Role Of Ethnographer Research Articles

Who Was John Sampson Really Protecting?

Begun in 1888, the Gypsy Lore Society (GLS) set out to describe and preserve Welsh Kale Romani customs, culture and language. Leaders in this effort were John Sampson, Francis Hindes Groome and Dora Yates, among others who took on the role of ethnographers, anthropologists and linguists. This paper raises the question, “Who Was John Sampson Really Protecting?” It is answered through an extensive examination of documented sources: birth records, census records, newspaper articles, Gypsy Lore Society Journals, academics on racism, and modern-day ethnography and anthropological practices. As well as family history; the archived memory of a Wood family member. It is premised on these facts – that John Sampson’s ethics, methods and emotional investment ignores the context and inhumane impact of his study, namely the everyday lives and voices of his subject matter. His goal was heavily influenced by the works of Charles Darwin and intellectualbaggage of the history of the world seen through British eyes; simply as a straight line from cultures to possess the deep roots of civilization itself. The purer and more hidden the better. The method used by John Sampson was to capture as much of the Welsh Kale culture and language by embedding himself in one family – the Wood family who he proclaimed spoke the “pure” Romanus language of the Abram Wood tribe of North Wales. His published work on this is The Dialect of the Gypsies of Wales: Being the Older Form of British Romani Preserved in the Speech of the Clan of Abram Wood” (1926). Against this intellectual stronghold fortressed inside a racially superior monolith, the story of Edward Wood, John Roberts and their extended family is told. Ethically however, his project also raises serious questions about the dichotomy of singling out the Wood family from others who also spoke Welsh Kale Romanus but were excluded from John Sampson’s studies. He and the GLS recast the Wood family in romantic Victorian terms to use as props with which to stage their inventions in widely published articles to a gullible audience. In this paper, the moral position taken is one of noncompliance with the Romanized recasting and politicizing of the “Pure” Gypsy that local authorities used as policy to rationalize the separation of families and force them into housing right up to the 1970s. What is called today, “Scientific Racism”. Concluding with the ways we are dealing with the intergenerational trauma and the collateral damage done to these Welsh Kale families. Asserting, our own voices and legacy have earned us a rightful place in the wider collective as we commit to standing together in our ethnicity, diversity, and authenticity with all Roma.

АЛТАЙСКАЯ ЭТНОГРАФИЯ В ПИСЬМАХ

The article analyzes letters from the 1920s and early 1930s containing information on the history and ethnography of Altai and Mountain Shoria. The selection of the letters was made in the archives of Moscow, St. Petersburg and Gorno-Altaysk. The authors of the letters are ethnographers-Altaiologists and their informants: the Teleuts and the Altaians. The author considers the following: 1) letters from scholars to their colleagues and teachers; 2) letters from the Teleuts and the Altaians to the ethnographers; 3) “letters of repentance” to the newspaper, in which shamans and Burkhanism priests repent of their religious activities. The letters describe the peculiarities of state policy in the region, the interethnic relations issues, the role of ethnographers in conducting national zoning of the 1920s.

The Role of Ethnographers in the Invention of Socialist Traditions in the Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic

Abstract This study, based on archive document research and analysis of publications by Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic (LSSR) ethnographers, discusses the process of invention and implementation of Socialist traditions and the role of scientists in this. The introduction of Soviet traditions in Latvia did not begin immediately after the Second World War when the communist occupation regime was restored. The occupation regime in the framework of an anti-religious campaign turned to the transformation of traditions that affect individual’s private sphere and relate to church rituals – baptism, confirmation, weddings, funerals, Latvian cemetery festivities – in the second half of 1950s, along with the implementation of revolutionary and labour traditions. In order to achieve the goals set by the Communist Party, a new structure of institutions was formed and specialists from many fields were involved, including ethnographers from the Institute of History at the LSSR Academy of Sciences (hereinafter – LSSR AS). Ethnographers offered recommendations, as well as observed and analysed the process, discussing it in meetings of official commissions and sharing the conclusions in scientific publications, presentations, etc.

The Practice of Critique: A Comment on Fassin

Building on Didier Fassin’s astute and timely paper, I propose to reflect on the practice of critique by considering its beginnings, its mediations, and the ends to which it is deployed. I also consider the role of ethnographers in advancing critical practices.

Further education sector governors as ethnographers: five case studies

ABSTRACTThis paper considers how governors in the English Further Education and Skills (FE) sector examined their practice as ethnographers. The paper locates both FE governance and ethnography within the challenges of the performative and Panoptic environments facing English education. In doing so, the paper explores how the informants’ mobilisation of ethnographic methods revealed a novel lens on both governance and the role of ethnographer. Employing Grounded Theory, the paper considers how the participants negotiated philosophical questions regarding evidence, objectivity and truth. The paper suggests that despite the deep-seated complexities inherent in conducting ethnography in performative contexts, the participants generated data which painted a unique and revealing picture upon their practice as governor and researcher.

Popular Testimonial Literature by American Cultural Conservatives of Arab or Muslim Descent: Narrating the Self, Translating (an)Other

Bridgette Gabrielle, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Nonie Darwish, and Wafa Sultan, American writers of Arab or Muslim descent, have written testimonial narratives. They, I contend, take up the role of ethnographers or cultural insiders and produce highly problematic, yet popular, works which, neither purely literary nor solely political, allow them to play on their target audience’s expectations by performing as ethnic Americans. Yet, they manipulate their readers into believing that ethnic diversity and cultural and religious plurality are dangerous. In their testimonial narratives, they therefore imagine the United States as a white Judeo-Christian nation, thus erasing all pluralities, multi-ethnic diversity, and multicultural bodies whose rich fabric they make. Although their narratives marginalize Arab and Muslim Americans, their ultimate target is American multiculturalism.

Waiwai fractality and the arboreal bias of PES schemes in Guyana: what to make of the multiplicity of Amazonian cosmographies?

This paper concerns the often-assumed universal translatability of the environment as it exists in conservation discourses and policies in Amazonia. It focuses on Guyana's Low Carbon Development Strategy (LCDS), a government-led strategy to achieve socioeconomic development goals through foreign capital investment and trading in rights over “eco-services” provided by the country's forests. Guyana's indigenous peoples have been identified as one of the largest stakeholder groups for the LCDS and as such, are particular targets for translating it. Drawing from my research with indigenous Waiwai, I explore some cosmographic and cosmological differences between the arboreal, unilinear, and commodified environment portrayed in the LCDS and the fractal, recursive, and mediated environment portrayed in Waiwai discourse and practice. The way in which I understand the Waiwai lived environment is informed by their very ways of moving through it: along meandering and indirect interpretations shaped by social memories, nuanced impressions, physical and affective experiences. As the role of ethnographer is increasingly defined in terms of translation, there may be grounds for considering the differences between the knowledge-politics of direct, mechanical translation practices often found in consultations with indigenous communities and the more long-term, roundabout interpretive processes of ethnographic fieldwork and writing.

LACAN, SCIENCE, AND LAW: IS THE ETHNOGRAPHY OF SCIENTISM PSYCHOANALYTIC?

By adopting an idealized conception of the scientific enterprise, mirroring scientists' own self-conception, courts minimize the social and rhetorical aspects of science as ornamental, contingent, and eliminable. Lacan's reflections on science, and on the question of whether (or in what sense) psychoanalysis is scientific, parallel and enrich the efforts in science studies to show that the social and rhetorical aspects of science are co-productive, constitutive, and inevitable. Specifically, Lacan's identification of science as a discourse in denial of its subjectivity leads to a psychoanalytic re-orientation of ethnomethodology - an anthropological approach now favored in science studies. In the context of litigation involving scientific expertise, attorneys already assume, in their depositions and cross-examination, the role of ethnographers on foreign ground, but to the extent that the discourse of science replaces or dominates the discourse of law, legal ethnographers should also assume the role of analysts exploring the unconscious of science.

Codeswitching amongst zulu‐speaking teachers and their pupils: Its functions and implications for teacher education

Abstract This article explores the codeswitching behaviour (into Zulu from English) of three senior teachers and the principal of a KwaZulu boarding school in their interactions with pupils. Following Gumperz (1982), codeswitching is treated as a ‘contextualization cue’. In other words, switches from English to Zulu are interpreted as delineating the context for those involved and as guiding the participants’ interpretation of what takes place in the interactions. Switches into Zulu are shown to have important academic and social functions of different kinds in the classroom, guiding academic activity and interpretation, and guiding the interpretation of social, relationship‐related information. The implications of these findings for teacher eduction in South Africa (as well as more generally) are then considered. It is argued that priority needs to be given to consciousness‐raising as a means of developing sociolinguistic sensitivity on the parts of aspirant teachers—and essential knowledge for such a programme is suggested. Also offered is a range of activities, including discovery procedures, which teacher trainers can profitably encourage trainees to employ as they, in the role of ethnographers, explore and come to a better understanding of codeswitching as an interactional resource.