Decentring Heritage through Una Europa
What does ‘heritage’ mean for different stakeholders? How can we problematise and decentre heritage from a multi-disciplinary perspective?
Author: Leidenanthropologyblog
Communicative Possibilities: Reflections on the Ethnographic Interview
In social scientific projects, methodology and ethics are inextricably linked. In this blog post, I explore how the ethnographic interview contains possibilities for both connection and rupture with…
Navigating Friendship, Care, and Collaboration in Spinal Cord Injury Research
How do we navigate the relationship between researcher and research assistant in anthropology, especially when that relationship is one of both friendship and research participation? In this piece,…
Rolling warm-ups, or writing up a book as if it were a skate session
Academia has systems to control knowledge production to safeguard its claims. But these systems need not control our playful criticality. Writing ethnographic texts as if they were a…
Grounded sprinting: Experiences with collaborative theorizing
How can social scientists work together with research participants to create new knowledge on issues of public concern? Our experiences studying Instagram with young adults showed us that…
Organizing a ‘listening circle’ in the field: speaking about inclusion and trust
Dutch policy practitioners seek to cooperate with citizens in ethno-racially diverse and disadvantaged neighborhoods. How does this turn out in the face of social inequalities and societal distrust?…
The Kuzine: How a Turkish Stove Makes a Home
In Turkish-Dutch allotment gardens, gardeners, family and friends gather around the kuzine. The stove forms the centerpiece of gatherings, but is also central in the intricate relationship between…
Body Management in the Field
We all want to do fieldwork well. But what do such “researcher mindsets” do to our bodies when conducting participatory observation? Anna Notsu and Jan Jansen address some…
Dreaming through Citizenship: Compromising and Remaking Power
Anthropology is a personal journey for many. Students learn to see society and their own lives in a different light, reflecting on many things that before were taken…
The longest Ethnography
In 1962 Djiguiba Camara asked his son Daouda to finish his manuscript of the region' history. Daouda dedicated his life to complete this politically highly sensitive manuscript, which…
Zine-making in Leiden: workshops on experimental print publications
Can academia still be fun and experimental? Maybe it can with the printing, folding, and collage techniques of zines. In two hands-on workshops, Sander Hölsgens and James McGrail…
Studying the Sensible Side of Love in the Netherlands
During last year’s Fieldwork NL course, second-year students conducted ethnographic research on maintenance. Inspired by U.A. Fanthorpe’s poem ‘Atlas’, they explored deathcare workers, millers, and au…
Oscar Salemink (1958-2023) – a Personal Tribute
My dear friend Oscar Salemink died in Copenhagen on September 23 after a prolonged struggle with myeloma cancer. He was outstandingly generous, mischievously funny, and an indomitably social…
Risks, Raisin Buns and Parenting
What are ‘real’ risks in life? What makes us afraid of the future and how do we perceive uncertainties? These cultural and philosophical questions came to my mind…
Expatriates or immigrants? Navigating in-between categories in the Netherlands
How do migrants navigate different identity categories, like ‘expatriates’ and ‘immigrants’? What power relations do these categories reproduce and challenge? Camila, Daniela, Maria, and Natacha condu…
When all positives are false: the emergence of an academic whodunnit
Many educators accept the idea that we need to systematically assess the performance of our students. Easily accessible writing tools complicate the practice of assessment: how do we…
Stop stereotyping ‘girls with a migration background’
In sport policy research and media reports, culture, ethnicity and religion are constantly framed as contradictory to sport participation. Jasmijn Rana and Kathrine van den Bogert argue that…
Towards a technical pedagogy
A coalition of educators believes that ChatGPT will kill the essay. But should we really fear the algorithms used in large language models? Anthropology has the generative potential…
Memory, loss and living in a post-disaster village
Eighteen years after the Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004, Annemarie Samuels visits her long-term research village in Aceh where old and new grief is met with prayer.
The dark humor of PhD life
Dark humor internet memes on Twitter show some of the emotions PhD students experience during their trajectory. This digital ethnographic blog reflects on these memes and what they…