ANTHMETHGRP2-2425-YILIN-LEI

[Last modified: December, 5 2024 05:53 PM]

This week, my writing will be about ethics advice that I would give as a member of the Anthropology Ethics Committee to a student that proposes to study the indigenous experience and perception of indigenous land rights in Brazil. The student plans to collect information on political opinions and life experiences of his/her/their interlocutors.

First, the study entails high risk for the interlocutors, as the issue around indigenous land rights is very contentious and the impact of the research could lead to risks of those who’re involved.  And the student should make sure that the benefits of the research must outweigh the risks and no harm should be incurred. The potential of the research in raising awareness of the issue of indigenous rights must be weighed against the risks incurred on interlocutors who might become targets of the far-right state or groups.

One big concern in the proposed research is the participants’ ability to give free and informed consent. First, there are power relations between the economically powerful student and the indigenous interlocutors, with the former being potentially able to give economic rewards to the latter for their participation in the research. And the student may represent knowledge and authority in relation to the interlocutors. The language barrier and the practicality of complete mutual understandings of the impact of the research may significantly undermine the confidence in the consent collection. The student should also contact the relevant local authorities and/or universities to make sure that an adequate ethical approval will be in place.

Granting that free and informed consent is possible, there are critical steps the student has to take in order to uphold the ethical standards. First, the student must inform the interlocutors how the research is going to be disseminated. This is also related to the sensitive nature of the issue, which is politically contentious and the personal opinions the student aims at collecting may endanger the interlocutors once the information shared publicly. Second, when such information is collected, the student has to make sure that the way the data is stored is secure and no incidental leak would happen and then lead to the aforementioned danger to the interlocutors. Third, the names of the participants should be pseudonymised to prevent the interlocutors from being identified by potential groups that may cause harm. And if activists the student is going to interview ask to have their names unchanged, there needs to be serious consideration of when it would be safe to do so.

[Last modified: November, 26 2024 09:50 PM]

This week I will be writing about the mini field work I carried out during the Friday seminar at the food market on Tottenham Court Road. The focus will be on an ethnography based on senses, making it an exploration in multimodal anthropology.

The nice smell of food was perhaps the most powerful element of the food markets, extending its existence beyond the corner where the food market is situated. That is perhaps one of the reasons that made me choose it in the first place.

The moment I arrived at the market I felt relaxed. It was the American jazz music in the air as well as the hospitality from those who work at the food stalls. A man working at the Turkish food stall was giving away free samples to passers-by. Though a business strategy as it is, the fact that they talked to me definitely made me feel more positive towards this place than a common enfranchised food shop. The layout of the space definitely helped fostering the friendly environment. The food market is situated along the alleyway into another street, with food stalls standing back to back. All that makes it spontaneous and cozy, making it definitely an attraction in the city and contrasting with the fast moving vehicle on the orderly road. On a cold but bright winter day, it was a choice by many to have the lunch or breakfast at.

I ended up buying a vegetarian Turkish filled pancakes which cost me £10. This was not that affordable, which helps explain the demographics of the customers here. At the time when I was there, the customers were made up of a white majority and a significant proportion of them also seem to be either finance professionals and university students from nearby universities (most likely UCL). The humanistic atmosphere and nice arrangement of the public space may have made the space attractive for consumers. But at the same time, the space entails different meanings for different people.

One can easily identify the radicalisation in the buyer-seller relationships, in addition to the economic power held by the consumers. There was a significant proportion of people coming from the Middle East amongst those who work at the food stalls. And I did not have time to understand more about the meaning of the food market for them. It would be great to know what travelling far from home and working in a London ‘world food’ market is like and what kinships are like for people who work and live together in the communities.

[Last modified: November, 26 2024 08:54 AM]

This week I will explore using my own body as a tool for ethnography. I shall focus on meditation, as this is something that I practice both for psychological and religious reasons and have been able to enlighten my understanding of the ‘temple’ that my senses resides.

Meditation, as widely known and practised as it is in England now, has a long history in religions like Buddhism. I first knew of meditation and practised it to help me relax from stress and improve my sleep. Later as became a Buddhist (Mahayana), meditation became one of the most important practices that I am supposed practice. Meditation normally involves sitting down (sometimes lying down in modern versions) somewhere quite and comfortable and the practitioner often should close their eyes renunciate from the sensations that disrupt their mind and focus instead on their own breath. Often in this process one should examine the stress and uncomfortableness throughout the body and try to ease them.

When I meditate, there most interesting or perhaps challenging issue is how I deal with my thoughts. Living in a modern megacity, I am so used to process indefinite amount of information and my mind often wanders about and this brings about many emotions and stress. When I sit down, quiet, and close my eyes, with music, suttra chanting or meditation guidance, my old habits would come back – though my body becomes quite and tranquil, my mind would often remain troubled by the thoughts that keeps kicking back in. The work in meditation, here it comes, is not me trying to suppress the thoughts, neither should I go along with the thoughts and turn the meditation into rumination. What I do in this case I that I try to let my thoughts flow.

As abstract as it sounds, this basically means trying to refocus  my focus back onto my breath, whenever there is something catchy that comes into my mind. Instead of fighting the thoughts, I should acknowledge its existence without engaging with it. This process involves a lot of strength and skills. As the thoughts in my mind can often be tempting, disturbing or absorbing, to be able to reject engagement and refocus on my breath often poses a significant challenge. But I often feel my body is emptied during the process and every refocus is felt by me like a reward of a practice. Soon the body becomes in a way porous and the sensations that troubled me would fade away to a large extent. The body even becomes like a tree, where leaves dance with a soothing rhythm that is my breath.

Meditation often also involves body-scanning, and this often helps remind me of the stress, numbness and tiredness hidden in parts of my body. The natural response would be to repress it so that I could carry on the tasks of my day. But the best way would instead be going along with it. The most interesting thing is that I often realise how stiffen my chin is when I am stressed. Releasing the body parts often release the overdue sleepiness, too.

My body under meditation is an interesting subject as it reminds me how often the feelings I have is transitory and can be mediated trough the action that I constantly do – breathing – and the only thing I need is mindfulness of it.

[Last modified: November, 26 2024 08:54 AM]

This week I will consider the political dimensions of my pilot project – Buddhism and Ecology. I will consider the political orientation and assumption, my political positionality as well as potential political implication of my study.

I assume my pilot project to take place in a Buddhist monastery in the UK. Now I will explain the political orientation and assumption of my research. First, my research is based on the political orientation that the natural environment ought to be protected; the relationship between human and non-human beings are crucial consideration; an alternative ideology (or ontology) is required to resist the pervasive capitalist way of living. And the political assumption is that the Buddhist interlocutors are concerned with the ecological crises faced by human beings today and have distinctive methods to deal with such issues. In addition, there is an assumption that the religiosity of Buddhism has to do with the ecological attitudes and practices of my interlocutors.

And I am positioned as a Buddhist follower as the researcher. This, on the one hand, may help me work with my interlocutors and engage with them in my field work, due to my closeness to the community and basic understandings of the religion. On the other hand, this may mean that I could be carrying my presumptions into my research, and this is something I should keep reflecting on. Yet, being a Buddhist may not still explain everything about my positionality. I am also green and progressive minded, and what made me a Buddhist in the first place may be different from that of my interlocutors. I may not find what I expected to see, as a result. There may also be critical differences between my Buddhism and my interlocutors’ Buddhism due to sectarian differences or individualised understandings. This is also what I should keep in mind when conducting my research and I should take these potential differences seriously.

Now I will consider the political implication of my research. This could be positive. My research may be able to help people know more about the intersection between Buddhism and environment protection and environmentalism. It could even foster understandings from those who do not identify with a progressive political agenda yet agree to the Buddhist approach to nature. At the same time, my research could potentially politicise normal religious activities which may not be the wish of my interlocutors and could even lead to some disagreement amongst individuals. Whether or not this is what my interlocutors want needs to be found out later during the study.

[Last modified: October, 23 2024 10:17 AM]

This time, I would like to explore the effects of my privileges through some field experience reflections. I am a man and from a relatively economically stable household in China. This is likely to make me insulated from many issues that women struggle with in different parts of the world, including where I am from. This may lead to my lack of awareness of the everyday or even more fierce oppression against woman and instead ‘naturally’ focus on other aspects in my research. I need to constantly reflect on my ability to stay up to a progressive feminist research approach.

Similarly, my class privilege would likely affect my ability to understand and resonate with my potential interlocutors from worse-off economic backgrounds. I had a unforgettable experience is when I set foot onto the most affordable (green-cover 绿皮) trains in China I would normally encounter the long-distance travellers who work in remote and economically more developed regions. I had to spend a night sitting with them on the green-cover train. On that journey people were ready to sit in the train for dozens of hours to travel across the countries, with some constantly seeking to lie down when there are spaces or sit on the floor for a nap. Most people prepared a big plastic bag of snacks with sometimes instant noodles for food. And the smokers would light up there cigratte in the conjunctions between carriages even though smoking is not really allowed on the train. But those places became a social space for men who smoke.

Shocked and annoyed by the smell of cigarette, I still noticed many things I did not even get to see before. I saw people easily find topics to discuss with each other and bond with the commonalities especially through the word Laoxiang 老乡 which means ‘people from the same place / old countrymen’. I was touched also by the fact that staff members working on the train were very friendly towards the people they likely identify as ‘Laoxiang’ and there is not the common professional coldness I would expect to see from perhaps any train staff.

Still, I found the train experience uncomfortable and I very much did not like it at all. This really speaks to me about how a certain kind of comfortableness is normalised in my life and I had only started to enter into a world that certainly deserves a lot of social and academic attention. After all, it was the same people who built up the China we see today.

[Last modified: October, 9 2024 09:38 AM]

In the first week of my study at UCL Environmental Anthropology, I have been able to familiar myself with the basics of the different modules I am taking. And this has inspired me to think more about the research project I will be doing at the end of the degree.

Throughout this Anthropological Methods module, I would like to use the pilot project as a model for my final research project. And currently I plan to work on Buddhism and Ecology. My motivation of doing such a research is based on my long-term interest in anthropogenic ecological problems. And through some readings in human ecology, I was able to identify the deontological features of the ‘capitalist modernity’. And this inspires me to learn and experience different ways of living in the world, which connects people differently to the living environment.

My research question will be looking at how traditional Buddhist views influence followers’ relationship with their living environment and how this has been adjusted for today’s society.

One interesting aspect of looking at Buddhism and ecology is that in Buddhist beliefs, all creatures are equal. And this also is reflected in the fact that for practitioners in some branches of Buddhism, it is against the precepts to kill animals or eat meat.

At the same time, for the religion to adjust itself to the need of contemporary life, it will be interesting to see how they respond to big issues such as climate change and pollution, which definitely does harm to a lot of innocent people. This would then be against basic Buddhist ethos.

One alternative to what has been stated above is to look at the livelihoods of Tibetan communities living in Qinghai Province, China. One important aspect to consider here is how globalisation, neoliberal economic arrangements have affected rural and urban communities living there. And similarly, it is crucial to look at how the belief system of Buddhism makes a difference, if it does, to the relationship between the Qinghai Tibetans and their living environment.

For both research projects, I should be looking at how individual behaviours regarding the environment are linked to the understandings of the roles of Buddhists in the world. It would be interesting to see if there is connection between the popular practice of vegetarian diet (if there is one in China) and Buddhist activities. Other issues include EVs, recycling, consumption and so on.

[Last modified: October, 1 2024 05:57 PM]

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