TY - JOUR

T1 - Fieldwork meets crisis: Introduction

AU - Göpfert, Mirco

AU - Behrends, Andrea

AU - Kirsch, Thomas G

AU - Nguyen, Minh T. N

AU - Ramella, Anna Lisa

AU - Stodulka, Thomas

AU - Treiber, Magnus

AU - Vonderau, Asta

PY - 2022

Y1 - 2022

N2 - In May 2021, one of us, Mirco Göpfert, received a handwritten letter from Ugandavia his professional postal address. It was written by a young girl, it said, whose fatherhad passed away from HIV/AIDS, whose mother had died in a storm, and who wasleft with her two younger brothers, with neither shelter nor garden, in a village thathad been ravaged by the storm that had killed their mother. Prior to the deaths ofher parents, she had been attending college for a three-year course in midwifery untilthe college was closed ‘due to the Corona virus, which attacked the world’. This letterwas captivating. For one thing, after a year of the continuous and ever-increasingvirtualization of communication in teaching, research and private communications,the physical immediacy of the handwritten letter almost felt like a blow to thestomach. And unlike most of the unsolicited emails most of us are familiar with,in which people unknown to oneself are asking for financial assistance in responseto particular situations of personal, regional or national crisis affecting someonesomewhere, this letter referred to a crisis that hit everyone everywhere.

AB - In May 2021, one of us, Mirco Göpfert, received a handwritten letter from Ugandavia his professional postal address. It was written by a young girl, it said, whose fatherhad passed away from HIV/AIDS, whose mother had died in a storm, and who wasleft with her two younger brothers, with neither shelter nor garden, in a village thathad been ravaged by the storm that had killed their mother. Prior to the deaths ofher parents, she had been attending college for a three-year course in midwifery untilthe college was closed ‘due to the Corona virus, which attacked the world’. This letterwas captivating. For one thing, after a year of the continuous and ever-increasingvirtualization of communication in teaching, research and private communications,the physical immediacy of the handwritten letter almost felt like a blow to thestomach. And unlike most of the unsolicited emails most of us are familiar with,in which people unknown to oneself are asking for financial assistance in responseto particular situations of personal, regional or national crisis affecting someonesomewhere, this letter referred to a crisis that hit everyone everywhere.

KW - Cultural studies

UR - https://www.dgska.de/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Inhaltsverz_ZfE_147.pdf

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85170559903&partnerID=8YFLogxK

M3 - Other (editorial matter etc.)

VL - 147

SP - 1

EP - 12

JO - Zeitschrift für Ethnologie

JF - Zeitschrift für Ethnologie

SN - 0044-2666

IS - 1-2

ER -