| The Politics of Fieldwork: Research in an American Concentration Camp Contributor(s): Hirabayashi, Lane Ryo (Author) |
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ISBN: 0816521468 ISBN-13: 9780816521463 Publisher: University of Arizona Press OUR PRICE: $21.80 Product Type: Paperback - Other Formats Published: September 2000 Annotation: When Japanese Americans were incarcerated by the federal government during World War II, Japanese American field assistants were sent to conduct ethnographic research within the camps. This book examines the experience of Tamie Tsuchiyama, a doctoral student assigned to the Colorado River Relocation Center at Poston, Arizona. Drawing from her personal letters, fieldnotes, reports, and interviews, Lane Hirabayashi reconstructs the daily life, fieldwork methodology, and politics of residents and researchers at the camp and reveals the pressures that led to Tsuchiyama's resignation, in protest, from the project. |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - History | Military - World War Ii - Social Science | Anthropology - Cultural & Social |
| Dewey: 940.547 |
| Physical Information: 0.55" H x 6.16" W x 9.18" (0.74 lbs) 232 pages |
| Themes: - Chronological Period - 1940's |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: During World War II, over thirty American anthropologists participated in empirical and applied research on more than 110,000 Japanese Americans subjected to mass removal and incarceration by the federal government. While that experience has been widely discussed, what has received little critical attention are the experiences of the Japanese and Japanese American field assistants who conducted extensive research within the camps. How did these field researchers carry out data collection in American-style concentration camps? What kinds of constraints and pressures did they face? How did they respond to practical, ethical, and political challenges? In addressing these questions, author Lane Hirabayashi examines the case of the late Dr. Tamie Tsuchiyama. At the time an advanced doctoral student in anthropology, Tsuchiyama was hired in 1942 to conduct ethnographic fieldwork for the University of California at Berkeley's Japanese American Evacuation and Resettlement Study. Drawing from personal letters, ethnographic fieldnotes, reports, interviews, and other archival sources, The Politics of Fieldwork describes Tsuchiyama's experiences as a researcher at Poston, Arizona--a.k.a. the Colorado River Relocation Center. The book relates the daily life, fieldwork methodology, and politics of the residents and researchers at the Poston camp, as well as providing insight into the pressures that led to Tsuchiyama's ultimate resignation, in protest, from the JERS project in 1945. Facilitating the critical analysis of Tsuchiyama's role in the JERS research are questions regarding the relationships between Japanese American research and the nature of colonial science that merit discussion in contemporary field research. A multidisciplinary synthesis of anthropological, historical, and ethnic studies perspectives, The Politics of Fieldwork is rich with lessons about the ethics and politics of ethnographic fieldwork. |