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Re: Being "ethnicized"
Fiona Moore (al772@FREENET.CARLETON.CA)
Fri, 23 Dec 1994 18:37:40 -0500
>
>>
>>Have you become "ethnicized" by your fieldwork? Do you live/act/think
>>differently as a result? Is there anything in the lit on this process?
>>I'm not talking about the classic slur "going native"; I find that I
>>welcome people to my house differently, I express thanks differently, I
>>even drive differently as a result of my experiences. >> >>Cliff >> >As
I didn't mention this when I first saw this post on the grounds that this
isn't a fieldwork story, but as a teenager I lived in Germany for a while
on an exchange, with a family who spoke almost no english. I found I had a
"culture shock" type experience when I came back; my table manners were
German, my food tastes were German, and I had some difficulty formulating
tsentences in English (even now, four years later, I have a tendency to
break into German when excited). I was told at the time that this is
pretty much normal, and I have lost a lot of these "eccentricities" over
time-- but it was almost as interesting coming back as going out, let me
tell you!
Fiona
al772@freenet.carleton.ca
"the world is designed to drive us mad" -Kenneth Bartlett
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