Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-4rdpn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-14T04:45:42.253Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Chapter 9 - Painful Fieldwork?

Radical Empiricism and Ritual Performance in the Philippines

from Part II - Doing

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 February 2024

Tracy C. Davis
Affiliation:
Northwestern University, Illinois
Paul Rae
Affiliation:
University of Melbourne
Get access

Summary

This chapter covers an account of fieldwork among Filipino Roman Catholic ritual practitioners alongside those of phenomenologically inclined anthropologists and performance studies scholars, particularly those who have deployed a ‘radically empirical’ approach. The author examines how these scholars have channelled the vicissitudes and anxieties of fieldwork towards productive ethnographic insights. The radical empiricist project is particularly feasible in contexts in which ethnographers encounter less ‘rational’ but intrinsically human experiences such as pain, suffering, healing, and illness in the reenactment of Christ’s Passion. This chapter offers a reflection on the methodological feasibility of embodied and ‘distendedly reflexive’ approaches towards a more expansive understanding of religious pain and suffering.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2024

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Asad, T. (1986). ‘The Concept of Cultural Translation in British Social Anthropology’. In Clifford, J. & Marcus, G. E., Writing Culture: The Poetics and Politics of Ethnography. Berkeley: University of California Press, pp. 141–64.Google Scholar
Bautista, J. (2019). The Way of the Cross: Suffering Selfhoods in the Roman Catholic Philippines. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press.Google Scholar
Bautista, J., & Bräunlein, P. J. (2014). ‘Ethnography as an Act of Witnessing: Doing Fieldwork on Passion Rituals in the Philippines’. Philippine Studies: Historical and Ethnographic Viewpoints, 62(3), 501–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Behar, R. (1996). The Vulnerable Observer: Anthropology That Breaks Your Heart. Boston: Beacon Press.Google Scholar
Bowman, G. (1997). ‘Radical Empiricism: Anthropological Fieldwork after Psychoanalysis and the “Année Sociologique”’. Anthropological Journal on European Cultures, 6(2), 79107.Google Scholar
Cannell, F. (1995). ‘The Imitation of Christ in Bicol, Philippines’. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 1, 377–94.Google Scholar
Clifford, J., & Marcus, G. E., eds. (1986). Writing Culture: The Poetics and Politics of Ethnography. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Conquergood, D. (1991). ‘Rethinking Ethnography: Towards a Critical Cultural Politics’. Communication Monographs, 58(2), 179–94.Google Scholar
Conquergood, D. (2002). ‘Performance Studies: Interventions and Radical Research’. TDR: The Drama Review, 46(2), 145–56.Google Scholar
Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1990). Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. New York: Harper & Row.Google Scholar
Cupitt, R. (2018). ‘We Have Never Been Digital Anthropologists’. Anthro{dendum} (blog), 3 February. Accessed 11 October 2023. https://anthrodendum.org/2018/02/03/we-have-never-been-digital-anthropologists/.Google Scholar
Desjarlais, R. R. (1992). Body and Emotion: The Aesthetics of Illness and Healing in the Nepal Himalayas. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.Google Scholar
Droogers, A., & Knibbe, K. (2011). ‘Methodological Ludism and the Academic Study of Religion’. Method & Theory in the Study of Religion, 23(3), 283303.Google Scholar
Evans-Pritchard, E. E. (1976 [1937]). Witchcraft, Oracles, and Magic among the Azande. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Fabian, J. (1983). Time and the Other: How Anthropology Makes Its Object. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Farrer, D. (2007). ‘The Perils and Pitfalls of Performance Ethnography’. International Sociological Association E-Bulletin, 6, 1726.Google Scholar
Farrer, D. (2009). Shadows of the Prophet: Martial Arts and Sufi Mysticism. Dordrecht, Netherlands: Springer.Google Scholar
Garfinkel, H. (1967). Studies in Ethnomethodology. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.Google Scholar
Gatt, C. (2015). ‘The Anthropologist as Ensemble Member: Anthropological Experiments with Theatre Makers’. In Flynn, A. & Tinius, J., eds., Anthropology, Theatre, and Development: The Transformative Potential of Performance. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 334–56.Google Scholar
Gold, R. L. (1958). ‘Roles in Sociological Field Observations’. Social Forces, 36(3), 217–23.Google Scholar
Harrop, P., & Njaradi, D. (2013). Performance and Ethnography: Dance, Drama, Music. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Press.Google Scholar
Hastrup, K. (1995). A Passage to Anthropology: Between Experience and Theory. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Jackson, M. D. (1989). Paths toward a Clearing: Radical Empiricism and Ethnographic Enquiry. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Jackson, M. D. (2007). Excursions. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Jones, J. L. (2002). ‘Performance Ethnography: The Role of Embodiment in Cultural Authenticity’. Theatre Topics, 12(1), 115.Google Scholar
Junker, B. H. (1960). Field Work: An Introduction to the Social Sciences. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Larocco, S. (2016). ‘Pain as Semiosomatic Force: The Disarticulation and Rearticulation of Subjectivity’. Subjectivity, 9(4), 343–62.Google Scholar
Malinowski, B. (1922). Argonauts of the Western Pacific: An Account of Native Enterprise and Adventure in the Archipelagoes of Melanesian New Guinea. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Marcus, G. E., & Fischer, M. M. J. (1986). Anthropology as Cultural Critique: An Experimental Moment in the Human Sciences. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Nabhan-Warren, K. (2011). ‘Embodied Research and Writing: A Case for Phenomenologically Oriented Religious Studies Ethnographies’. Journal of the American Academy of Religion, 79(2), 378407.Google Scholar
Nordling, L. (2020). ‘Who Gets to Study Whom?’ SAPIENS: Anthropology Magazine, 17 July. Accessed 11 October 2023. www.sapiens.org/culture/anthropology-colonial-history/.Google Scholar
Rosaldo, R. (1989). Culture & Truth. Boston: Beacon Press.Google Scholar
Scarry, E. (1985). The Body in Pain: The Making and Unmaking of the World. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Scarry, E. (2000). ‘On Evil, Pain, and Beauty’. Interview by J. L. Geddes. Hedgehog Review, 2(2). Accessed 11 October 2023. https://hedgehogreview.com/issues/evil/articles/on-evil-pain-and-beauty-a-conversation-with-elaine-scarry.Google Scholar
Sharma, D. (2012). ‘Indigenous Performance Art Forms as Spaces for Social Reflection and Participatory Communication in Directed Social Change’. In Melkote, S. R., ed., Development Communication in Directed Social Change: A Reappraisal of Theory and Practice. Singapore: Asian Media Information and Communication Centre, pp. 169–96.Google Scholar
Shilling, C., & Mellor, P. A. (2010). ‘Saved from Pain or Saved through Pain? Modernity, Instrumentalization and the Religious Use of Pain as a Body Technique’. European Journal of Social Theory, 13(4), 521–37.Google Scholar
Spry, T. (2001). ‘Performing Autoethnography: An Embodied Methodological Praxis’. Qualitative Inquiry, 7(6), 706–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tyler, S. (1986). ‘Post-Modern Ethnography: From Document of the Occult to Occult Document’. In Clifford, J. & Marcus, G. E., eds., Writing Culture: The Poetics and Politics of Ethnography. Berkeley: University of California Press, pp. 122–40.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

  • Painful Fieldwork?
  • Edited by Tracy C. Davis, Northwestern University, Illinois, Paul Rae, University of Melbourne
  • Book: The Cambridge Guide to Mixed Methods Research for Theatre and Performance Studies
  • Online publication: 01 February 2024
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009294904.012
Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

  • Painful Fieldwork?
  • Edited by Tracy C. Davis, Northwestern University, Illinois, Paul Rae, University of Melbourne
  • Book: The Cambridge Guide to Mixed Methods Research for Theatre and Performance Studies
  • Online publication: 01 February 2024
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009294904.012
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Painful Fieldwork?
  • Edited by Tracy C. Davis, Northwestern University, Illinois, Paul Rae, University of Melbourne
  • Book: The Cambridge Guide to Mixed Methods Research for Theatre and Performance Studies
  • Online publication: 01 February 2024
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009294904.012
Available formats
×