******************************************************
* http://www.anthropologymatters.com *
* A postgraduate project comprising online journal, *
* online discussions, teaching and research resources *
* and international contacts directory. *
******************************************************
OXFORD UNIVERSITY ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETY (OUAS);
INSTITUTE FOR SOCIAL AND CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY,
UNIVERSITY OF OXOFRD;
AND ROEHAMPTON UNIVERISTY, LONDON
_CONFERENCE CALL FOR PAPERS_
*EMOTIONS IN THE FIELD: *
*SURVIVING AND WRITING-UP FIELDWORK EXPERIENCE*
14-15^th September 2006
University of Oxford, UK
*Key speakers: Professor Tanya Luhrmann (**Chicago**)*
*Professor Michael Jackson (Harvard)*
*Welcome speech: Professor David Parkin (**Oxford**)*
Emotions in the field are often buried in individual memories and
personal diaries, in confidential accounts to friends and family,
colleagues and students. And yet, despite ‘scientific’ efforts to
exclude, tame, or redress our own feelings and personalities,
subjectivity leaves its mark upon all facets of research: from the
topics we select and the methods we employ, to the tone and hidden
messages of our ethnographies. How do our emotional experiences,
attachments and detachments, affect anthropologists as both persons and
researchers? - How do we cope with them, integrate them, and employ them
as methods for deeper understanding? How do they influence our
participant observation, and our wider interpretive and explanatory
enterprise? How do we reconcile the emotional/subjective with our
scientific goals, and what are the consequences of such integrations for
anthropology? Are all of the above issues relevant to the training of
anthropologists?
We invite papers that address these core questions and other related themes:
- Translating the emotional into the academic - can the emotional be a
legitimate means for knowing.
- Escape from experience – self-protection in the field; strategies of
disengagement with the ‘other’, their implications for research and
researchers.
- ‘Culture shock’ - its bearing on perception, experience, and field
methodology.
- ‘Reverse culture shock’ – its bearing on writing up.
- Discursive and pragmatic uses of emotions.
- Participant ‘experience’ – a viable methodology?
- Do we classify our emotional attachments and detachments in the field
as rational or irrational, useful or useless?
- Intense experiences (dreams and dreaming; the mystical and intuitive;
experiences of illness, death, birth) – their bearing on our perceptions
of the other.
- Emotional fuelling of political engagement during and after fieldwork.
- Researchers as persecutors, victims, or rescuers.
This is an interdisciplinary conference and we invite contributions from
anthropologists, psychologists, psychoanalysts and psychotherapists who
would reflect on their own or others’ experiences of emotional
encounters with alien cultures. We will also accept literary or
historical analyses. Please note that the conference organisers have
very limited funds for travel or accommodation. There is no registration
fee. Spaces are limited.
Please send an abstract of 300-500 words to Dr. Dimitrina Mihaylova at
[log in to unmask]
<mailto:[log in to unmask]> or to James Davies at
[log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]> before 16
April 2006. Successful applicants will be informed before 20^th April.
*************************************************************
* Anthropology-Matters Mailing List *
* To join this list or to look at the archived previous *
* messages visit: *
* http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/Anthropology-Matters.HTML *
* If you have ALREADY subscribed: to send a message to all *
* those currently subscribed to the list,just send mail to: *
* [log in to unmask] *
* *
* Enjoyed the mailing list? Why not join the new *
* CONTACTS SECTION @ www.anthropologymatters.com *
* an international directory of anthropology researchers *
***************************************************************
|