Locating the Field: Space, Place and Context in Anthropology (ASA Monographs)

217 Pages·2007·0.74 MB·English

by  Peter Collins

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Locating the Field
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ASA Monographs
ISSN 0066-9679
1. The Relevance of Models for Social Anthropology, ed. M. Banton
2. Political Systems and the Distribution of Power, ed. M. Banton
3. Anthropological Approaches to the Study of Religion, ed. M. Banton
4. The Social Anthropology of Complex Societies, ed. M. Banton
5. The Structural Study of Myth and Totemism, ed. E.R. Leach
6. Themes in Economic Anthropology, ed. R. Firth
7. History and Social Anthropology, ed. I.M. Lewis
8. Socialization: The Approach from Social Anthropology, ed. P. Mayer
9. Witchcraft Confessions and Accusations, ed. M. Douglas
10. Social Anthropology and Language, ed. E. Ardener
11. Rethinking Kinship and Marriage, ed. R. Needham
12. Urban Ethnicity, ed. A. Cohen
13. Social Anthropology and Medicine, ed. J.B. Loudon
14. Social Anthropology and Law, ed. I. Hamnett
15. The Anthropology of the Body, ed. J. Blacking
16. Regional Cults, ed. R.P. Werbner
17. Sex and Age as Principles of Social Differentiation, ed. J. La Fontaine
18. Social and Ecological Systems, ed. P.C. Burnham and R.F. Ellen
19. Social Anthropology of Work, ed. S. Wallman
20. The Structure of Folk Models, ed. L. Holy and L. Stuchlik
21. Religious Organization and Religious Experience, ed. J. Davis
22. Semantic Anthropology, ed. D. Parkin
23. Social Anthropology and Development Policy, ed. R. Grillo and A. Rew
24. Reason and Morality, ed. J. Overing
25. Anthropology at Home, ed. A. Jackson
26. Migrants, Workers, and the Social Order, ed. J.S. Eades
27. History and Ethnicity, ed. E. Tonkin, M. McDonald and M. Chapman
28. Anthropology and the Riddle of the Sphinx: Paradox and Change in the Life Course,
ed. P. Spencer
29. Anthropology and Autobiography, ed. J. Okely and H. Callaway
30. Contemporary Futures: Perspectives from Social Anthropology, ed. S. Wallman
31. Socialism: Ideals, Ideologies and Local Practice, ed. C.M. Hann
32. Environmentalism: The View from Anthropology, ed. K. Milton
33. Questions of Consciousness, ed. A.P. Cohen and N. Rapport
34. After Writing Culture: Epistemology and Praxis in Contemporary Anthropology, eds
A. James, A. Dawson and J. Hockey
35. Ritual, Performance, Media, ed. F. Hughes-Freeland
36. The Anthropology of Power, ed. Angela Cheater
37. An Anthropology of Indirect Communication, ed. J. Hendry and C.W. Watson
38. Elite Cultures, ed. C. Shore and S. Nugent
39. Participating in Development, ed. P. Sillitoe, A. Bicker and J. Pottier
40. Human Rights in Global Perspective, ed. R.A. Wilson and J.P. Mitchell
41. The Qualities of Time, ed. W. James and D. Mills
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Locating the Field
Space, Place and Context in Anthropology
Edited by Simon Coleman and Peter Collins
Oxford • New York
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First published in 2006 by
Berg
Editorial offices:
1st Floor, Angel Court, 81 St Clements Street, Oxford, OX4 1AW, UK
175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010, USA
© Simon Coleman and Peter Collins 2006
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form
or by any means without the written permission of Berg.
Berg is the imprint of Oxford International Publishers Ltd.
Library of Congress Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
Locating the field : space, place and context in anthropology / edited by
Simon Coleman and Peter Collins.
p. cm. — (ASA monographs, ISSN 0066-9679 ; 42)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-13: 978-1-84520-403-7 (pbk.)
ISBN-10: 1-84520-403-4 (pbk.)
ISBN-13: 978-1-84520-402-0 (hardback)
ISBN-10: 1-84520-402-6 (hardback)
1. Anthropology—Field work. I. Coleman, Simon, 1963- II. Collins,
Peter (Peter Jeffrey) III. Series: A.S.A. monographs ; 42.
GN34.3.F53L63 2006
301.072'3—dc22 2006010298
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN-13 978 1 84520 402 0 (Cloth)
ISBN-10 1 84520 402 6 (Cloth)
ISBN-13 978 1 84520 403 7 (Paper)
ISBN-10 1 84520 403 4 (Paper)
Typeset by Avocet Typeset, Chilton, Aylesbury, Bucks
Printed in the United Kingdom by Biddles Ltd, King’s Lynn
www.bergpublishers.com
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Contents
Acknowledgements vii
List of Contributors ix
Introduction:‘Being … Where?’Performing Fields on Shifting Grounds
Simon Colemanand Peter Collins 1
1 Studying Down, Up, Sideways, Through, Backwards, Forwards,
Away and at Home: Reflections on the Field Worries of an
Expansive Discipline 23
Ulf Hannerz
2 Beyond the Verandah: Fieldwork, Locality and the Production of
Knowledge in a South African City 43
Leslie Bank
3 Fieldwork on Foot: Perceiving, Routing, Socializing 67
Jo Lee and Tim Ingold
4 Rendering and Gendering Mobile Subjects in a Globalized World
of Mountaineering: Between Localizing Ethnography and Global
Spaces 87
Susan Frohlick
5 Post-Diasporic Indian Communities: A New Generation 105
Anjoom Mukadam and Sharmina Mawani
6 The Internet, Cybercafés and the New Social Spaces of Bangalorean
Youth 129
Nicholas Nisbett
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vi • Contents
7 Out of Proportion? Anthropological Description of Power,
Regeneration and Scale on the Rai Coast of Papua New Guinea 149
James Leach
8 Far from the Trobriands? Biography as Field 163
Sigridur Duna Kristmundsdottir
9 Diaspora, Cosmopolis, Global Refuge: Three Voices of the
Supranational City 179
Nigel Rapport
Index 199
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Acknowledgements
When and where was this book born? The easy answer is that it began its life at
the ASA annual conference held in Grey College, Durham, from 29 March to 1
April 2004. At that conference Simon Coleman and Peter Collins were merely the
nominal organizers. A great debt is owed to Rohan Jackson and his band of
helpers, without whose efficient work the conference would have been far less con-
vivial. We should also thank our three plenary speakers, Ulf Hannerz, Webb Keane
and Nigel Rapport – and especially the latter, who agreed to cover a colleague’s
withdrawal at the last minute. Valuable funding was obtained from the British
Academy and from the Department of Anthropology at Durham. Richard Fardon,
Chair of the ASA, proved an admirable support and speaker, as did Alan
Bilsborough, biological anthropologist and Pro Vice Chancellor of the University
of Durham. Hannah Shakespeare of Berg Publishers has been a patient and helpful
presence during the preparation of the manuscript, and Trevor Marchand an excel-
lent adviser on the ASA series. However, there is a more complicated answer to
our opening question. The book, or at least parts of it, has been gestating in the
minds (and bodies) of a group of authors who have worked in Africa, Asia, Europe
and the Americas. They have observed, talked, listened and written in a multitude
of places and in wildly varying contexts. Locating the book, like locating the field,
is hardly a straightforward matter, but here it is: the material product of a partially
material and thoroughly co-operative process.
Simon Coleman
Peter Collins
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List of Contributors
Leslie Bankis the Director of the Institute for Social and Economic Research at
the University of Fort Hare in South Africa and is a Research Fellow of the Centre
for African Studies at the University of Cambridge. He is a Ph.D. in Social
Anthropology from the University of Cape Town and has conducted considerable
research in urban and rural communities in different parts of South Africa over the
past two decades. He has published widely in Africa-related journals and is the
author of a forthcoming book for Pluto, Home Spaces, Street Styles: Contesting
Power and Identity in a South African City. He has also recently edited a special
issue of Social Dynamics (31 (1), 2005), Land Reform and Rural Development in
South Africa’s Eastern Cape.
Simon Coleman is Professor of Anthropology at the University of Sussex.
Previously he was Reader in Anthropology and Deputy Dean of Social Sciencesand
Health at the University of Durham. Publications include The Globalisation of
Charismatic Christianity: Spreading the Gospel of Prosperity (2000, Cambridge
University Press), Reframing Pilgrimage: Cultures in Motion(co-edited with John
Eade, 2004, Routledge) and Religion, Identity and Change (co-edited with Peter
Collins, 2004, Ashgate).
Peter Collins is Lecturer in Anthropology at the University of Durham. He has
conducted fieldwork among Quakers, local government employees and in National
Health Service hospitals, all in the UK. His interests include religion and ritual,
space and place, aesthetics, qualitative methodology and, increasingly, death.
Recent publications include Religion, Identity and Change(co-edited with Simon
Coleman 2004, Ashgate) and Reading Religion in Text and Context(co-edited with
Elisabeth Arweck, 2006, Ashgate).
Susan Frohlick is Assistant Professor in the Anthropology Department at the
University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Canada. Her key research interests are gender
and sexuality, transnationalism and globalization, travel and tourism, and multi-
sited ethnography. A current project focuses on transnational intimate relations
between tourists and locals in the Caribbean Costa Rica and questions of mobility,
‘travelling sexuality’, imagination and place. Recent publications include (2004)