In the Field
ALSO BY
George Gmelch and Sharon Bohn Gmelch
Irish Travellers: The Unsettled Life
Tasting the Good Life Wine Tourism in the Napa Valley
The Parish behind God’s Back: The Changing Culture of Rural Barbados
George Gmelch
Playing with Tigers: A Minor League Chronicle of the Sixties
Inside Pitch Life in Professional Baseball
The Irish Tinkers: The Urbanization of an Itinerant People
Behind the Smile: The Working Lives of Caribbean Tourism
Double Passage: The Lives of Caribbean Migrants Abroad and Back Home
Urban Life (with P. Kupinger)
In the Ballpark (with J. J. Weiner) The Working Lives of Baseball People
Baseball beyond Our Borders (with D. Nathan)
J. M. Synge in Wicklow, West Kerry & Connemara (with A. Saddlemyer)
To Shorten the Road (with B. Kroup): Folktales from Ireland's Travelling People
Sharon Bohn Gmelch
Nan: The Life of an Irish Travelling Woman
The Tlingit Encounter with Photography
Irish Life and Traditions
Gender on Campus
Tourists and Tourism (with A. Kaul)
Tinkers and Travellers (photographs by P. Langan and G. Gmelch)
In the Field
Life and Work in Cultural Anthropology
George Gmelch and Sharon Bohn Gmelch
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS
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University of California Press
Oakland, California
© 2018 by The Regents of the University of California
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Gmelch, George, author. | Gmelch, Sharon, author.
Title: In the field : life and work in cultural anthropology / George Gmelch and Sharon Bohn Gmelch.
Description: Oakland, California : University of California Press, [2018] | Includes bibliographical references and index. |
Identifiers: LCCN 2017050751 (print) | LCCN 2017056498 (ebook) | ISBN 9780520964211 (ebook) | ISBN 9780520289611 (cloth : alk. paper) | ISBN 9780520289628 (pbk. : alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Anthropology—Fieldwork. | Ethnology—Methodology.
Classification: LCC GN346 (ebook) | LCC GN346 .G54 2018 (print) | DDC 306.072/3—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017050751
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Contents
2.First Fieldwork: Irish Travellers
3.Politics and Fieldwork: Nomads in English Cities
4.Applying Anthropology in an Alaskan National Park
5.Studying Subsistence in Sitka
6.On the Move: Work and Mobility in Newfoundland
7.Native Anthropology: Studying the Culture of Baseball
8.Falling into Fieldwork in Japan
9.Photography and Film in Ireland and Alaska
10.Taking Students to the Field: Barbados
11.When the Field Is a City: Hobart, Tasmania
12.In the Shadow of Kilimanjaro: Students in Tanzania
13.Fieldwork from Campus
14.The Changing Nature of Fieldwork
Appendix Discussion Points
Notes
References
Index
Illustrations
2-1.Sharon and George Gmelch in Santa Barbara, California just before leaving for fieldwork, 1971
2-2.A typical unauthorized Traveller camp in Finglas, county Dublin
2-3.The late-morning routine at Holylands as people mobilize for work
2-4.Taking a lunch break on the road in county Wicklow
2-5.Ann Maughan prepares dinner for her family
3-1.An illegal Gypsy encampment next to St. Pancras railway station, London, 1981
3-2.Police and county council workers enforce a Traveller eviction in Leicester
3-3.Inside a Gypsy “flash” trailer at Appleby Horse Fair
4-1.The Alsek River and glacier viewed from a bush plane window
4-2.A Tlingit fisherman watches for salmon striking his gill net on the Alsek River
4-3.A fish camp on the Alsek River
5-1.Crescent Harbor, one of Sitka’s boat harbors
5-2.Some of the catch from subsistence salmon fishing
5-3.A