re:think - a journal of creative ethnography

On the Water Shed of Becoming Old

2023-03-31T14:01:25+01:00

Abstract

This paper is about the relations between work, rhythm and life course among a group of elderly members of a rice paddy collective in Kyoto, Japan. Through the stories of people’s professional work, personal lives and recreational activities, I portray and discuss their understanding of aging and elderhood. Also, by illustrating the rhythms of two elderly people on their retirement and in their post-work activities, I argue that underlying the particular changes of their rhythms is their reminiscences of their working lives.

Key words: rhythm, aging, life course, professional work

Algorithms, aesthetics and agency: An exploration into the performance of the self amongst young women on TikTok.

2023-03-31T14:01:25+01:00

This is an exploration into how the self is performed on TikTok. In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, TikTok - a social media app at the forefront of youth-culture - burst onto the screens of millions users. On the hilarious, inventive, frustrating and saddening ForYouPage (FYP), short-style videos play one after the other. I will discuss the performance of the self under digital conditions using Goffman’s (1959) foundational work on the presentation of self. I follow Mahmood’s (2005) definition of agency to explain how TikTok affords its users certain freedoms. However, this sense of agency is complicated by strict standards of beauty which are propagated on TikTok via trends and aesthetics and ultimately, made valuable through Likes.

Making the Market: The Characters of Izmailovo Market

2023-03-31T14:01:25+01:00

Abstract: What are the social processes that lead up to the moment of sale in Izmailovo Market, Moscow? Selling may seem like a ubiquitous practice, but it is one constructed in the context and incorporates localised understandings of labour, community and morality. In a post-Socialist setting, the social relations between sellers will illuminate the ways in which they perform labour ‘trud’. I will demonstrate how there is a coexistence of both individual pursuit and collective considerations. Subsequently, these aims should not be seen as opposing - as selling is an embodied skill that the person facilitates.

Key words: Market, Post-Socialist, Economy, Selling, Moral

Political thought in a student housing Co-operative

2023-03-31T14:01:26+01:00

This ethnography came out of a project by pre-honours Social Anthropology students, studying the space of the Edinburgh Student Housing Co-Operative in the beginning of 2020. I spent time renovating the basement with members of the Co-Operative and spoke with them about the political leanings of members, as the public perception of the Co-Operative is that it is based on socialist ideologies. I describe my time at the Co-Operative and discuss the methodologies I used to gain data. Finally, I conclude with a discussion of the role politics plays in the decision to become a member of the Co-Operative.

On Shaken Terrains

2023-03-31T14:01:26+01:00

This paper builds on short-term fieldwork at an urban day shelter in Brussels which provides affordable showers and other essential services to homeless and undocumented people, respectively sans-abris and sans-papiers. In dialogue with Simone Weil’s writings on attentionality and ordinary ethics literature, this paper firstly proposes that ethical dispositions informing workers’ and volunteers’ navigation of the shelter’s volatile spaces often grow out of the imperatives of the everyday, rather than being imposed upon practices as external principles. Secondly, it frames everyday ethical action as what philosopher Laugier calls a ‘politics of the ordinary’. As such, this paper offers ethnographic insight into modes of social organising that embrace the fluctuating character of the everyday.

The Morality of Football-Betting in its Intersections with Capitalism and Social Reproduction

2023-03-31T14:01:26+01:00

Gambling involves a mixture of luck, knowledge, skill and nerve. Through interview discussions with my informant Stew I seek to analyse the ideologies of economy, money, and exchange that interplay into forming the moralities and motivations for Sports betting. Furthermore, Sports-betting via the online bookmaker Paddy Power involves multiple moralities that shape the practice around accumulation and leisure. These forces speak to larger capitalist and societal moralities and spheres of exchange including the nature of money as begetting more money. However, the goal of my informant is to combine pleasure and knowledge in what becomes a socially reproductive activity.

Experiencing Silence

2023-03-31T14:01:24+01:00

This short text is a simple reflection on the meanings and importance of silence. Starting from the sensory experience of silence he had with the local informant at Kennin-ji in Kyoto, Japan, the author reflects on the various meanings of silence. On the one hand, the therapeutic and introspective silence of a temple garden immersed in the city; on the other hand, a fake silence, made of sounds and noises, that does not generate quiet, but anxiety and social distance.

The ‘Vijaya Dashami’ ritual

2023-03-31T14:01:25+01:00

This article is based on a short ethnography conducted on the 10the day of the Hindu festival ‘Vijaya Dashami’ in Nepal. Although, symbolism is important, I use a phenomenological approach to demonstrate that this ritual shows reverence not just to religion but social order and kinship. In doing so, I discover that it is ‘disorder’ or the unconventional aspects of the ritual, that make the ritual a ritual. I hope this article encourages a move away from bounded definitions of rituals and ritual ‘order’, towards fluid understandings of ritual as ‘self-organised’ and entangled with society and culture, whilst adding to anthropological debates around theory and practice.

The Vultures, The Cows and The People

2023-03-31T14:01:25+01:00

Ethnographic drawings and poetry based on Thom van Dooren’s article ‘Vultures and their People in India: Equity and Entanglement in a Time of Extinction’ (2011).

A trip to time-space through street art: a message on-hold

2023-03-31T14:01:25+01:00

Street art, including graffiti, tags, stencils, art visualization and art installations, usually denounce an actual situation and conveys messages related to the societal, cultural, economic and political scene. Sometimes, it takes up a playful form, inviting individuals to interact with their direct environment. Our photo essay consists of photos taken in different places and at times. We invite readers to select some of the following pictures and reconstruct a ‘collective’ message to the world.