Workshop 12
Between Identity and
Alterity: Engaging in Shared
Experiences of Everyday
Life
Convenors:
Dona Lee Davis,
University of South Dakota, Vermillion
Anne Sigfrid
Grønseth, University of Trondheim
Discussants:
Bruce Kapferer,
University of Bergen
Lisette Josephides,
Queen‘s University Belfast
In a world characterised by
the dual and shifting forces of
heterogeneity,
homogenisation, increased violence, and
forced migration, there is
a need to stimulate forms of human
understanding that promote
mutuality and peaceful co-existence.
Participants will address
’engaged’ forms of communication and
understanding in
anthropological fieldwork. These are variously
described as tacit
knowledge, empathy, intuition, mutuality and/
or intersubjectivity. Tacit
knowledge as a form of understanding
comes from face to face
relations in the everyday realm of living.
Shared experiences are not
necessarily openly expressed or
cognitively elaborated;
instead, they rest in intuition as well as
shared sensual, bodily, and
heartfelt experiences that promote
respect, compassion and
empathy. The participants in this session
are requested to present
and reflect on the kinds of engagement
or intersubjectivity that
they have realised in their own fieldwork.
Special attention will be
paid to evaluating tacit knowledge
and mutual embodied
experiences. These provide sources of
anthropological data as
well as insight into forms of interpersonal
communication that may lie
beyond the realm of spoken words.
The session will include
anthropologists of different nationalities,
theoretical and
methodological orientations, who are at different
stages of their careers.
Sharing Experiences with
Tamil Refugees in Northern Norway:
Body and Emotion as
Methodological Tools
Anne Sigfrid
Grønseth, University of Trondheim
The Status of
“Non-Existing” Knowledge
Anne Kathrine Larsen,
University of Trondheim
Sharing Dreams:
Involvement in the Other’s Cosmology
Guido Sprenger, Academia
Sinica, Taipei
Using Storytelling to
Describe and Analyse Fieldwork Experiences
of Knowledge Generation
Theresa Anderson,
University of Technology, Sydney
I-We, Me-You, Us-Them:
Navigating the Hyphens of
Intersubjectivity Among
Sets of Identical Twins
Dona Lee Davis, University
of South Dakota
Dorothy Davis, University
of North Carolina at Greensboro
Cultivating Knowledge:
Exploring Gardeners‘ Spoken and
Unspoken Worlds
Jane Nadel-Klein, Trinity
College
Cultural Seascapes as
Embodied Knowledge
Anita Maurstad, University
of Tromsoe
Getting Tamed to Silent
Rules: Experiencing ‘the Other‘ in Apiao,
Southern Chile
Giovanna Bacchiddu,
University of St Andrews