Since January 2016 I have been working on a British Library-funded project to “protect” and “preserve” the “endangered” archive of the Presbyterian Church of East Africa in Kenya. For most of our team this has involved many hours and many days wearing face-masks and dust-coats, cleaning, sorting, and copying piles of old documents.

With my fieldwork diary coming to a close, I would like to reflect on an experience I had very early in my fieldwork. This is not going to be a long post. I will talk about death, or rather letting people die – and I think there is only so much that can be gracefully said about that.

Every seven to eight years or so, a major global weather event occurs – El Niño. Caused by a natural rise in oceanic temperatures in the eastern Pacific Ocean, El Niño triggers extreme drought and severe flooding across many parts of the world, but particularly in poorer countries.

Is there a right response to improper and unwelcome sexual suggestions in the workplace? How do women researchers respond when their dignity and rights are violated during research? How do students, interns and volunteers deal with the bitter disillusion of being sexually harassed in a humanitarian setting?

The wisdom, guidance, and support of others are critical in our personal and professional development. This support often comes from friends, families or colleagues in the enactment of their particular role in one’s life. But support can also come from a person whose primary role in our lives is to provide guidance.

One minute you’re walking down the street, carrying with you a feeling of stability and security. In the next, you’re being swept away by a current of chaos and panic, with nothing but a profound feeling of being completely trapped by the uncertainty of what’s to come next.

I write this on my train journey north, to my dear friend’s funeral. I sit facing backwards, gliding over green, wet countryside, through small and charming, and larger, grubby towns shrouded in early evening light.

If you are a regular visitor to this blog, you might have noticed that we are a somewhat eclectic mix of contributors, with a fairly eclectic selection of things to say about a rather eclectic range of topics. That is actually quite a good representation of our home institution – the School of Social and Political Science at the University of Edinburgh. 

This post is about an experience which certainly wasn’t my proudest moment in the field and was, probably, the most uncomfortable I have felt in a very long time: the experience of being a tourist. So if emotional voyeurism is your thing, this is the fieldnote for you.

As a US-raised Ph.D. anthropologist studying families affected by dementia in London, I am working on coming to terms with cultural differences in understanding healthcare between the UK and US.

Problematizing the distinction drawn between the spheres of science and religion, this fieldwork report considers portrayals of physical healing within a Baptist church and assesses the extent to which the categories of faith healing and biomedicine are considered mutually exclusive within the church context.

As part of this year's One Billion Rising (OBR) – a global dance demonstration aimed at eradicating violence against women – women's rights activists and community members across Kolkata came together to rise up in solidarity and resistance.

While conducting my PhD fieldwork in west-central Nepal I found that showing respect, compassion and care for the non-human members of the communities in which I was doing research went a long way to build trust and points of connection between myself as an outside researcher and the people and social worlds that I was trying to get to know.

I am a social anthropology student who focuses on imperial memory rather than history. Often, people think I’m a history student or suggest that I talk to their colleague or friend somewhere in Africa/Asia/Latin America. This suggests to me that there’s a common conception present that imperialism was ‘a long time ago’ and ‘over there.’ 

As an academically-inclined person I am driven to understand stuff. More precisely, as an anthropologist, I want to understand why people do certain things or how their actions are interwoven and related. Attempting to make sense of the actions of one particular community has left me wondering, “Can we ever fully grasp another culture’s rationale?”

Let’s have a debate… Whilst doing anthropological fieldwork in Tsumkwe I got involved with/co-founded a project which, in my humble opinion, is pretty exciting: CEDU is a grassroot organisation which is helping the Ju/’hoansi San, one of the oldest indigenous groups in the world, claim back their public image by producing their own media.

Leon is a tour guide at the lodge where I camp in between village visits, and where I have stayed for the last two or three weeks (I shudder to think of the bill coming my way). When I am there, Leon comes to visit in the morning.

I just started fieldwork with the San (sometimes referred to as "Bushmen", known through the film “The Gods must be crazy”,countless other documentaries and my recent post) in Tsumkwe, Namibia. During Apartheid the area used to be the designated “Bushmanland”.

In my red backpack, you’ll find a small plastic bag with two fingers of ginger. I’ve been carrying this bag with me everywhere I go for two weeks now: to the field, to the malls and the grocery shop, even to the local Starbucks. It’s a must-bring whenever I know I’ll be getting home late. At night, before I go to bed, I make sure it’s beside me. 

For my dissertation research I spent a month in Nepal, a country with breathtaking scenery and an entrancing and diverse cultural landscape. Nepal is the land of Mount Everest and the Himalayas, it is also a country affected by widespread poverty and social issues, including gender inequality

As a conscientious 1st year PhD student preparing for fieldwork, I diligently reviewed the relevant literature. Since I had chosen to effectively intern with two British NGOs while undertaking ‘participant observation’ of their work, the writings of David Mosse seemed particularly useful.

In 2011, two German pre-historians started a project called “Tracking in Caves” [i]. The premise of their idea was simple: Pastoors and Lenssen-Erz invited three San hunter-gatherers from the Kalahari in Namibia to help them interpret some human footprints they had found in a cave in the Pyrenees.