tribal education, the field, knowledge production, giving back
When I began this blog, it was intended to focus on traditional medicine/healing practices that I had done ethnographic work on over the last few years, especially in Turkey, a place not often associated with this subject in the same way as, say, Peru or West Africa have been. And, in my writing process, I am still working on that subject.
Now, the second part of the blog's intention had been to write about "real life" and to rub the edges around what is truly "field work," what is "fiction" and what is real life - a typical subject in what has emerged as a postmodern ethnography/anthropology since the late 80s/early 90s. I intended to write about this using a language of interest and accessible to both experts and people new to the subject, so relatively jargon-free.
Since September of 2016, I have been working in the tribal education system, a form of university and college level pedagogy that is funded and maintained by the US federal government's Bureau of Indian Education.
In the simplest terms, I have finally become aware that this is my real life, this is my field and this is my work. Both the abrupt realities of my work in Turkey ending in 2016, and finding myself in the Southwest working with Native American students, are real life and, if observed, can be real fieldwork.
But let's pause and be careful here; For too long, too much of the work that anthropologists have done has been of little use for the communities that have been observed. There has been a sort of voyeurism and, in some cases, even a parasitic attitude, a consumption of the learning that comes from working in the field with indigenous and traditional peoples, while giving little to nothing back.
Here I am aiming to do something else and to restore a sense of balance and exchange that is often lost under these circumstances. In this project, I will be working on a simple path of curating knowledge that emerges in the classroom, with the permission of my students.
In my next installment, we will look at a class on art and expressive culture and the ways in which the classroom dialogue successfully allows new forms of knowledge production. Promoting the value of these types of intellectual contribution, is part of the exchange that is emerging here.
(image credit: warli tribal art, India)
Now, the second part of the blog's intention had been to write about "real life" and to rub the edges around what is truly "field work," what is "fiction" and what is real life - a typical subject in what has emerged as a postmodern ethnography/anthropology since the late 80s/early 90s. I intended to write about this using a language of interest and accessible to both experts and people new to the subject, so relatively jargon-free.
Since September of 2016, I have been working in the tribal education system, a form of university and college level pedagogy that is funded and maintained by the US federal government's Bureau of Indian Education.
In the simplest terms, I have finally become aware that this is my real life, this is my field and this is my work. Both the abrupt realities of my work in Turkey ending in 2016, and finding myself in the Southwest working with Native American students, are real life and, if observed, can be real fieldwork.
But let's pause and be careful here; For too long, too much of the work that anthropologists have done has been of little use for the communities that have been observed. There has been a sort of voyeurism and, in some cases, even a parasitic attitude, a consumption of the learning that comes from working in the field with indigenous and traditional peoples, while giving little to nothing back.
Here I am aiming to do something else and to restore a sense of balance and exchange that is often lost under these circumstances. In this project, I will be working on a simple path of curating knowledge that emerges in the classroom, with the permission of my students.
In my next installment, we will look at a class on art and expressive culture and the ways in which the classroom dialogue successfully allows new forms of knowledge production. Promoting the value of these types of intellectual contribution, is part of the exchange that is emerging here.
(image credit: warli tribal art, India)
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