Some of the strengths of feminist scholarship and feminist critique have become more widely utilized and adopted, often without recognition of their origins. Intersectionality and positionality are two examples of approaches of this sort. In many ways, Kamala Visweswaran's book "Fictions of Feminist Ethnography" (1994) is a reflection of the time period of its authoring – feminist critique and scholarship had been developing in the decade leading up to its publication. This series of essays engages with those works and with the author's own experiences in grappling with how these ideas might intersect with ethnographic research and ethnographic writing. The book is rich in references for anyone seeking a work that explores these questions within the broader literature (literally, as the title suggests, including works not normally included, from fiction to dairy).

Some notes:

• "If we have learned anything about anthropology's encounter with colonialism, the question is not really whether anthropologists can represent people better, but whether we can be accountable to people's own struggles fir self-representation and self-determination." (p. 32)

• "a feminist ethnography can consider how identities are multiple, contradictory, partial, and strategic. The underlying assumption is, of course, that the subject herself represents a constellation of conflicting social, linguistic, and political forces. Individual narratives can be seen as both expressive and ideological in nature. However, the category "experience" is utilized not to pin down the truth of any individual subject, but as a means of reading ideological contradictions. It could gauge the processes of subject constitution in the articulation of individual with master narratives." (p. 50)

• "those of us engaged in identifying ethnography may be moved by different sets of questions concerning power, domination, and representation; how we may ourselves be positioned (and not always by choice) in opposition to dominant discourses and structures of power. The oppositional sense of such ethnography shows that these questions are not only important, but indeed vital for reshaping the practice of anthropology, and point again to the double sense of "identifying ethnography." (p. 140)"
  

Benedict Anderson, author of the well-read "Imagined Communities" (1983), has authored a short autobiography / set of reflections called "A Life Beyond Boundaries" (2016). The book is an interesting read about his journey toward, and through, academia. The book was inspired by a request to share this experience with a Japanese audience, which was published in 2009, and was the foundation for the English version. I share three points relevant to students and emerging scholars:

On fieldwork:

"I began to realize something fundamental about fieldwork: that it is useless to concentrate exclusively on one's 'research project'. One has to be endlessly curious about everything, sharpen one's eyes and ears, and take notes about anything. This is the great blessing of this kind of work. The experience of strangeness makes all your senses much more sensitive than normal, and your attachment to comparison grows deeper. This is why fieldwork is also so useful when you return home. You will have developed habits of observation and comparison that encourage or force you to start noticing that your own culture is just as strange – provided you look carefully, ceaselessly compare, and keep your anthropological distance." (p. 101-102)

On positionality and language:

"it is good to think about one's own circumstances, class position, gender, level of type of education, age, mother language, etc., when doing comparisons. But these things can change. When you start to live in a country whose language you understand barely or not at all, you are obviously not in a good position to think comparatively, because you have little access to the local culture. You feel linguistically deprived, lonely and even isolated, and you hunt around for some fellow nationals to stick with. You cannot avoid making comparisons, but these are likely to be superficial and naïve. But then, if you are lucky, you cross the language wall, and find yourself in another world." (p. 131)

On research:

"The ideal way to start interesting research, at least in my view, is to depart from a problem or question to which you do not know the answer. Then you have to decide on the kind of intellectual tools (discourse analysis, theory of nationalisms, surveys, etc.) that may or may not be a help to you. But you have also to seek the help of friends who do not necessarily work in your discipline or program, in order to try and have as broad an intellectual culture as possible." (p. 154)

Michael VanRooyen's book (2016) "The World's Emergency Room: The Growing Threat to Doctors, Nurses, and Humanitarian Workers" presents a personal narratives of work in the humanitarian sector. While readers do gain glimpses of humanitarian work, and of the challenging settings staff work within, the book does not make a forceful argument about the growing threat to medical professionals (as the sub-title would imply). The book is an interesting read. It sheds light on the challenges of the sector, the author's interest and efforts to professionalize it, and specifically the work of the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative.

The context:

• "Today, nearly 60 million people have been displaced form their homes by war or catastrophe, more than at any time since World War II. While such huge numbers can feel abstract, the threats to families and communities are very real and very personal. Refugees live in makeshift shelters and temporary settlements, struggling day to day to survive. They have little food, not enough clean water, and few resources for health care for their children. Rates of malnutrition, diarrhea, and respiratory infection are exceptionally higher among refugees than among the population at large. The same is true for violent crimes like rape, abduction and human trafficking. Humanitarian aid works are often on the front lines of these conflicts."(p. 6)
  

Positionality:

• "Finally, I understood. I knew nothing of her struggles. I had come form relative wealth and privilege, had never known hunger or feared for my life. I carried a passport in my back pocket and could leave at any time. I had been indignant at the indifference of these women, but they were faced with an impossible dilemma… And I wasn't alone. I realized that most of us, despite our past experiences and good intentions, had little idea of the complexities we were facing in Somalia." (p. 48)
  

On changing situations:

• "… the US government made it clear that US-based NGOs receiving government funds were an integral part of the nation's foreign policy. As a result, the perception of these NGOs changed. They were now seen as extensions of the American government, and part of a strategy to improve global public opinion of the United States, rather than simply altruistic humanitarians. The use of aid to engender goodwill is neither new nor novel. But in the aftermath of 9/11, the use of foreign aid as an instrument to improve the public image of the United States and advance US foreign policy placed NGO personnel's lives in danger in a new way." (p. 107)
  

An improving sector?

• "Watching the humanitarian free-for-all unfold provided unwelcome evidence that the aid "industry" had not moved very far beyond the problems at the 1990s. The aid effort in Haiti was overrun by neophytes with good (and bad) intentions that reflected terribly on the entire aid community. My career had been built on the notion that we could professionalize humanitarian aid responses. But, the onslaught of novice agencies, inexperienced surgical teams, and disaster tourists created what seemed to be an overwhelming problem that no amount of training or organization could change." (p. 151)

• "This lack of on-the-spot sharing of information is not only common, but the norm. As a result, organizations have no ability to learn from each other on the ground in real time. The opportunity to coordinate is lost almost immediately. Dozens of organizations work alongside each other, but they can't provide their information to each other, to local providers, or to the ministry of health. This pattern of aid agencies rushing to the field to gather their own information for their own programs creates a cycle of un-coordination and non-collaboration." (p. 173)

• "The response to the Haiti and the Ebola crises revealed the dangers of novice aid. Freshly minted NGOs will inevitably respond to future emergencies in similar ways, pushing into the field in an effort to make their name and providing aid solutions without a sense of professional accountability. These efforts will consume aid dollars and create little in the way of lasting, sustainable solutions – and sometimes not even adequate short-term solutions." (p. 184)