Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2015. xiii, 331 pp. (B&W illustrations.) US$28.00, paper. ISBN 978-0-8248-5379-2.
The editors of At Home and in the Field set themselves a daunting task with this anthology: to bring together nearly forty essays in order to coherently depict both the contemporary state of ethnographic research and of everyday life in a diverse and increasingly globalized Asia Pacific. They envision the collection as an introductory text for those interested in Asia and the Pacific Islands, cultural geography, anthropology, or ethnic studies. As one might imagine, the scope of the essays, both in terms of geography and subject matter, is vast and varied, ranging from mobile phones and marriage in Vanuatu (Vaughan) to noodle shop etiquette in Tokyo (Fukutomi) to volunteer ecotourism in Thailand (Mostafanezhad). The essays are, quite simply, “stories of the ethnographic endeavour” (2), and most chapters, written with clarity and reader engagement in mind, are no more than six pages long. The essays are organized into nine thematic sections, each of which is preceded by a brief introduction. These themes reflect topics and ideas commonly found in introductory syllabi:
- Real Encounters: Predicaments of Fieldwork
- Meaningful Encounters: Learning, Representing, Engaging the Field
- Language Encounters: Voices, Discourse, Digital Practice
- Identity Encounters: Gender, Ethnicity, Nationality
- Close Encounters: Marriage, Kinship, Social Networks
- Economic Encounters: Class, Development, Inequality
- Green Encounters: Environment, Sustainability, Restoration
- Political Encounters: Power, Conflict, Resistance
- Deep Encounters: Worldview, Religion, Spiritual Practices
Rounding out the collection are the preface and epilogue, by Christine R. Yano and Geoffrey White respectively, which situate the collection in terms of its contributions to two key areas of scholarship: understanding ethnography as methodology and thinking about the Asia Pacific as an object of analysis. Addressing either one of these topics on its own would be a significant achievement; addressing both, and doing so through the inclusion of so many perspectives, has the potential to be unwieldy. Fortunately, the editors and authors have achieved their goal with panache, creating a collection that is ambitious in scope and rich in detail, yet filled with clear, unassuming prose and compelling stories.
The book’s success results from the titular focus on the ethnographic encounter as its organizing principle. By focusing on encounter as the analytical starting point, rather than geographic or cultural location, the authors deftly avoid the question of what it is that defines the Asia Pacific as an area of study. Rather, a sense of Asia Pacific-ness emerges from the juxtaposition of different ethnographic perspectives, stories, contexts, and encounters.
Similarly, the editors and authors acknowledge that contemporary fieldwork and ethnography, so central a methodology for social scientists interested in everyday life and local practices, has changed greatly since its inception in the last century, without offering up a too-tidy explanation of how it might be defined today. Rather, they include recent (post-2000) ethnographic updates in order to “highlight new forms of writing and research prevalent in twenty-first-century ethnography” (1). Again, it is by foregrounding the methodological significance of the encounter that these essays contribute to our understanding of fieldwork and ethnography. Some encounters are digital, some are urban, others are rural, but all are ethnographic. Importantly, the focus on encounter in At Home and in the Field demonstrates that home and field are not necessarily mutually exclusive, and many of the authors conduct fieldwork at home, either geographically or in terms of political solidarity or belonging.
By far the most compelling result of the focus on ethnographic encounter, and perhaps the greatest strength of the anthology, is that so many of these essays capture how doing ethnographic fieldwork feels, and how much of what we know as ethnographers is born of affect and embodiment. In several chapters, this focus is explicit: for instance, there are chapters on Tongan bodyscapes (Cottino), on negotiating sentiment in Fiji (Pigliasco), and on making sense of trauma in Indonesia (Samudra). Yet even in chapters where this focus remains implicit, it is made clear that the experience of ethnographic research often involves discomfort and dislocation (regardless of whether one does one’s fieldwork at home or away), and that it is through these very visceral experiences that ethnographic knowledge is produced. As an anthropologist who often teaches ethnographic research methods to undergraduates, I find that this fact of ethnography is often the most difficult to convey. Yet the authors in this collection manage to convey the experience of ethnographic fieldwork with great aplomb. As such, while the editors have, indeed, created a wonderful introductory text, I would further recommend this volume as an excellent teaching tool for instructors of fieldwork methods classes. Indeed, anyone, be it a student, a lay person, or a seasoned fieldworker, who has ever asked, “What is ethnography and how do we do it in a globalizing world?” would no doubt be greatly enriched through their reading of this vibrant collection.
Maggie Cummings
University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada
pp. 320-322