Knowing How to Know : : Fieldwork and the Ethnographic Present / / ed. by Narmala Halstead, Eric Hirsch, Judith Okely.

• MitwirkendeR: Arora, Vibha,; Crandall, David P.,; Grasseni, Cristina,; Halstead, Narmala,; Hirsch, Eric,; Munasinghe, Viranjini,; Okely, Judith,; Retsikas, Konstantinos,; Wulff, Helena,
• HerausgeberIn: Halstead, Narmala,; Hirsch, Eric,; Okely, Judith,
• Place / Publishing House: New York; , Oxford : : Berghahn Books, , [2008]; ©2008
• Year of Publication: 2008
• Language: English
• Series: EASA Series ; 9
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (212 p.)

This volume examines some crucial issues in the conduct of fieldwork and ethnography and provides new insights into the problems of constructing anthropological knowledge. How is anthropological knowledge created from fieldwork, whose knowledge is this, who determines what is of significance in any ethnographic context, and how is the fieldsite extended in both time and place? Nine anthropologists examine these problems, drawing on diverse case studies. These range from the dilemmas of the religious refashioning of the ethnographer in contemporary Indonesia to the embodied knowledge of ballet performers, and from ignorance about post-colonial ritual innovations by the anthropologist in highland Papua to the skilled visions of slow food producers in Italy. It is a key text for new fieldworkers as much as for established researchers. The anthropological insights developed here are of interdisciplinary relevance: cultural studies scholars, sociologists and historians will be as interested as anthropologists in this re-evaluation of fieldwork and the project of ethnography.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Introduction Experiencing the Ethnographic Present: Knowing through ‘Crisis’ -- Chapter 1 Knowing, Not Knowing, Knowing Anew -- Chapter 2 The Transformation of Indigenous Knowledge into Anthropological Knowledge: Whose Knowledge Is It? -- Chapter 3 Knowing without Notes -- Chapter 4 To Know the Dancer: Formations of Fieldwork in the Ballet World -- Chapter 5 Knowledge as Gifts of Self and Other -- Chapter 6 Knowledge from the Body: Fieldwork, Power and the Acquisition of a New Self -- Chapter 7 What is Sacred about that Pile of Stones at Mt Tendong? Serendipity, Complicity and Circumstantial Activism in the Production of Anthropological Knowledge of Sikkim, India -- Chapter 8 Learning to See: World-views, Skilled Visions, Skilled Practice -- Chapter 9 Rescuing Theory from the Nation -- Notes on Contributors -- Index