Anthropology students in Taiwan’s National Chengchi University (NCCU) have collaborated to publish a new collection of fieldwork stories unveiling what's behind the scenes of ethnographic fieldwork with Southeast Asian migrant communities in Taiwan and beyond.
In this collection temporarily translated as "Settling Down in a Strange Land" (異地安身), readers are introduced to stories, including the real-life experiences of Chinese matrimonial immigrants in Taiwan, Vietnamese migrants’ religious practice, Chinese diaspora in Northern Thailand, among others. The authors also weave in the researchers’ cross-cultural encounters with Southeast Asian migrant communities and disclose their ruminations on conducting fieldwork with interviewees at the same time.
The book was born out of a research methodology graduate seminar regularly led by the Ethnology Professor Kao Ya-ning (高雅寧) at NCCU. Kao explains that the most intriguing thing about anthropological fieldwork is the researcher’s personal reflections in the so-called “backstage” of ethnographic research. In addition to storytelling, anthropologists are often urged to think about the perspectives they use to tell a story and the reasons they choose to write about certain topics.
The book launch will be held on Aug 26 at Brilliant Time Bookstore and Sep 17 at Fembook in Taipei. Interested readers are encouraged to join, meet, and discuss with the authors.