Analysing the Ethiopian Revolution: a Cautionary Tale

1980 ◽  
Vol 18 (4) ◽  
pp. 686-691 ◽  
Author(s):  
John M. Cohen

The fascinating events of the Ethiopian revolution have led to an explosion of papers, articles, and books.1 However, only a few studies published since 1974 are underpinned with original field work. Most are based largely on combinations of deductive logic and newspaper reports, discussions with foreign-service officers, interviews with political exiles and academic visitors, and close reading of officially released government documents. Such methodological approaches have a rational, factual content which should be approached with caution, for lack of access to data may lead to the reification of incorrect facts by subsequent authors who footnote the reports of others. Since there is increasing evidence that Ethiopia will be closed to field research for some time, and that academic involution will occur as scholars convince themselves of the validity of data reported by others, it seems useful for Ethiopianists to remind themselves how close they are to the early commentators on Lenin's Russia, or the China watchers of the 1950s,2 by considering only one of several cautionary tales about facts reported in the increasing number of articles on the Ethiopian revolution.3

2012 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 61-72 ◽  
Author(s):  
Renata Piwowarczyk

Abstract Orobanche coerulescens has a Eurasian distribution. The species is classified as extinct at most of its localities at the western limit of its range. Its populations are very scarce and critically endangered in Central Europe. This work presents the current distribution of O.coerulescens in Poland, based on a critical revision of herbarium and literature data as well as results of original field research, and reviews its distribution in Central Europe (partly in Eastern Europe). Habitats, plant communities, and migration routes of O.coerulescens in Central Europe are discussed. The species was initially known in Poland from now historical localities in Pomerania and the valley of the lower Vistula. In 2000-2011 it was recorded at 9 localities in Podlasie, the Małopolska Upland (Wyżyna Małopolska), and the Łódź Hills (Wzniesienia Łódzkie). Its abundance at the localities ranged from a few to over 1000 shoots. These are the largest populations of O.coerulescens at its western and north-western range limits.


Heritage ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 318-330 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patricia McAnany

Taking an aspirational approach, this article imagines what Maya Archaeology would be like if it were truly anthropological and attuned to Indigenous heritage issues. In order to imagine such a future, the past of archaeology and anthropology is critically examined, including the emphasis on processual theory within archaeology and the Indigenous critique of socio-cultural anthropology. Archaeological field work comes under scrutiny, particularly the emphasis on the product of field research over the collaborative process of engaging local and descendant communities. Particular significance is given to the role of settler colonialism in maintaining unequal access to and authority over landscapes filled with remains of the past. Interrogation of the distinction between archaeology and heritage results in the recommendation that the two approaches to the past be recognized as distinct and in tension with each other. Past heritage programs imagined and implemented in the Maya region by the author and colleagues are examined reflexively.


Ethnography ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 220-240 ◽  
Author(s):  
Victoria Reyes

For many, reflexivity is a core tenet in qualitative research. Often, scholars focus on how one or two of their socio-demographic traits compare to their participants and how it may influence field dynamics. Research that incorporates an intersectionality perspective, which brings attention to how people’s multiple identities are entwined, also has a long history. Yet, researchers tend to pay less attention to how we strategically draw on our multiple social positions in the course of field work. Drawing on data I have collected over the past several years and extending recent sociological work that goes beyond a reflexive accounting of one or two of researchers’ demographic characteristics, I argue that each researcher has their own ethnographic toolkit from which they strategically draw. It consists of researchers’ visible (e.g. race/ethnicity) and invisible tools (e.g. social capital) and ties qualitative methodologies to research on how culture is strategically and inconsistently used.


2011 ◽  
Vol 08 (04) ◽  
pp. 535-555 ◽  
Author(s):  
BRENT A. ZENOBIA ◽  
CHARLES M. WEBER

A qualitative empirical study explores the psychological process by which transportation consumers adopt alternatives to single occupancy vehicles. The study's findings give rise to the Motive-Technology-Belief (MTB) framework, a theory that conceives of technology adoption in terms of three mental structures: motives are inner mental reasons; technologies are tools that pertain to motives; and beliefs are associations between motives and/or technologies. Their behavioral interactions are governed by three conscious processes: selecting is the process of choosing a tool in response to an immediate need; evaluating is the process of forming beliefs about tools; and maintaining is the process of determining the functional status of tools. They are augmented by five unconscious auxiliary processes: perceiving, focusing, framing, consolidating, and acting. The primary contribution of this paper is the first coherent theory that explains some of the inner mental processes pertaining to technology adoption. However, the study described in this paper also combines existing theory with original field research to lay the foundation for a more comprehensive causal theory of the adoption process that will provide a step-by-step explanation of how events or life experiences cause a consumer's beliefs about a technology to change over time. Finally, the study identifies evaluating, selecting, maintaining, and the auxiliary processes that govern motivation as fundamental "microlaws" of innovation i.e. regular rules describing the generating processes of emergent innovations.


2012 ◽  
Vol 210 ◽  
pp. 456-481 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luca Zan ◽  
Sara Bonini Baraldi

AbstractThis article investigates change processes regarding the managerial aspects of organizing cultural heritage activities in China. The focus is not on the historical and artistic meanings of archaeological discoveries in themselves; nor on the technical, scientific and methodological repercussions of conservation and restoration; nor on the evolution of museology per se. Rather, the core of the analysis is on new managerial problems along the “archaeological chain” (archaeological discoveries, restoration, museum definition and public access to cultural heritage) posed by new professional discourse and the overall evolution of the economic and political context. The article is based on field research carried out in Luoyang, Henan province. The micro view adopted (managing practices more than policies), and the unusual access to data (including financial figures on individual entities) represent a unique opportunity for a sort of “journey” inside the Chinese public sector.


1994 ◽  
Vol 44 ◽  
pp. 129-148 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Mitchell

Professor John Cook died on 2 January 1994 at the age of eighty-five. His scrupulous and meticulously published field work in the western coastal regions of Turkey, in Caria, Ionia, Aeolis, and above all in the Troas, has made a fundamental contribution to our understanding of the East Greek world. Much historical research in the future will be built up on the foundations he laid. I hope that this present study, which is a product of the same methods of field research into the Classical sites of Asia Minor as he practised, will help to confirm the continuing value of these methods and serve as a fitting tribute to the memory of a great scholar.


2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 6-13
Author(s):  
Nikolai V. Belenov

Geographical vocabulary existing in ethno-linguistic environment, has a significant impact on the formation of its toponymic nomenclature. This influence is manifested both in the form of toponymic formants and in the basics of geographical names originating from this ethno-linguistic environment. The relevance of this work is definted by the fact that until now geographical vocabulary of the Tornovsky dialect of the Moksha-Mordovian language, as well as other Samara-Bends dialects, was not the subject of special study, and was not introduced into academic and research circulation. The purpose of this article is description and lexico-semantic and etymological analysis of geographical vocabulary of the Tornovsky dialect of the Moksha-Mordovian language. General theoretical and methodological basis of the research was made up of the works of Russian and international researchers on the toponymy and dialectology of the Mordovian languages. Vocabulary data is based on the materials of field research that the author conducted in the village Tornovoe of the Volga district of the Samara region during the field-work in 2017 and 2018. The main methods of linguistic research are descriptive and comparative methods. They were used in the collection and analysis of linguistic material. The results of the study showed that the geographical vocabulary of the Tornovsky dialect of the Moksha-Mordovian language fully reflects all the phonetic and accentual features of this dialect. It was also revealed that there is a fundamental difference between the composition of geographical vocabulary of the Tornovsky dialect and the same vocabulary of the neighboring dialects of the Moksha-Mordvin language, Shelehmetsky and Bahilovsky. A significant part of the geographical vocabulary in tthe Tornovsky dialect is borrowed from the Russian and Turkic Kipchak languages which reflects ethnolinguistic history of its speakers.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
M.C. Morriss

Supplemental Tables. Table S1: Location of Dr. William H. Taubeneck’s (WHT) mapped dike midpoints, each dike’s host rock, bearing, azimuthal direction, and segment length. Table S2: Digitized WHT journal entries denoting each dike observation made during his 50-year career. Table S3: Geochemical re-analysis results from Washington State University X-ray fluorescence laboratory. Table S4: Dike width measurements from original field work and WHT notebooks. Tables S5−S7: Locations of mapped bearing, azimuthal direction, and segment length for Ice Harbor (Table S5), Monument (Table S6), and Steens Dikes (Table S7).<br>


Author(s):  
Иван Владимирович Севастьянов

Статья посвящена анализу особенностей традиции гостеприимства у кряшен, самобытного этноконфессионального сообщества, характеризующегося сочетанием татароязычия и православного вероисповедания. Изыскания автора основываются как на письменных источниках, так и на оригинальных полевых материалах, касающихся преимущественно двух этнографических групп кряшенского населения Республики Татарстан, молькеевской и заказанской, каждая из которых обладает собственной этнокультурной спецификой. Этнографический материал, анализируемый в статье, относится к хронологическому отрезку от рубежа к. XIX – нач. XX вв. до настоящего дня. Ставится задача, во-первых, исследовать проявления гостеприимства в конкретной этнической среде в его функциональных разновидностях; во-вторых, проследить трансформацию этого обычая в условиях современности. Показана саморефлексия автора-исследователя по поводу проблемы взаимовлияния объекта и субъекта изучения (этнографического наблюдения) и роль субъективности в научном постижении иной этнической культуры. Отношения диалога между исследователем и информантом рассматриваются как значимый приоритетный аналитический подход. В этой связи на примере опыта полевой работы в среде кряшенского населения Республики Татарстан выявляется воздействие, которое традиция гостеприимства в ее современном бытовании оказала на полевые исследования ученых-этнологов. Важнейшим ресурсом в процессе работы, по мнению автора, оказались взаимная расположенность и доверие, во многом базирующиеся на обычае гостеприимства. The article is devoted to the analysis of the tradition of hospitality among the Kryashens, an authentic ethno-confessional community, characterized by a combination of the Tatar-speaking and Orthodox faith. The research is based on both written sources and original field materials concerning mainly two ethnographic groups of the Kryashen population of the Republic of Tatarstan – Molkeevskaya and Zakazan, each of them having its own ethno-cultural specificity. The ethnographic material analyzed in the article refers to the period from the turn of the XIX – early XX centuries to the present day. The task is, firstly, to study the manifestations of hospitality in a specific ethnic environment in its functional varieties; secondly, to trace the transformation of this custom in modern conditions. The self-reflection of the author-researcher on the problem of the mutual influence of the object and the subject of study (ethnographic observation), the role of subjectivity in the scientific comprehension of another ethnic culture is shown. Understanding the relationship of the dialogue between the researcher and the informant is considered as a significant analytical approach. In this regard, the experience of fieldwork among the Kryashen population of the Republic of Tatarstan reveals the impact that the tradition of hospitality in its contemporary form had on the field research of ethnologists. Mutual disposition and trust, largely based on the custom of hospitality, turned out to be the most important resource in the process of an ethnological study.


2011 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 144-161
Author(s):  
Tullio Lobetti

Participant observation in particularly demanding circumstances may often blur the line between the researcher and the object of research. Such are the cases where the researcher needs to participate in “extreme” religious feats involving ascetic practices, seclusion, use of narcotics, and so on. In such circumstances traditional methodological approaches seem to be undermined by the compelling urge for the researcher to deal with his or her own needs as well as carrying on the proposed fieldwork research. Although this can be considered as an argument for lack of “objectivity,” it should also be noted that this outburst of “feelings” and other emotional traits might be considered as part of the fieldwork results as well. The purpose of this article is to offer a variety of fieldwork data collected under such particular research circumstances for scrutiny. The main portion of the material comes from a field research conducted in 2006–2007 in Japan, dealing with Japanese ascetic practices.


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