Joe Hobbs came in to talk about his fieldwork, mostly with Bedouin groups in the Egyptian Sinai. His emphasis is on documenting indigenous knowledge, before it disappears. He does, however, stress that he tries to collect everything—animals, water, trees, stories. He carries a plant press and brings out specimens not yet recorded. It sounds like an ideal career, though my imagination has never been sufficiently captured by one culture for me to get immersed in the language, to spend study years abroad in one country. (Ah, I guess that’s a bit untrue—I’m captured by Missouri, and would know its heart.)
Joe also spent time in Madagascar, working in caves, when the politics of Egypt denied him entry and permits for his central interest. Going to Madagascar has been high on my travel list for a long time, but it isn’t exactly a tourist spot, and I’m most fascinated by the lemurs, not in a sufficiently scientific way, but that I want to go see them, “know” them, these distant primate cousins. Know them before they are destroyed by human expansion. And I don’t know how to say to anyone that this is not a frivolous thing, to make this connection and come back and try to tell people about it.
Joe’s work overlaps with what I know about folklore collection. And it seems to equally overlap with anthropology, except for the mindset of the researcher, and the journals he publishes in. He gets knowledge that I don’t think is available to statistics. Certainly hermeneutic/interpretive, not a quantitative science. Hmm—how is a hermeneutic study that different from an unrhymed, unmetered poetics?
Our other visitor was Larry Brown, in to talk about his study of White Nationalism, especially in the Missouri Ozarks. I would have questioned how this differs from pure sociology, but he described his work looking at “their expression in the landscape”—the settlement stock/values already in the area, the relative isolation which fosters this mindset, the economic conditions influenced by the relatively unproductive land that leads to lower income in the area. He works in “mental mapping” of their ideas in relation to their place. Interesting.
Larry mentioned a book by Don Mitchell, A Place for Everyone. I didn't find that book, but these are interesting: The Right to the City: Social Justice and the Fight for Public Space, 2003 This Amazon.com commentary:
Joe also spent time in Madagascar, working in caves, when the politics of Egypt denied him entry and permits for his central interest. Going to Madagascar has been high on my travel list for a long time, but it isn’t exactly a tourist spot, and I’m most fascinated by the lemurs, not in a sufficiently scientific way, but that I want to go see them, “know” them, these distant primate cousins. Know them before they are destroyed by human expansion. And I don’t know how to say to anyone that this is not a frivolous thing, to make this connection and come back and try to tell people about it.
Joe’s work overlaps with what I know about folklore collection. And it seems to equally overlap with anthropology, except for the mindset of the researcher, and the journals he publishes in. He gets knowledge that I don’t think is available to statistics. Certainly hermeneutic/interpretive, not a quantitative science. Hmm—how is a hermeneutic study that different from an unrhymed, unmetered poetics?
Our other visitor was Larry Brown, in to talk about his study of White Nationalism, especially in the Missouri Ozarks. I would have questioned how this differs from pure sociology, but he described his work looking at “their expression in the landscape”—the settlement stock/values already in the area, the relative isolation which fosters this mindset, the economic conditions influenced by the relatively unproductive land that leads to lower income in the area. He works in “mental mapping” of their ideas in relation to their place. Interesting.
Larry mentioned a book by Don Mitchell, A Place for Everyone. I didn't find that book, but these are interesting: The Right to the City: Social Justice and the Fight for Public Space, 2003 This Amazon.com commentary:
In the wake of recent terrorist attacks, efforts to secure the American city have life-or-death implications. Yet demands for heightened surveillance and security throw into sharp relief timeless questions about the nature of public space, how it is to be used, and under what conditions. Blending historical and geographical analysis, this book examines the vital relationship between struggles over public space and movements for social justice in the United States. Presented are a series of linked cases that explore the judicial response to public demonstrations by early twentieth-century workers, and comparable legal issues surrounding anti-abortion protests today; the Free Speech Movement and the history of People's Park in Berkeley; and the plight of homeless people facing new laws against their presence in urban streets. The central focus is how political dissent gains meaning and momentum--and isAh, and this book by Mitchell: Cultural Geography: A Critical Introduction
regulated and policed--in the real, physical spaces of the city.
More to look at.
bob
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