Object structure
Title:

“You Speak Ukrainian Very Well”. Language Encounters during Ethnographic Fieldwork

Creator:

Kosiek, Tomasz

Publisher:

Instytut Archeologii i Etnologii Polskiej Akademii Nauk

Place of publishing:

Warszawa

Date issued/created:

2023

Description:

24 cm

Type of object:

Journal/Article

Subject and Keywords:

Ukrainian minority ; Poland ; Romania ; language ; Ukrainian ; fieldwork ; methodology

Abstract:

Some students of anthropology must be familiar with passages from Bronisław Malinowski’s work (1981), in which, based on his personal field experience gained in the Trobriand Islands, he formulated guidelines and postulates defining a new type of research method in social anthropology. One of the most important aspects of Malinowski’s methodological manifesto was drawing attention to the fact that the language of the studied community is a necessary tool. Malinowski strongly emphasised that ethnographers cannot explore the culture of the studied communities, and especially their “spirit”, without knowing the language of the local people. Thus, the ability to speak the respondents’ language, in addition to long-term research, became a rubric for ethnographic studies. In this article, the starting point for the reflection on ethnographic presence in the field is the language and the ethnographer’s level of linguistic (in)competence. Using my own research experience as an example, I show that the language of locals spoken by ethnographers is not only a tool for communication with fieldwork partners, but also that the very use of this language and the level of its competence or the use of its specific variants can become, if ethnographic reflexivity is maintained, the subject of observation and reflection, revealing selected aspects of the explored community and its culture.

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Relation:

Etnografia Polska

Volume:

67

Issue:

1-2

Start page:

197

End page:

212

Resource type:

Text

Detailed Resource Type:

Article

Format:

application/octet-stream

Resource Identifier:

0071-1861 ; e-ISSN: 2719-6534 ; doi:10.23858/EP67.2023.3417

Source:

IAiE PAN, call no. P 326 ; IAiE PAN, call no. P 327 ; IAiE PAN, call no. P 325 ; click here to follow the link

Language:

eng

Rights:

Creative Commons Attribution BY 4.0 license

Terms of use:

Copyright-protected material. [CC BY 4.0] May be used within the scope specified in Creative Commons Attribution BY 4.0 license, full text available at: ; -

Digitizing institution:

Institute of Archaeology and Ethnology of the Polish Academy of Sciences

Original in:

Library of the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnology of the Polish Academy of Sciences

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