Ethnography from the Mission Field

Ethnography from the Mission Field
Author: Annekie Joubert
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 1169
Release: 2015-06-24
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9004297723

In Ethnography from the Mission Field: The Hoffmann Collection of Cultural Knowledge Joubert et al. offer a translated and annotated edition of the 24 ethnographic articles by missionary Carl Hoffmann and his local interlocutors published between the years 1913 and 1958. The edition is introduced by a historic contextualisation using a cultural historical approach to analyse the contexts in which Hoffmann’s ethnographic texts were produced. Making use of historical material and Hoffmann’s own words from personal diaries and letters, the authors convincingly draw the attention to the discursive context in which the texts annotated in this book had been compiled. In a concluding chapter the book traces the captivating developments of the orthography of Northern Sotho through Hoffmann’s texts over almost half a century. Brill has made the documentary film “A Journey into the Life of a Mission-Ethnographer” which is interlinked with this book available online via its online channels. To access it please click here. The digital database of the “Hoffmann Collection of Cultural Knowledge” (HC-CK) can be accessed by clicking here. It is an amalgamation of digital scans, images and video footage relating to missionary Carl Hoffmann’s work and life on various mission stations, made available by the Humboldt Universität zu Berlin.

Short-Term Mission

Short-Term Mission
Author: Brian M. Howell
Publisher: InterVarsity Press
Total Pages: 257
Release: 2012-08-02
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0830863400

Brian Howell provides an anthropology of short-term mission (STM) among American Christians. Providing a history of STM along with an ethnographic case study of a trip to the Dominican Republic, Howell argues that the movement is sustained by a uniquely Christian travel narrative that borrows from the anthropology of tourism and pilgrimage.

Ethnography as Christian Theology and Ethics

Ethnography as Christian Theology and Ethics
Author: Aana Marie Vigen
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 240
Release: 2024-10-31
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0567710475

How can qualitative research methods be a tool for social change? Echoing the 'scandal of particularity' at the heart of the Christian tradition, theologians and ethicists involved in ethnographic research draw on the particular to seek out answers to core questions of their discipline. This new edition features a dynamic selection of nuanced and provocative voices in this area of ethics and theology, showing how, in the past decade, the kinds of qualitative methodologies employed have become more varied and sophisticated. The leading and emerging scholars featured in this book have much to share how they approach this kind of work, what they are learning in the process, and what sorts of change is possible as a result. This volume also pays tribute to the life and work of a pathbreaker in qualitative methods for the sake of theological imagination and social change, the Rev. Dr. Melissa D. Browning (1977-2021).

Anthropological Insights for Missionaries

Anthropological Insights for Missionaries
Author: Paul G. Hiebert
Publisher: Baker Academic
Total Pages: 320
Release: 1986-01-01
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9780801042911

Expert anthropologist shows missionaries how to better understand the people they serve and their historical and cultural settings.

Anthropologists in the Field

Anthropologists in the Field
Author: Lynne Hume
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Total Pages: 297
Release: 2004
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0231130058

An excellent introduction to real-world ethnography, this book covers short- and long-term participant observation and ethnographic interviewing and uses diverse cultures as cases.

Ethnography as a Pastoral Practice

Ethnography as a Pastoral Practice
Author: Mary Clark Moschella
Publisher: SCM Press
Total Pages: 183
Release: 2023-02-28
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0334059968

Ethnography is a way to tap the deep undercurrents in a community through a process of gathering, analyzing, and sharing data. Fully revised and updated for this second edition, Ethnography as a Pastoral Practice has quickly become the go-to textbook for those in or training for ministry who want to discover how they can use ethnography to help them hear the stories of those to whom they minister. Setting forth the case for ethnography’s ability to galvanize aspirations and heal communal hurt, this book presents the helpful pastoral practice of ethnography in a clear, step-by-step manner and includes many compelling case studies of transformational leadership. Ethnography as a Pastoral Practice invites us to open our eyes, ears and hearts to those in our congregations.

Ethnography as Risky Business

Ethnography as Risky Business
Author: Kees Koonings
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 255
Release: 2019-04-26
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1498598447

Ethnography as Risky Business: Field Research in Violent and Sensitive Contexts offers a hands-on, critical appraisal of how to approach ethnographic fieldwork on socio-political conflict and collective violence, focusing on the global south. The volume’s contributions are all based on extensive firsthand qualitative social science research conducted in sensitive--and often hazardous--field settings. The contributors reflect on real-life methodological problems as well as the ethical and personal challenges such as the protection of participants, research data and the ‘ethnographic self’. In particular, the authors highlight how ‘risky ethnography’ requires careful maneuvering before, during, and after fieldwork on the basis of a ‘situated’ ethics, yet also point to the rewards of such an endeavor. If these methodological, ethical and personal risks are managed adequately, the yields in terms of generating a deep understanding of, and critical engagement with, conflict and violence may be substantial.

God Is Samoan

God Is Samoan
Author: Matt Tomlinson
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
Total Pages: 193
Release: 2020-03-31
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0824880978

Christian theologians in the Pacific Islands see culture as the grounds on which one understands God. In this pathbreaking book, Matt Tomlinson engages in an anthropological conversation with the work of “contextual theologians,” exploring how the combination of Pacific Islands culture and Christianity shapes theological dialogues. Employing both scholarly research and ethnographic fieldwork, the author addresses a range of topics: from radical criticisms of biblical stories as inappropriate for Pacific audiences to celebrations of traditional gods such as Tagaloa as inherently Christian figures. This book presents a symphony of voices—engaged, critical, prophetic—from the contemporary Pacific’s leading religious thinkers and suggests how their work articulates with broad social transformations in the region. Each chapter in this book focuses on a distinct type of culturally driven theological dialogue. One type is between readers and texts, in which biblical scholars suggest new ways of reading, and even rewriting, the Bible so it becomes more meaningful in local terms. A second kind concerns the state of the church and society. For example, feminist theologians and those calling for “prophetic” action on social problems propose new conversations about how people in Oceania should navigate difficult times. A third kind of discussion revolves around identity, emphasizing what makes Oceania unique and culturally coherent. A fourth addresses the problems of climate change and environmental degradation to sacred lands by encouraging “eco-theological” awareness and interconnection. Finally, many contextual theologians engage with the work of other disciplines— prominently, anthropology—as they develop new discourse on God, people, and the future of Oceania. Contextual theology allows people in Oceania to speak with God and fellow humans through the idiom of culture in a distinctly Pacific way. Tomlinson concludes, however, that the most fruitful topic of dialogue might not be culture, but rather the nature of dialogue itself. Written in an accessible, engaging style and presenting innovative findings, this book will interest students and scholars of anthropology, world religion, theology, globalization, and Pacific studies.

The Early Years of a Dutch Colonial Mission

The Early Years of a Dutch Colonial Mission
Author: Rita Smith Kipp
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
Total Pages: 288
Release: 1990
Genre: Karo-Batak
ISBN: 9780472101764

This fascinating story of a Dutch Reformed mission among the Karo of North Sumatra chronicles the field's first fifteen years - 1889-1904. Plantation executives sponsored the mission, hoping to enlist the Karo as Christian allies in a colonial war against Muslim "fanatics." But the Karo hated the plantations, and likewise distrusted and resisted the missionaries. Civil servants saw the mission as a forerunner of the government's annexation of the Sumatran highlands, and in the military expedition to take the region, the missionaries played a prominent role. Consequently, the missionaries found their credibility diminished by their links to the despised colonial apparatus. Nonetheless, the missionaries' motives were religious, and they struggled with the compromises that made their work possible, yet ultimately precluded its success. Unlike other missionary studies - that focus on biography or on large regions - this historical ethnography concentrates on a single field, and on the personalities and activities of the several men who pioneered it in its formative years. It examines the missionaries' assumptions and values, describe how the missionaries contrasted themselves with the government and capitalist business, and explores the difficulties of translating Christianity across a great cultural gulf. The Early Years of a Dutch Colonial Mission will give pause to anyone who has thought missionaries heroic, or to anyone who has thought them mislead.

Experimental Collaborations

Experimental Collaborations
Author: Adolfo Estalella
Publisher: Berghahn Books
Total Pages: 236
Release: 2018-04-24
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1785338544

In the accounts compiled in this book, ethnography occurs through processes of material and social interventions that turn the field into a site for epistemic collaboration. Through creative interventions that unfold what we term as “fieldwork devices”—such as coproduced books, the circulation of repurposed data, co-organized events, authorization protocols, relational frictions, and social rhythms—anthropologists engage with their counterparts in the field in the construction of joint anthropological problematizations. In these situations, the traditional tropes of the fieldwork encounter (i.e. immersion and distance) give way to a narrative of intervention, where the aesthetics of collaboration in the production of knowledge substitutes or intermingles with participant observation. Building on this, the book proposes the concept of “experimental collaborations” to describe and conceptualize this distinctive ethnographic modality.