Summary, Quotes, and Questions

Buckley (1994) looks inward at the effects of field work on neophyte anthropologists. This piece is premised on the idea of the anthropologist entering a completely foreign environment, where they are forced to look inward, in the midst of a chaotic alien environment. The examples aren’t totally applicable to most ethnography now. Buckley uses Malinowski’s journal and the analysis of a young female graduate student. Ultimately, he argues that the ethnographer may likely experience regression and changes of the Self amidst field work in a foreign world. Below are useful quotes for understanding Buckley’s piece: 614 - “In this paper, I shall attempt to develop a psychoanalytic hypothesis concerning the psychological nature of fieldwork for the anthropologist who possesses, in the ethnographer Evans- Pritchard’s words (1962),the capacity ‘to abandon himself without reserve,’ ‘to think and feel alternately as a savage and as a European’ and for whom the native society is ‘in the anthropologist himself and not merely in his notebooks.’” 614-615 - “Briefly stated, the hypothesis postulated here is that in the course of fieldwork the anthropologist establishes a new object relationship with the culture being studied. Immersion in the alien surrounds of fieldwork induces ego regression in the anthropologist and an outpouring of drive discharges of libido and aggression in the form of transference responses toward aspects of the new object, i.e., the culture and its physical setting.” 629 - “ In fieldwork, unlike analysis, the anthropologist is completely surrounded by the object of study. There is no immediate escape except by retreating, as Malinoivski often did, to memories of the home culture that has been left behind. “ 631-632 - “Fieldwork is not unique in its capacity to induce regression-the student living abroad, the lone sailor or explorer confronting implacable nature or alien places may also experience regressions and confrontations with the self. In fieldwork,however, as in analysis, one is faced with the task of continually attempting to decipher and comprehend one’s cognitive and affective responses using one’s intellectual and emotional capacities to achieve this goal. “ Questions: Reading this piece, reminded me a lot of the literature provided by the Peace Corps for Peace Corps Volunteers (except without explicit psychoanalytic framing ). I find it interesting to think about Peace Corps Volunteer work in relation to traditional ethnographic research. There are so many overlaps in terms of time spent in the field, the emotional impacts, the idea of foreignness and total immersion, the isolation amidst others/Others, and the psychological changes one undergoes throughout the process. I’d be curious to read someone’s psychoanalytic framing of Peace Corps Volunteer work, as I think there would be a congruent analysis. What does a psychoanalytic understanding of ethnography and total immersion do? What would a psychoanalytic analysis look like in a context where the ethnographer/volunteer isn’t actually in a totally foreign world?