Ethnography
The Art of Emergency
Originating at a 2016 conference, the edited book “The Art of Emergency: Aesthetics and Aid in African Crisis” edited by Ndaliko and Andreson (2020) is a unique contribution. Admittedly this is not an area I’ve followed closely. Published by Oxford University Press, the book has a companion artistic website and covers a wide range of […]
The Seed Is Mine – The Life of Kas Maine
Written in 1997, following what sounds to be an extensive oral history data collection effort, Charles van Onselen wrote “The Seed is Mine”. The book brings to life the experiences of one, and one who might otherwise not have any other record in the written historical documents (exception on legal note). This book is an […]
Tags: #Apartheid #Ethnography #History #Oral History #South Africa
On the Commodity Trail
Alison Hulme’s “On the Commodity Trail: The Journey of a Bargain Store Product from East to West” (2015) tracks the geographies that products move within. Starting with an inquiry in Bargain Stores, Hulme begins in the dump in Shanghai, then to factories, over seas in containers and via global ports, back to the bargain store, […]
Becoming Legal
Ruth Gomberg-Munoz first book, Labor and Legality (2011), explores the lives of undocumented Mexicans living in Chicago. This book, Becoming Legal: Immigration Law and Mixed-Status Families (2017), explores the experiences of seeking legal status. The chapters follow the process, rooted in ethnographic research. The book is accessible. I used this book in a first-year undergraduate course […]
Labor and Legality
I spent much of the summer looking for good ethnographies that would be suitable for first year undergraduate students – essentially a book that is not written for anthropologists, not heavy with theory, while still presenting the value that ethnography can offer. Gomberg-Munoz’s Labor and Legality (2011) fit that well. The book also provides insight […]
Tags: #Anthropology #Ethnography #Mexico #Migration #United States
Growing Up in New Guinea – Margaret Mead
Margaret Mean is one of Anthropology’s focal early theorists. She has penned a number of books covering issues of childhood, gender, age and aging and sexuality. Amongst her fieldwork, she worked in New Guinea, during the period between WWI and WWII. The resulting book, “Growing Up in New Guinea” (1930) explores the educational process of […]
Tags: #Anthropology #Ethnographic #Ethnography #Growing Up in New Guinea #Margaret Mead
Fictions of Feminist Ethnography
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 […]
Tags: #Anthropology #Ethnography #Feminist #Intersectionality #Positionality
Social Hierarchy of Dawuro, Southern Ethiopia
A search on Amazon for books about the southern peoples of Ethiopia suggests a dearth of ethnographic publications. However, one key source of well-informed research that is rarely available to scholars outside of Ethiopia are publications produced by Ethiopian scholars and printed by national publishers. The Forum for Social Studies is one key place to […]
Tags: #Anthropology #Dawuro #Ethiopia #Ethnography #Social Hierarchy
Adventures in Aidland
Before picking up David Mosse’s “Adventures in Aidland: The Anthropology of Professionals in International Development” (2011), I had read one chapter and had high expectations that it would be an interesting read. I felt the book was torn between two topics that made it less cohesive, and some chapters felt revised to suit a new […]
Tags: #Aidland #Anthropology #Development Studies #Ethnography #International development
Funded PhDs: Energy Ethics
The Department of Social Anthropology at the University of St Andrews (UK) is advertising 2 PhD scholarships (4 years, full time, 100% UK/EU fee waiver with maintenance stipend of approx. £14,296/year (equivalent to a RCUK stipend) and conference/research expenses) to participate in an ERC-funded research project on the ethics of oil. The start date is […]
About me
Logan Cochrane
Associate Professor at HBKU in the College of Public Policy. He is an Associate Fellow of the Ethiopian Academy of Sciences and an Adjunct Professor at Hawassa University (Institute for Policy and Development Research). Over the last fifteen years, he has worked in Afghanistan, Benin, Burundi, Canada, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Egypt, Ethiopia, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda. Logan acts as a consultant for governmental agencies and non-governmental organizations, seeking to create bridges between research and practice.
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