The moment ethnography becomes past: De-temporalising ethnographic nostalgia

Theodossopoulos, Dimitrios (2020) The moment ethnography becomes past: De-temporalising ethnographic nostalgia. In: Simpson, Robert and Kirtsoglou, Elisabeth, eds. The Time of Anthropology: Studies of Contemporary Chronopolitics. Bloomsbury, London, UK. ISBN 978-1-350-12582-7. (Access to this publication is currently restricted. You may be able to access a copy if URLs are provided) (KAR id:77579)

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Abstract

In this chapter, I use the analytical notion of ‘ethnographic nostalgia’ to make visible some of the time distortions effected on ethnography by what is written before. I define ethnographic nostalgia as a desire to locate those we study within an ethnographic field, our longing and aspiration to capture the ethnographic present as this has been previously described by a particular academic literature. Ethnographic nostalgia captures the structuring effect of previous ethnographic knowledge on ethnographic production in the present: our inclination to see the people we study through the lens of the books we have read about them; or the degree to which our choice of research topics (and our privileging of certain parts of social reality as an object of study) is structured by our respective fields.

Item Type:	Book section
Uncontrolled keywords:	ethnographic nostalgia, bias in ethnography, temporality, allochromism, crisis of representation
Subjects:	G Geography. Anthropology. Recreation > GN Anthropology
Institutional Unit:	Schools > School of Natural Sciences > Conservation
Former Institutional Unit:	Divisions > Division of Human and Social Sciences > School of Anthropology and Conservation
Depositing User:	Dimitrios Theodossopoulos
Date Deposited:	18 Oct 2019 09:51 UTC
Last Modified:	20 May 2025 12:27 UTC
Resource URI:	https://kar.kent.ac.uk/id/eprint/77579 (The current URI for this page, for reference purposes)

University of Kent Author Information

Theodossopoulos, Dimitrios.

Creator's ORCID:	https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8453-3450
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