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  • Using the metaphor of beach crossings made famous by ethno-historian Greg DENING (2004), in this article I reflect on my first experience of ethnographic fieldwork. In the article I document how, as a doctoral student investigating 19th century missionary activity, I transitioned from archival to field-based research on the southern Vanuatu island of Tanna in 1975, completed my PhD two years later, and have continued to develop my relations with the Tannese to the present. I argue that this reflects, not only the notable capacity of the Tannese to embrace strangers, but also the extraordinary bond I forged with one "informant", David KAUKARE. I describe how more than any other person it was David, a primary school teacher at an isolated east coast village, who mediated my crossing into a society profoundly different from my own. In the article I explore how together we negotiated the crossings between our interconnecting and shifting worlds - sometimes mindfully, but more often than not serendipitously. In focusing on those initial encounters, I reflect on how prepared - and unprepared - we both were for the experience, and the impact it had on our sense of self and connection with the world. (xsd:string)
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  • 2022 (xsd:gyear)
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  • 2022 (xsd:gyear)
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  • 10.17169/fqs-23.1.3836 ()
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  • en (xsd:string)
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  • 1438-5627 ()
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  • 1 (xsd:string)
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  • The Ethnographer Unbared: Crossing Beaches of the Mind on Tanna (xsd:string)
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  • Zeitschriftenartikel (xsd:string)
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  • GESIS-SSOAR (xsd:string)
  • In: Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung / Forum: Qualitative Social Research, 23, 2022, 1 (xsd:string)
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  • 23 (xsd:string)