Social Anthropology and other things

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Surrealism, Anthropology and Mental Health

In which an early 20th Century art movement provides refuge for the anthropologist in peril.

A Friend of Order – Rene Magritte (1964) A few weeks ago, I found myself unable to determine with any real certainty the existence of either myself or the outside world. More specifically, I felt that I could not trust my memories. I have learned latterly that this is called “depersonalisation” or “derealisation”,  and it formed the anxious nadir of my generally-poor recent mental health. For an…

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Enkouji

In which I get up very early in the morning just to sit still and not be very comfortable.

For about three or four years, I have known about, read about, and occasionally engaged in the Japanese practice of zazen, or “just sitting”. My discipline has varied, but originally inspired by the slightly more conversational tone of Soto Zen master (and former Zero Defects Bassist) Brad Warner in his book Sit Down and Shut Up, I have found something of an affinity for sitting and doing…

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Spirited Away

In which I am captivated by theatre in Osaka, am spooked by spirits, and take a bath.

Thanks to my PhD presentation, in which I attempted to justify my being invited to Japan by the African Studies department in the first place, and about which I was duly quite nervous, I’ve neglecting posting for a week or two. It went fairly well, though. It almost feels like I know what I am talking about. Japan, or Kyoto at least, definitely feels like home now. I seem to fit in quite well…

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Synowto

In which I climb a mountain, slide about, and wish for academic success.

The past and the future seem to combine endlessly in Kyoto. The streets are almost unsettlingly clean, public transport is everywhere, you can buy almost anything, at any time, I’ve never had better internet connectivity and while shopping for a mobile phone simcard I was interrupted by a robot asking if it could help. Deeply, deeply unsettling for those of us who have seen Doctor Who. My bicycle…

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Settling in, and Exploring

Settling in, and Exploring

Pontocho-dori, Kyoto It’s been five days now since my arrival in Kyoto, enough to get settled in reasonably well at the African Studies Center. I write from my desk in the postgrad office, a thankfully-modern and centrally-heated building, unlike my flat, in which my breath steams in the mornings. It turns out that I was using the kotatsu, or heated table, completely wrong. As I sat underneath…

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Japan! Travelling, Arrival and Adventures in Guesswork.

In which I travel to Japan, lose the ability to read, but shop anyway.

Ohayoo gozaimasu! Good morning world from my first 24 hours in Japan after a very long trip and about 12 hours of sleep to get rid of the jetlag. Much like when I first arrived in Germany, I feel like absolutely everything is worth writing about because it is all so different and strange to me. My bird in a freezing cold and snowy München flughafen. I boarded in the mid afternoon in Munich for a…

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An Anthropologist Not In Cologne

In which I have to find a job, find one in Japan, and pray for subtitles.

*Blows dust from the gears and levers of An Anthropologist in Cologne* I’m still paying for this domain, aren’t I? Well, that’s convenient. Eighteen months’ hiatus while I wrestle with the writing of my actual PhD, and find the German environment increasingly comfortable, even as the Western world seems to crumble around me, have put the kibosh somewhat on interesting cultural observations and…

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Interesting basic overview of click languages, as I keep getting asked, despite my ineptness at pronouncing them.

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The Hippie and the Noble Savage

In which I debunk bullshit hippie posts about Ubuntu and "Africans"

I’d like to share with you all something that was shared on my Facebook wall recently, and which I think encapsulates a lot of the problems that the people I work with, among others, face when dealing with people from industrialised societies. It’s to do with representation. Here’s the post: I hate this hippy dippy bullshit. “An anthropologist” Which one? When? “African children” – Africa is…

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Art, Science and Real Work, or: I have no idea what I'm doing.

In which I explain some of the problems with research, and anthropology, but also befriend a puppy.

I’m back on fieldwork at a place just a shade north of the famous Namibian Red Line, a veterinary barrier that separates communally-worked farmland to the North, never conquered by colonial forces, and the more ordered and familiar farmland to the South, the former territory of Boers and Germans in years past. Despite being but two hours’ drive from where I sit now, in a hotel with an internet…

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Fieldwork Proper

In which I spend months in a tent, attempt to hunt and gather, and go to the races.

It has been a very long time since my last post. Only now I have returned to the thriving metropolis of Windhoek do I have a stable enough internet connection to upload anything as meagre as a text post, let alone something with exciting pictures. As always, the difficulty in finding what to post increases exponentially with the time since the last one, but I thought the best course of action was…

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Creature Comforts

In which I discover that toilets are not essential things, and that high-speed rocks can save your life.

Apparently, this is what anthropological research feels like.

By this, I mean that I am inordinately happy to have four things on this short weekend break in Ondangwa. In order of importance these are as follows:

1) Internet access. Even if it is patchy enough to induce the rage only known when the internet is temperamental enough to induce prayer in the most ardent atheist.

2) Air conditioning.…

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Safari, Sand and the Sea

In which we go on safari, escape alien abduction, and go back in time to the German Reich.

I’ve taken something of a break over what would be considered in Europe the winter holidays. Here, of course, it was punishingly hot, but nonetheless I had a wonderful Christmas with my hosts here, who kindly offered to put me up for the duration. I have been staying here in Windhoek in a small cottage on their land, which means I essentially have my own house. This also means that I wake up each…

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Gone Hunting

In which I go hunting, eat bugs, and start real fieldwork.

It’s been an intense two weeks. I’ve spent them camping at the health clinic at Ekoka, a tiny settlement near the Angolan border. I hoped that by being around for slightly longer than last time, I could build up some trust and assurance that I will be back, as well as getting some broad brush strokes to give me a hint as to what data I would be getting when I return for three months. In contrast…

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Connections are everything.

In which I drop names, and find out just how small Namibia can be.

With my visa documents handed in, and email assurances and reassurances that they have been sent to the Home Office from an increasingly careworn though not unkind agent in Windhoek, I have been able to start my second reconnaissance mission into the North, and my three field sites. I quite enjoy the long drives, really. I meticulously pack up my stuff from my recent home, tidy the back of the…

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The Good, the Bad and the Bureaucratic.

In which I discover that I may, in fact, be a meringue.

We are still praying/hoping for more than a spot or two of rain. Peter described the weather at the moment as a “tease”: we get a rough cold downdraught of of air, and black clouds overhead, followed by thunder. We can all feel it coming when the wind gets up, but alas after a dribble of water the clouds move on. We think it might actually be raining, but the raindrops are evaporating before they…

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First Forays into the Field

In which I actually go and meet the people I am here to study, and discover I'm still decent with a slingshot.

I spent the last two weeks on my first foray into the North, and thus begins the actual research that I will be basing this PhD on. When last I posted I was in a hotel in Tsumeb, a small mining town near the famous Etosha National Park, and I find myself here again two weeks later. It was my twenty-fourth birthday yesterday, and I took what I think was a fairly well-earned break and did very…

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