activities and history of these organizations. They seem to realize that by presenting their accounts to sympathetic ethnologists, they may be aiding their own literate descendants by preserving a record of little-known facets of tribal culture.

Sampling Reliability in Ethnological Field Work

Sampling Reliability in Ethnological Field Work

Report on Ethnological Field Work Among Primitive Tribes in Tripura State

Report on Ethnological Field Work Among Primitive Tribes in Tripura State