Studying On Alevism as a Non-Alevi Researcher: Multi-Sited Ethnography on the Context of Migration Yet At Home

• Main Author: Besim Can Zırh
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Hacettepe University 2017-06-01
• Series: Momentdergi
• Subjects: etnografi; evde antropoloji; yöntem; alevilik; göç
• Online Access: http://www.momentdergi.org/index.php/momentdergi/article/view/226

<p>This paper aims to contribute to a debate on the ethnographic methodology from a multi-sited research I conducted among my nationals at-home-abroad. During the 1980s, debates on this newly emerging research position, commonly known as, “anthropology at home,” became institutionalized and this issue inevitably lead to reconsideration of the knowledge production in anthropology. Before adressing this issue, I will attempt to define methodological inclinations of ethnography in the light of Malinowski’s pioneering portrayal, which has bequeathed us two significant questions: (a) how to locate the role of “shock of otherness” in producing anthropological knowledge and (b) how to understand the “field” imagined as the natural scene of this production. At the end of the paper, I will focus more on my own ethnographic experience as a non-Alevi researcher among fellow nationals (Alevis) in various locales at home (Turkey) and abroad (Europe) to be able to discuss the issue of “anthropology at home” in the case of Turkey.   </p>