Turkish Politics, Research and the Last Two Years (aka Ping Pong for Dummies)
I have been wanting to come back to this space and enrich it by sharing more of where my work has taken me in the ethnographic field, particularly in the realm of traditional medicines. If only the situation were so simple and the macro and micro worlds we all swim in could really be separated. About two and a half years ago I received a very helpful package of funding in order to carry out a project on traditional healers in modern Turkey (of various kinds, fitting various descriptions of this basically anthropological term, imposed somewhat from outside). I travelled all over Anatolia meeting all sorts of interesting characters in Aegean villages and medium sized towns with huge statues of Atatürk fit for a capital. I have a collection of fascinating field notes. But what about the 'real life' mentioned in the subtitle of this blog? Ah well, yes that... Without devolving into too much biography, this has been a very destabilizing time for me in which I started off on a ...