Bycie w terenie / Being out in the land / Estar en el terreno
Bycie w terenie / Being out in the land / Estar en el terreno
Contributor(s): Aleksandra Kunce (Editor)
Subject(s): Social Sciences, Language and Literature Studies, Geography, Regional studies, Human Geography, Studies of Literature, Cultural Anthropology / Ethnology
ISSN: 2720-1104
Published by: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Śląskiego
Keywords: being out in the land; place; landscape; university; Oikos
Summary/Abstract: You are warmly invited to think about rootedness through a book on the experience of place and being out in the land. We are heading towards the land led not so much by methodological determinations of the land as a category in ethnological research, but by philosophers’ creed where man is a localised being; moreover, what is human is extracted by means of being in a place which binds the orders of spacetime, of landscape, the orders locating us "here and now,” the domestic and rooting orders, but also those questioning our certainty about location, turning home into ruin. Place introduces into the domestic traces of the indescribable, the inscrutable, the indefinite. Place – materially, socially and spiritually capacious – focuses on the land as an area of the Earth, which unveils in man the sensation of enormity, the feeling of blending in and the will to co-create; but the land also becomes an area of our activity and, at the same time, a stage for nature/culture activity; the land is what is open, unveiled in a place, it cannot be ignored, it is extracted from humans during their response to the land, it exposes humans in their being in the land.
Series: Oikos. Komparatystyka Literacka i Kulturowa
- E-ISBN-13: 978-83-226-4067-8
- Print-ISBN-13: 978-83-226-4066-1
- Page Count: 276
- Publication Year: 2021
- Language: English, Polish, Spanish
Podpowiedzi dla uniwersytetu płynące z doświadczenia terenu
Podpowiedzi dla uniwersytetu płynące z doświadczenia terenu
(Hints for the university from the experience of the land)
- Author(s):Aleksandra Kunce
- Language:Polish
- Subject(s):Human Geography, Studies of Literature, Cultural Anthropology / Ethnology, Higher Education
- Page Range:25-62
- No. of Pages:38
- Keywords:university; land; home; localness
- Summary/Abstract:A university aspiring to transcend categorizations of thought and spirit of familiarity is, at the same time, a space which binds us and anchors, it is an area of struggle which imposes on us certain obligations, and finally, it is a place which reveals our safe space, even if we freely slip between concepts, methods, tools and goals. What would a university be without the experience of the land? A neutral structure and a global arena? Hubris of knowledge/universal power drawing up systemic plans? The land is the ground for building located reflection and a separate, autonomous core of the university. The oikological humanities are predestined to reflect upon such conceived land, especially since they do not cease to increase the concern for home and, at the same time, emphasize the persuasive thinking about it.
- Price: 4.50 €
Notas para una autoetnografía del duelo. Del miedo y de las dudas en el trabajo de campo en Totonacapan, México
Notas para una autoetnografía del duelo. Del miedo y de las dudas en el trabajo de campo en Totonacapan, México
(Notes for an autoethnography of grief: fear and doubts in field work in Totonacapan, Mexico)
- Author(s):Krystyna Barbara Paradowska
- Language:Spanish
- Subject(s):Human Geography, Studies of Literature, Cultural Anthropology / Ethnology, Culture and social structure
- Page Range:63-108
- No. of Pages:46
- Keywords:interculturality; biocultural approach; Totonacapan; research ethics; decoloniality
- Summary/Abstract:This paper addresses the role that fear and doubts played in the author’s fieldwork during her doctoral research in southeast Mexico. The research – entitled “Dialogue of Knowledge for the Theoretical Rethinking of Ecological Restoration with a Biocultural Approach” and conducted under the auspices of The Center for Tropical Research at the Universidad Veracruzana – contains numerous authoethnographic elements and is dedicated to the conservation of the natural and biocultural heritage of the tropics in southeast Mexico. The research focused on the search for new perspectives and opportunities in the restoration of the biocultural landscape in the Totonacapan region of the state of Veracruz through the inclusion of the worldviews, knowledge, and traditional management practices of its indigenous inhabitants. The current paper aims to deepen the discussion and generalize on the subject through theories and methodologies that take into consideration personal experiences, as well as critical academic viewpoints situated at the outer limits of the Social sciences, humanities, and ecology, and which distance themselves from academic positions that are more colonial and extractivist in nature. The ongoing body of research is intended to convey a sense of both grief (e.g., over the loss of intellectual comfort when conducting research), and of hope for those who continue to address ecological challenges from an academic perspective, even when such work exposes oneself to new hazards and vulnerabilities.
- Price: 4.50 €
Fear in the field
Fear in the field
(Fear in the field)
- Author(s):Frank A. Salamone
- Language:English
- Subject(s):Human Geography, Studies of Literature, Cultural Anthropology / Ethnology
- Page Range:109-129
- No. of Pages:21
- Keywords:fieldwork; fear; anthropologist
- Summary/Abstract:There are many works of fieldwork in anthropology. It is generally acknowledged as the major rite of passage for cultural and social anthropologists, a way to somehow feel and think like the indigenous people whom we study and whose stories we relate. It is the royal road to understanding others, comparable to Freud’s use of dreams as the royal road to the unconscious. These repressed thoughts, feelings, and wishes may never be made public or acknowledged even to one’s self. In fact, only after delving into the field notes of many anthropologists and discussing the issue with others, did I slowly come to realize the effect of the field work ideal on an individual anthropologist – the heroic anthropologist. I wish to focus here on but one aspect of the ideal model, namely, fear in all its form, from the physical fear of danger down to the fear of failure, of inadequacy. A search of writings on fieldwork, of cmethods or of similar works shows very little, if any mention of fear. The myth of the heroic anthropologist bravely going in search of truth and adventure still casts its spell on people.
- Price: 4.50 €
Krajobraz – wprowadzenie do miejsca
Krajobraz – wprowadzenie do miejsca
(Landscape – an introduction to the place)
- Author(s):Ilona Copik
- Language:Polish
- Subject(s):Human Geography, Studies of Literature, Cultural Anthropology / Ethnology, Culture and social structure
- Page Range:131-153
- No. of Pages:23
- Keywords:landscape; place; cultural topography; natureculture; agency of a subject
- Summary/Abstract:The aim of the article is to discuss the way of conceptualizing new methodologies related to the landscape studies and reflections on the place in contemporary humanities. The author presents and compares theoretical perspectives of research in the fields of aesthetics, cultural anthropology and humanistic geography, emphasizing the dynamics and processuality of the term “landscape” which combines elements of mediatic and material, natural and cultural, aesthetic and geographical. Landscape understood in this way requires overcoming thinking only in terms of verbal-visual representation (image, map) and perceiving it as a source of culture and society. Instead of distant perception, what is important is multisensory participation, the embodied experience of being in the world. Thus, the landscape comes close to the concept of “place,” but with the emphasis on its verbal form – the being and identity formation as well as the agency of a subject actively immersed in the environment in which creative and transformational processes are constantly ongoing.
- Price: 4.50 €
Itinerarium ex post albo teren, który uchodzi
Itinerarium ex post albo teren, który uchodzi
(Itinerarium ex-post. The land that moves out)
- Author(s):Paweł Paszek
- Language:Polish
- Subject(s):Human Geography, Studies of Literature, Cultural Anthropology / Ethnology
- Page Range:155-196
- No. of Pages:42
- Keywords:life; third landscape; fallow lands; subject; anthropos
- Summary/Abstract:The article (research essay) approaches the abandoned places and the fallow lands as new important fieldwork of contemporary anthropology. Spaces, places, and lands that have been exploited and abandoned resemble weak signs and disappearing traces of human being in some specific terrain. On the other hand, anthropologic reflection on forgotten and abandoned human locations – apart from the fact that any kind of specific local history of ex-post place plays the role of a moderator of the memory of some concrete space – is also a kind of a memory book of human violence towards topography and nature. Special plots of the hypermodern subject-anthropos are raised within the specific constellation of points and traces of presence and absence and also of history and existence.
- Price: 4.50 €
Curating fields of memory. Reflections on "Forgotten Force. Polish Women in Second World War" project
Curating fields of memory. Reflections on "Forgotten Force. Polish Women in Second World War" project
(Curating fields of memory. Reflections on "Forgotten Force. Polish Women in Second World War" project)
- Author(s):Olga Topol
- Language:English
- Subject(s):Human Geography, Studies of Literature, Oral history, Cultural Anthropology / Ethnology, Migration Studies, Identity of Collectives
- Page Range:197-220
- No. of Pages:24
- Keywords:oral history; identity; memory; displacement; curatorial practice
- Summary/Abstract:During the Second World War hundreds of thousands of Poles were displaced because of the worldwide conflict. Many of those who lost their homes were women and children – after going through an ordeal of Soviet Gulags, they came to live in the United Kingdom. The paper follows an oral history project by the Piłsudski Institute of London which aimed to give voice to the women survivors who found themselves settling down in London after the war. This article demonstrates the practice of oral history, illustrating the strengths and weaknesses of the project by describing its multidisciplinary character.
- Price: 4.50 €
Obcość i swojskość w badaniach terenowych
Obcość i swojskość w badaniach terenowych
(Strangeness and familiarness in field research)
- Author(s):Andrzej Sarnacki SJ
- Language:Polish
- Subject(s):Human Geography, Studies of Literature, Epistemology, Cultural Anthropology / Ethnology, Methodology and research technology
- Page Range:221-245
- No. of Pages:25
- Keywords:epistemology; extraneousness; research assumptions; field work
- Summary/Abstract:The present article deals with the issue of the research perspective related to the problem of perception, alienness and assumptions that are made in contemporary research. The author refers to his own research on violence in the cultural context, conducted in Colombia. Preparation of the research process requires the ability to anticipate, keep distance and maintain discipline in applying the method. The availability of test data is verified at the location and requires flexibility. In Latin American countries, the fact of being a priest makes it much easier to reach people and groups that are otherwise insular. In research and data interpretation, there are always questions that have their reference points in epistemology. Today, the awareness of personal conditioning reaches the dangerous dimensions of extreme individualism and ideological correctness. This is possibly the biggest problem facing a researcher of cultural phenomena today. Meanwhile, group membership does not have to determine the correctness of perception and the assessment of the situation. Familiarness comes from participating in a shared experience that is both universal and individual.
- Price: 4.50 €
Italian Americans and African Americans in sports
Italian Americans and African Americans in sports
(Italian Americans and African Americans in sports)
- Author(s):Frank A. Salamone
- Language:English
- Subject(s):Human Geography, Studies of Literature, Cultural Anthropology / Ethnology, Culture and social structure , Sports Studies
- Page Range:247-268
- No. of Pages:22
- Keywords:Italian Americans; African Americans; baseball; acculturation
- Summary/Abstract:We are all products of culture. Thus, when people enter other cultures, they need to find a way to deal with them. Both African Americans and Italian Americans have had to find ways to deal with the force of a dominant American culture. It is not surprising that the two cultures, which shared many similarities, chose baseball and music to do so. This article focuses on the way baseball was used as a means of acculturation into dominant American culture, and by so doing, changing that culture.
- Price: 4.50 €