Fieldwork Connections: The Fabric of Ethnographic Collaboration in China and America

by Harrell, Stevan

• ISBN13: 9780295986685
• ISBN10: 0295986689
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2007-10-30
• Publisher: Univ of Washington Pr

Summary

Fieldwork Connections tells the story of the intertwined research histories of three anthropologists working in Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture, Sichuan, China in the late twentieth century. Chapters are written alternately by a male American anthropologist, a male researcher raised in a village in Liangshan, and a highly educated woman from an elite Nuosu/Chinese family. As decades of mutual ethnographic research unfold, the authors enter one another's narratives and challenge the reader to ponder the nature of ethnographic "truth." The book begins with short accounts of the process by which each of the authors became involved in anthropological field research. It then proceeds to describe the research itself, and the stories begin to connect as they become active collaborators. The scene shifts in the course of the narrative from China to America, and the relationship between the authors shifts from distant, wary, and somewhat hierarchical to close, egalitarian, and reciprocal.The authors share their histories through personal stories, not technical analyses; their aim is to entertain while addressing the process of ethnography and the dynamics of international and intercultural communication.

Author Biography

Bamo Ayi is deputy director of the Foreign Affairs Department, State Nationalities Commission, and professor of philosophy at Central Nationalities University, Beijing Bamo Ayi is a professor of philosophy at Central Nationalities Stevan Harrell is professor of anthropology at the University of Washington Ma Lunzy is deputy director of Liangshan Minorities Research Institute

Table of Contents

Preface to the English Edition	p. ix
Acknowledgments	p. xiii
Origins
Growing Up Half Yi	p. 5
In the Shadow of the Han	p. 13
A White Guy Discovers Anthropology	p. 23
China
Yinchang: My First Fieldwork, 1987-88	p. 31
Getting Started in Southwest China, 1987-88	p. 53
Chasing After Bimo, 1992-93	p. 72
Getting Started Again, 1991	p. 89
First Contact, 1991	p. 98
Almost Real Fieldwork, 1993	p. 103
In the Month of the Snake, 1993	p. 117
Fieldwork with Muga, 1994	p. 135
Getting Further Implicated, 1994	p. 162
The Last Time I Led the Horse, 1994	p. 178
The Bimo in the Modern World, 1994-95	p. 198
America
The First International Yi Conference, 1995	p. 209
Seattle First Free Methodist Church, 1996-97	p. 225
Collecting Mountain Patterns, 1999	p. 248
Conceptualizing Mountain Patterns, 2000	p. 257
Celebrating Mountain Patterns	p. 275
Epilogue: Fieldwork Connections and the Process of Ethnography	p. 287
Cast of Characters	p. 301
Chinese and Nuosu Glossary	p. 307
Bibliography	p. 311
Index	p. 315
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