Author: LIVIA SAPERE

[Last modified: December, 2 2024 12:19 PM]

Our group was assigned scenario #6 Indigenous Identities and Disempowerment. The project was very ambitious but thorny from an ethical perspective.

The student would probably have to go through a high-risk research proposal with the ethical committee as the proposed research involves some vulnerable participants (Indigenous and migrant people) and sensitive topics (gang and police violence, poverty, migration, and political views). It is not specified in the text, but the fact that some of the participants might be “illegal” migrants might put them in an even more vulnerable position.

The student offers no reflection on the power relations that might be at play when working with their participants. We did not know the student’s background (whether they were Indigenous, Brazilian, or “outsider”) and their positionality might have a huge impact on their relations. For instance, if the student managed to get a researcher visa for this project and had to work with people who already live in Brazil but are not “legally” entitled to do so and do not own a visa themselves, how is that going to impact their interactions? Furthermore, the student does not give any information on how they are going to store the data collected. Again, if some of the participants are undocumented migrants, the student would be dealing with very sensitive data that might put the lives of their participants at risk. Above all, despite the very interesting topic, the student fails to delineate how the research is going to be helpful for the community they are working with. On top of the vulnerabilities of their participants, the student might put their life in danger given the environment where the fieldwork would take place and the aforementioned police and gang violence. Therefore, a careful risk assessment should be evaluated when examining the proposal.

Depending on the student’s positionality, reframing the focus might help circumnavigate the many ethical issues that this project raises. For instance, instead of asking for explicit political opinions on Bolsonaro’s politics, the student might focus on the daily lives of the participants in the favelas (or specific aspects of their daily lives) that would surely be affected by anti-human rights governmental decisions, but without putting them on the spot (again, a vulnerable situation that might be exacerbated by their possible “illegality”). However, if the students are an “outsider” to the community in any way, reframing the focus might not be enough. An alternative would be to focus the research on activists and Indigenous associations (possibly still vulnerable people, but who also congregate within an institutional framework) only, for which less ethical concerns might be involved.

[Last modified: November, 25 2024 11:36 AM]

Participating in the forum theatre exercise was, first of all, a lot of fun. It brought back many memories from high school when I was part of a theatre company. However, it was also quite challenging because (as a chronically shy person) I was not very familiar with many of the other participants and (as a chronic perfectionist) I was new to the concept of forum theatre completely. It was a very playful way to engage with one another and anthropological concepts since the collective experience also sparked discussions on power dynamics, reflexivity, and positionality.

Theatre and performance could be seen as part of a multimodal approach to ethnographic research, blurring the lines between scientific research and artistic production. They represent an opportunity to be playful and a way of co-creating knowledge starting from dialogues and collaboration. Applying forum theatre to research might be a unique way to be part of a community and engage with them. Speaking in more blunt research terms, it could also represent an opportunity to gather vignettes and emic insights from the performances. However, I feel like the researcher’s position must be explicit, and all participants/performers must have given their consent. Since the theatre is a safe space to open up and lay bare their emotions, it can bring up very vulnerable positions, and people must be aware that their shared experiences might end up as mere data. Reflecting on some of the points discussed in class, I agree that it might represent a playful way to overcome hierarchies in research. However, it also depends on the role of the researcher during the performance. To draw a parallelism with the class exercise, Noa and Nathan were obviously not on the same level as the rest of the participants, because of their academic background and previous acting experience. Translating this situation on the field might mean reproducing power imbalances yet again. To overcome them, it might be best for the researcher to join an existing theatre group on the field, to be truly part of the community, or to even be in a slightly lower position if they were an “outsider” to that community. When introducing the concept of forum theatre, it should also be key not to impose that structure as fixed, but to be playful and just see what comes out of it, that is, the same mindset one should have when doing ethnographic research on the field.

[Last modified: November, 17 2024 10:50 PM]

Standing in front of the pole, before warming up, my body feels stiff from sitting in class the whole morning, and still carries the cold from outside. Around me, a couple of other girls are also stretching before beginning their practice, all focused on their own flows. I am wearing baggy clothes – an oversized jumper that I never returned to its owner and flowy, wide-leg trousers – that gently press on my skin and welcome movement. The process of warming up before engaging in any physical activity, which so many people dread and would rather skip, is my favourite part. It feels like waking up after a long sleep, and it is the moment I reach out to connect with every muscle and joint in my body, including the ones I tend to neglect in other moments of the day. I get so lost in the process that sometimes it takes me a whole hour to wake up completely. I start from the neck and gradually come down to the ankles and feet through the shoulders, the torso, and the hips. When the warming up is done, clothes need to go. The cold is gone now, and it does not feel so traumatising to slip out of my jumper to start my training. In pole dancing, there is a very practical necessity to expose your bare skin. Otherwise, you will not grip the pole and sliding down can be dangerous, especially from a height. However, there is also an underlying to this practice, more subtle, connected to the stigma that many pole dancers routinely face, that is, erotism. As poet Joy Sullivan describes, for many women, pole dance is “the first space where you have the freedom to move erotically without hyper-vigilance […] it’s overwhelming to finally release the curve of your hips.” The pole studio is one of the safest places I have ever felt to expose my body. In a space where the cultural meanings generally associated with a female body cease to exist, one can finally focus on what their body feels like, not through the scrutinising eyes of society, but through the sensations of dancing. Movements (and even accessories, like high heels) that are socially attached to and performed by a certain gender loosen to welcome any type of body. It is one of the most powerful instances in which I experienced my body shifting from being an object too often subjected to the male gaze to a subject moving according to its own rules.

[Last modified: November, 4 2024 11:50 AM]

My pilot project has an inevitable political underlying as it focuses on commercial whaling – a practice banned by the IWC (International Whaling Commission) in almost all EEA countries and only recently resumed in Iceland, amongst many critiques of anti-whaling countries and conservation organisations. Therefore, it is a very heated topic, and it is even more so in Iceland where practices of whale-watching and commercial whaling now co-exist.

I would need to carefully unpack my positionality when approaching this project. As an environmental anthropology student, with personal interests in conservation and cetacean culture, I have always had very strong political opinions on whaling practices that I considered dated and unnecessarily brutal. At the same time, I am aware that I have always listened to one side of the story. Behind the big, bad, evil whaling companies that in the environmental activists’ narrative (the only one I am familiar with) almost look like abstract entities, there are people doing the job. Since anthropology is concerned with complicating apparent polarized issues to reveal grey areas and problematizing notions that we take for granted, I think this project might have potential, even though it would require a constant assessment of my own prejudices and political views as they will inevitably get in the way.

Focusing on the relationship between whales and hunters might reveal important anthropological insights as well as political implications. Conducting fieldwork where the only whaling company existing in Iceland operates and speaking to the people employed by that company might reveal information about their working conditions, how the animals are captured, and how the legislative pressures are handled – currently, there is a strict limitation on the numbers of whales that can be killed by the company per year, at least on paper.

The methods used when conducting fieldwork need to take into account these conflicting dimensions. Given the thorny topic, my intentions and research interests need to be clear from the beginning so that I can eventually be trusted by the people I am going to collaborate with. When conducting participant observation and interviews, it would be important to maintain a level of sensitivity that will allow me to be open and avoid direct statements regarding my personal opinions on whaling practices. Very explicit comments could prevent me from getting to know what I am looking for when interviewing people directly involved in those practices. Anonymity, alteration of personal data, and use of pseudonyms would also be crucial, although the fact that these workers are employed by the only whaling company in the whole country makes them highly recognisable and comes with another set of ethical problems.

[Last modified: November, 1 2024 11:25 AM]

Keywords:

• Non-place [I was still quite sleepy so I erroneously wrote down “non-space”]
• Sleeping
• Groups
• Local
• Noise
• Movement

I took advantage of the 5 a.m. ferry from my island the day I left for London to take notes. Ferries fascinate me as they remind me of Auge’s definition of “non-place” that he coined for spaces of transitions like airports. The 5 a.m. ferry from Elba is the first to leave the island and the only one (almost) always departing regardless of weather conditions. Despite the weather alert that carried on for three days in the whole region, this ferry departed normally not to disrupt connections to the mainland completely. Locals usually take it when they have very early appointments on the mainland the same day, or when they need to catch an early flight without leaving the evening before, as was my case. The ferry was quite busy, and it looked like all the people were local. Tourists do not usually leave this early, and there are only a few left in an off-season time like October. People recognized each other and waved their hands to say hi, but everyone stayed within their respective groups – friends or family. It was still dark outside and probably too early for most people to socialize. The majority kicked off their shoes and lay on the sofas to sleep, whereas some sat and quietly chatted with their journey companions. The only instance in which people “broke” their groups to interact with someone else occurred when a man stood up and stopped my dad as we were looking for a place to sit. He asked him about how oil production was going since October is the time for harvesting olives, despite the great difficulties given by the adverse weather.

Note-taking was incredibly effective in outlining a story and remembering the small details that otherwise would have gone missing, e.g. the almost casual interaction between my dad and his friend, the news on the television announcing that Israel has attacked Iran (before the rest of Italy would wake up and read about it), the man watching loud videos next to me, the almost total absence of movements in the lounge once the ferry departed, and the engines’ noises that blocked out every other one. I took the ferry so many times that I usually ignore what is happening around me. A critical observation combined with note-taking turned out to be very productive. Sketches would have been a great addition, but my total inability to draw anything (and the fact that I was still quite sleepy) prevented me from capturing a shot of this early morning scene and gaining an even more nuanced understanding of it.

[Last modified: October, 19 2024 09:02 AM]

Research question/Particular ethnographic focus

As highlighted by the exercise on “Week 1,” my research questions are about human-animal relationships in Iceland, focusing on fishers working for the only Icelandic whaling company still active today and members of conservation organisations. In particular, I am interested in how fishers relate to the whales they hunt and how dynamics between fishers and conservationists are being played out.

Personal experience/Interest in the topic/Preconceived ideas

I have always been fascinated by whales and their culture, although the most traditional anthropologists might turn their noses up at this definition. During my undergraduate studies, I also had the opportunity to study comparative anatomy and vertebrate evolution, including cetaceans. This project would allow me to get closer to these animals while approaching the topic from an anthropological perspective. Besides, my undergraduate dissertation was based on the anthropology of detachment, and I would like to explore whether fishers carry out any detaching practices in their work. When first outlining my research questions, I did not realise how many preconceived ideas I was bringing into the project. For instance, I assumed that fishers would detach themselves from the act of killing or dismembering whales, whereas completely different attitudes might be at play.

Positionality

I would approach the field site as an “outsider”, not having any personal connection to the context. This condition is a two-edged sword as it might allow me to get different insights compared to a person from inside the community, but it would also preclude my access to some spaces and information. As aforementioned, the project’s focus would be twofold: members of conservation organisations on one hand, and fishers on the other. My positionality would impact how I would get perceived on the field, especially in contacting the latter group. When visiting Iceland for the first time, I had the opportunity to talk to conservation biologists, some of whom work closely with whale-watching companies – not all of them, as some carry out very stressful practices for the whales. Members of these organisations are used to talking to tourists all the time, and it would probably make things easier – the fact that I am an Italian woman not native to Iceland (and therefore I do not speak Icelandic) might not be as impactful. In fact, many people working at the whale-watching site (including the biologists) seemed around my age, and not everyone was native to Iceland, English being the main language spoken. However, when trying to contact fishers working at Hvalur hf., my positionality might have an adverse effect. The fact that I am a woman in a possibly male-dominated environment, and I do not speak Icelandic in a place where presumably little English is spoken (this is another assumption, but it might be the case as the area where the company is based is not a touristy one) might prevent me from getting close to them. It might also affect my interpretation of data, as I would probably tend to sympathize with those with whom I have more in common.

[Last modified: October, 6 2024 11:10 PM]

TOPIC: Human-animal relations in whaling practices in Iceland

Themes – Conservation, marine biology, human-animal interactions

Why is it important? – This topic is incredibly relevant as Iceland, along with Norway and Japan, are the only countries to allow legal commercial whaling still today. However, the focus has mostly been on conservationist organisations and their efforts against whaling practices, with little attention paid to those who daily engage in those practices.

How is this topic anthropological or ethnographic? Anthropology traditionally engages with grey areas of research – “the ineffable, the strange, and the hidden side of things”, as Nancy Scheper-Hughes would say (2020:11). In this particular context, our discipline has the potential to offer a different perspective that is usually overlooked when talking about conservation and could reveal interesting insights. Many examples in applied anthropological literature show how all the stakeholders should be included when thinking about policy-making and conservation plans, and whalers are directly involved in what conservationists in Iceland are trying to stop.

RESEARCH QUESTIONS: How do hunters relate to whales in Iceland? How are tensions between hunters and conservationists being played out?

Are they open questions? They are “how” questions and can lead to further exploration without being dismissed with a yes/no answer.

Are they anthropological, ethnographic, and actionable? They can be answered through ethnographic fieldwork and are anthropological, although they still lack some anthropological theory (with possible insights from maritime anthropology and multispecies ethnographies).

METHODS: Participant observation, semi-structured interviews

Methods considered – Participant observation on a ship would reveal unique insights given that it is not a “fixed” field site. It would allow me to look directly at the interactions I am interested in and experience them myself. I would also conduct semi-structured interviews with both hunters/fishermen from Hvalur hf. (the only active Icelandic whaling company as of today) and members of conservation organisations in Iceland, allowing participants to lead the questions.

Ethical/access issues – Getting access to the field site would be difficult as I do not have any personal connection to these organisations. A reconnaissance of the potential field sites might be needed to assess whether it would be possible to get a contact. An obvious limitation of this research would be the language. An Icelandic translator would represent a trade-off between losing the nuances that one only gets when mastering a language and gaining access to places that might be difficult to access without an insider, e.g. possibly male-dominated spaces like whaling ships.

 

REFERENCES: Scheper-Hughes, N. (2020) “The Organs Watch files: A brief history”, Public Anthropologist, 2(1), pp. 1-36.