The Experience of Ethnographic Fieldwork in an English Benedictine Monastery: Or, Not Playing at Being a Monk
What is the role of imitation in ethnographic fieldwork, and what are its limits? This article explores what it means to participate in a particular fieldsite; a Catholic English Benedictine monastery. A discussion of the importance of hospitality in the life of the monastery shows how the guest bec...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Equinox
[2010]
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| In: |
Fieldwork in religion
Year: 2010, Volume: 5, Issue: 2, Pages: 221-235 |
| Further subjects: | B
Ethnography
B Hospitality B Participation B Silence B Monasticism B Work B Catholicism |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (Resolving-System) Volltext (doi) |
| Summary: | What is the role of imitation in ethnographic fieldwork, and what are its limits? This article explores what it means to participate in a particular fieldsite; a Catholic English Benedictine monastery. A discussion of the importance of hospitality in the life of the monastery shows how the guest becomes a point of contact between the community and the wider society within which that community exists. The peripheral participation of the ethnographer as monastic guest is not about becoming incorporated, but about creating a space within which knowledge can be communicated. By focusing on the process of re-learning in the monastery - in particular, relearning how to experience silence and work - I discuss some of the ways in which the fieldwork experience helped me to reassess the social world to which I would return. |
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| ISSN: | 1743-0623 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Fieldwork in religion
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1558/firn.v5i2.221 |