#62 Job Fantasies, Working With Others, Extractive Calls & Reciprocity Revisited

The Familiar Strange

This week we bring you another zoom panel! Featuring Mike Dunford who is a Phd candidate in anthropology at the Australian National University and Sophie Chao who you might remember from our last panel and her interview on her work with the Marind People. To kick us off Alex [1:39] reflects on how we have to be performative in some ways to achieve what we want. Alex is in the process of applying for academic jobs and apparently “running a microbrewery that makes beer and liqueurs” and “running a bakery in Bali” aren’t acceptable answers to “Where do you see yourself in five years?” Alex asks the strangers, why aren’t those answers acceptable? How do we make them acceptable? What do you think? Where do you see yourself in 5 years? Next Sophie [6:47], ponders interdisciplinarity and asks how to best work and collaborate with researchers who work in the “hard” sciences. Sophie was inspired by her recent presentations at Sydney University’s"Interdisciplinarity in a More-Than-Human World”. With the current global pandemic, maybe we do need to be more collaborative? What do you think? How have you used other methods/collaborations with other disciplines in your work? Next Michael [13:07] discusses how our new online existence has affected his fieldwork. He has been feeling “extractive” and almost “forcing” interactions with his interlocutors. He asks us to consider what the different “levels” of e-communication mean and what the norms surrounding them are. Is a Zoom call more formal than a phone call? What do you think? Finally, Dee[18:09] asks about how reciprocity appeared throughout the strangers fieldwork and field experiences. She was inspired by one of our earlier blog posts which you can read here. She asks the strangers what some of their experiences with reciprocity in the field were? What sort of situations they ended up in because of the sense of “doing right” by someone who had helped them? What is the strangest situation you’ve been in during fieldwork because of reciprocity? Head to our website for a full list of links and citations! Don’t forget to head over to our Facebook group The Familiar Strange Chats. Let’s keep talking strange, together! If you like what we do and are in a position to do so, you can help us to keep making content by supporting us through Patreon. Our Patreon can be found at https://www.patreon.com/thefamiliarstrange This anthropology podcast is supported by the Australian Anthropological Society, the ANU’s College of Asia and the Pacific and College of Arts and Social Sciences, and the Australian Centre for the Public Awareness of Science, and is produced in collaboration with the American Anthropological Association. Music by Pete Dabro: dabro1.bandcamp.com Shownotes by Matthew Phung Podcast edited by Deanna Catto and Matthew Phung