Karl Andersson

Anthropologist

Still from Unreal Boys in Glasnik

PhD week 10: 22-28 November 2021

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The Slovene Ethnological Society published a still from Unreal Boys (or Imaginarní fantje as the film is called in Slovenian – I like it!) in their journal Glasnik to represent their article on Days of Ethnographic Film. I love so much in this photo: I’m sitting comfortably on the floor, shotgun mic in my hand, talking to my research participant who is in his office chair at his desk. Solomon behind the camera has captured me, in his unintrusive, intuitive filming style, in the moment of an important insight that became the main finding of my thesis. Fieldwork at its best!

Japanese test

I spent most time this week practicing my Japanese, since I had a personal Japanese evaluation test over Zoom on Thursday morning. The results will go into the application that I worked on last week and which I finished and sent off on Thursday afternoon this week.

I think the test went fine! It was a bit of grammar (particles) in the beginning, but then mostly reading (my weakest side), then listening (to a news reportage), and lastly 20 minutes of conversation. Writing came in naturally as I had to summarise both the reading and the listening with my own words. No multiple choice questions at all! Some kanji reading questions as well, which was superfun, because I love kanji and I’m good at them.

The test was quite similar to the one I took three years ago at FU. Then I “failed miserably”, and that was mainly due to the fact that I couldn’t write kanji by hand! I was used to only writing on computers, where kanji are suggested to you as you type. Since then, a revolution has happened in my Japanese learning, and that revolution is spelled Heisig and his book Remember the Kanji – I started the method in April 2020 and it changed my life. I was bad in other areas too, and ever since that failed placement test in 2019 I have studied Japanese actively and improved. No matter how I did on the test this week, the improvement was real and that felt good.

Schedule

I think it can be seen from the schedule that this week was a bit off. Last week was so busy with the Queer autoethnography course and the SVA Film and Media Festival, which ended with Zoom Q&A’s (where I was the one Q’ed) on both Saturday and Sunday, and writing a great funding application on top of that, so I think I needed to do less this week, and that’s why the days – for the first time! – don’t line up at a nice 8 hours of work per day.

Was invited to O for coffee on Tuesday – good talk. Dinner out on Friday with A, Ale and C. Visited birthday boy P on Saturday. I’ve spent the weekend sorting out stuff, getting lighter. And some very good news from S that means so much.

PhD week 10: 22-28 November 2021. Looks a bit chaotic? Or slacky?

Lovely walks every day.

Readings

Queer autoethnography essay (QA X)

  • Johnson, Amber. 2014. “Doing It.” Departures in Critical Qualitative Research 3 (4): 366–88. https://doi.org/10.1525/dcqr.2014.3.4.366.
  • Boellstorff, Tom. 2010. “Queer Techne: Two Theses on Methodology and Queer Studies.” In Queer Methods and Methodologies: Intersecting Queer Theories and Social Science Research, edited by Kath Browne and Catherine J. Nash, 215–30. Surrey: Ashgate.
    • I liked this one, and especially the importance Boellstorff gives to the anthropological craft. He mocks a bit the contemporary focus on letting people describe themselves (p. 218). Already Malinowski apparently said that there was a difference “between what people do and what people say they do” (p. 216-17).

Michel Foucault

  • The Foucault Reader: “The Body of the Condemned” (from Discipline and Punish), p. 170-78.
  • The Foucault Reader: “Docile Bodies” (from Discipline and Punish), p. 179-87.

Film

Japanese

Anki, kanji, news, and:

  • Try N2 repetition (around chapter 3-4)
  • Bojinsha N1, N2, N3 book (the N2 part):
    • Grammar, words, reading: 24/31 (50 min)
    • Listening: 4/9
  • Bojinsha N2 book (full test, actual time limit):
    • Grammar, words, reading: 41/75 (cause skipped 69-75 when the 105 minutes were up; I got 6/7 on those later but in 45 minutes – my weakness is reading and reading fast!)
    • Listening: 20/31
  • Shaman King (episodes 36-40).

TV

  • På spåret! E01.

PhD week 9: 15-21 November 2021

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A very intensive week.

Funding application

I’ve been working on the application for an important fieldwork stipend that my supervisor pointed me to. This work included contacting a potential advisor at a host institution in Japan and organising some kind of official Japanese language evaluation. Both worked out! I’ll take the language test over Zoom next week. The hardest work was to write the project description and other parts that demanded brain power. Submission deadline is 1 December 2021. Yesterday (Saturday) I sent off my draft submission to both my supervisors to see if they have any comments.

Queer autoethnography

But the main thing this week was the course in Queer autoethnography at the University of Stavanger, online. We were 22 participants from around the world. An inspiring setting, but I must say the lectures and discussions were a bit of an anticlimax for me. I had gone all in and spent 33 hours (yes, just counted) in the two and a half weeks leading up to the course doing the readings and assignments. I was psyched! And so I think I had expected to engage with the readings more with the lecturers and students, in a way that didn’t happen. On the other hand, the readings were great (curated by each lecturer) and maybe the readings ‘are’ the course? I think most students didn’t take the course seriously and hadn’t done the readings. This makes me want to focus on those who, like myself, go all in. There were a few of them there. As the course convenor put it:

Find your people, wherever they are, and hold on to them.

Despite some complaints, I leave the course feeling inspired. Autoethnography is such a powerful method, especially when laced with queerness.

Now it’s time for essay writing (deadline in January 2022). I know exactly what I want to write about and I’ve already done one reading for that purpose.

SVA Film and Media Festival

And then it was the SVA Film and Media Festival – that’s the Society for Visual Anthropology, a section of the American Anthropological Association. And they had selected my film Unreal Boys for their programme! Yesterday (Saturday) I participated in a little Q&A:

Schedule

Yes, I kept up the walks: even when classes started at 9am I had a brisk morning walk for an hour through Hasenheide!

On Friday I met some friends at a bar, which demanded I took a fresh Covid test. Such a surreal feeling to be in a bar packed with dancing people. I was only there for an hour and don’t have any urge to go to a bar again anytime soon. But it was good to be a bit social, cause otherwise I didn’t meet anyone except J very briefly for an administrative matter.

PhD week 9: 15-21 November 2021.

Come to think of it, I’ve been a PhD student for two months now.

I forgot to mention last week that my application for a student visa to the UK has been approved. Took eight days and was an all-online experience. So I should start packing!

Readings

Queer autoethnography session 4 (QA 4)

  • Elliston, Deborah. 2005. “Critical Reflexivity and sexuality studies in anthropology: Siting sexuality in research, theory, ethnography, and pedagogy.” Reviews in Anthropology 34(1): 21-47.
  • Vanderbeck , Robert M. 2005. “Masculinities and Fieldwork: Widening the discussion.” Gender, Place & Culture 12(4): 387-402

Queer autoethnography essay (QA X)

Japanese

Anki, kanji, news, and:

  • Shaman King (episodes 30-35).

TV

  • Hackad 6, on SVT Play.
  • Taskmaster, S10 E01. British culture! On SVT Play.
My Zoom presentation setup

PhD week 8: 8-14 November 2021

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A bit of a jittery week as I prepared my presentation to the annual congress of the International Union of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences (Yucatan 2021) – here it is:

I attempted to make my delivery clear, short, and focused on the key point: that drawing as a research method can add a crucial dimension to our understanding.

I often think that Zoom presentations are hard to follow, so I’m actively trying to think about how to make mine easier to follow and more enjoyable to watch.

The panel presentations were followed by an hour of interesting discussion.

The preparations meant I worked (read) less in the days leading up to my delivery on Friday, so that’s why I did a bit more in the weekend instead. Maybe this is something you get used to, to switch between tasks? I can’t lose a valuable week of reading just because I’m doing a presentation! In any case it will be nice to get back to reading again. Learning. Input. Until it’s time for the next output!

Schedule

I got up a bit later this week, but I always go directly to the desk, and after half an hour or more of morning study it’s time for breakfast and coffee. Looking at the schedule, I realise that I didn’t meet much people. The weekly walk with A on Saturday. And I got a haircut on Wednesday, my first visit to a hairdresser since Covid began – and this as the infections in Germany peak! The hairdresser didn’t wear a mask and was sniffling as if he had a cold. Fortunately he was done in about ten minutes. I got home and googled “incubation time covid”, cause that’s what you do! (It’s about five days.)

Inspired by the many seminars on data management, I spent some time on Monday cleaning up my research folders on my computer – it always feels so good.

I also cleaned the windows again. The outside this time. Part of the procrastination for the presentation, maybe.

PhD week 8: 8-14 November 2021. Got up a bit later.

Readings

Queer autoethnography session 2 (QA 2)

  • Bochner, Arthur P. 2007. “Notes Toward an Ethics of Memory in Autoethnographic Inquiry”, in N. K. Denzin & M. D. Giardina (Eds.), Ethical Futures in Qualitative Research: Decolonizing the Politics of Knowledge. Routledge, 2007: 197-208.
  • Dauphinee, E. 2010. “The ethics of autoethnography”. Review of International Studies, 36(3): 799-818.
  • Lapadat J. C. 2017. “Ethics in Autoethnography and Collaborative Autoethnography”. Qualitative Inquiry, 23(8): 589-603.
  • Pathak, A. A. 2010. “Opening my voice, claiming my space: Theorizing the possibilities of postcolonial approaches to autoethnography.” Journal of Research Practice, 6(1).

Queer autoethnography session 3 (QA 3)

  • Pearce R. 2020. “A Methodology for the Marginalised: Surviving Oppression and Traumatic Fieldwork in the Neoliberal Academy.” Sociology 54(4): 806-824.

Japanese

I got notice that my test center in Brno has cancelled the JLPT (Japanese-Language Proficiency Test) this year too. I see SOAS in London has done the same. This is too bad, especially since I’m about to apply for something Japan related in the next couple of weeks.

Anki, kanji, lots of news, and:

  • Shaman King (episodes 25-29).

TV

  • Hackad 1-5, on SVT Play.

Advice from current PhD students

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When cleaning my desk today I found some notes I had scribbled at the welcome event back in September. Three current PhD students gave the following advice:

  1. There is no fixed way! It is my research and that’s exciting.
  2. Don’t go too hard on the books in year one. Days, weeks, months without progress is normal. You don’t have to work evenings.
  3. Year one is for experimenting, it probably won’t end up in my thesis. See it as an opportunity to get settled in – and for reading!
Tempelhofer Feld in Berlin, Germany

PhD week 7: 1-7 November 2021

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What a beautiful week, calendar-wise: I like when a new month starts with a Monday.

On Tuesday I had my first ‘debrief’ with my main supervisor. I had prepared a few slides and talked informally about what I had read up till now and how I thought it fit with my research:

We then talked for about an hour about the way forward, I got lots of useful tips to look up, and my supervisor will ask the library to order some books that I will need.

As I have mentioned before, my main worry was that I had not read enough, or that I read in too much detail, but my supervisor seemed impressed with my initial progress and told me to trust my gut:

If it speaks to you, indulge in it.

The subject of TA (teaching assistant) came up, and I said I would absolutely want to teach at some point.

On Thursday I submitted my visa application for the UK, after I was notified the night before that the university now has filed my CAS (Confirmation of Acceptance for Studies) with the UK government. The application process was relatively smooth and completely online (my friend H had to come over to assist with his modern Iphone), but took time since I read everything very carefully. In the end I had to pay a lot of money to the NHS, much more than what seemed right, but I figure it will get adjusted once the exact length of the visa is decided (I have no idea what they will offer me). In any case, it was fun to do this, because it made this whole endeavor so much more concrete! I realised I’m actually going to leave Berlin, the city I settled in exactly 15 years ago today!

I keep up the daily walks, even in rain. The featured photo is from today’s walk on Tempelhofer Feld in between quite fierce showers.

PhD week 7: 1-7 November 2021.

Readings

I started reading The Foucault Reader on Monday and Tuesday, but spent the rest of the week diving into the readings for the course in Queer autoethnography:

Queer autoethnography intro (QA 0)

  • Chawla, Devika and Ahmed Atay. 2018. Introduction: Decolonizing Autoethnography. Cultural Studies ↔ Critical Methodologies. 18(1):3-8.
  • Jones, Stacy Holman and Anne M. Harriss. 2021. Queering Autoethnography:
    • ‘Introduction’, pp. 1–12
    • ‘Queering movements’, pp. 50–69
  • Johnson, Amber M. and Benny LeMaster (eds.). 2020. Gender futurity, intersectional autoethnography: Embodied theorizing from the margins:
    • ‘Introduction’, pp. 1–11
    • Section IV intro: ‘Queering History, Imagining Futures’, pp. 195–99

Queer autoethnography session 1 (QA 1)

  • Moraga, C. 1983. Loving in the War Years.
    • ‘A long line of vendidas’, pp 90-145.
  • Romesburg, D. 2014. ‘Where She Comes From: Locating Queer Transracial Adoption’. QED: A Journal in GLBTQ Worldmaking, 1(3): 1-29
  • Dahl, U. & H. Hallgren. 2012. ‘Figurative Fragments of a Politics of Location in Desire’. In Livholts, M., ed. Emergent Writing Methodologies in Feminist Studies. Pp 178-182.
  • Adams, T.E., Holman Jones, S.L., & Ellis, C. 2015. Autoethnography.
    • ‘Introduction’, pp. 1–20.
    • This was the best text: Explained how autoethnography came into being in the wake of the ‘crisis of representation’, and was really inspiring!

Seminars

  • Critical reading
    • About how to quickly see what paragraphs in a text want by looking at words that signal ‘summary’, ‘argument’, etc. This is basically what I studied for my BA.
  • Optimising your PhD journey, session 3 of 3
    • It was almost cathartic to learn about ‘the change curve’ of shock → denial → emotional turmoil → acceptance → coming out on the other side where you can become a functioning human being again. Applicable to business situations as well as to your life.
  • Consent issues in data sharing (UK Data Service)
    • Another useful session by the nice team at UK Data Service. I learned that if data is anonymised, it does not need to adhere to GDPR. And I got inspired to create a combined information folder and informed consent form when it’s time for fieldwork.

Japanese

Anki, kanji, lots of news, and:

  • Started translating a bit again in Manda Ringo’s The Syotaroh from 1996.
  • Shaman King (episodes 18–24) – good mix of epic fight scenes and sweet family moments. I really like the extreme perspectives in the drawing style.

TV

  • High-Risk High-Rise, a PBS documentary about skyscraper safety that I found on SVT Play.

My feeling now

Resilient.

PhD week 6: 25-31 October 2021

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I spent the last October week reading Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick’s classic Epistemology of the Closet. It was worth it!

It’s been an antisocial week, as can be seen, but I’ve taken plenty of walks and I love them. It’s like walking from home to work, except the two are the same. On Saturday I walked and talked with my friend R on Tempelhofer Feld.

I’m corresponding with a Brazilian researcher about ‘body culture’.

On Tuesday next week I’ll be debriefed (online) by my supervisor about my readings so far, so that’s what I prepared a bit for tonight in the ‘Bibliography’ block.

I woke up with a sore throat today but I don’t think it’s anything serious.

Readings

  • Sedgwick, Eve Kosofsky. 1990. Epistemology of the Closet. Pages 36–251.
  • Hennessy, Rosemary. 2000. ‘The Material of Sex’. In Profit and Pleasure: Sexual Identities in Late Capitalism.
  • Grosz, Elizabeth. 1995. ‘Experimental Desires: Rethinking Queer Subjectivities’. In Space, Time and Perversion.
  • Saitō, Tamaki. 2010. ‘メディアとペドフィリア：ロリコン文化はいかに消費されたか’. In 博士の奇妙な成熟.

There is so much to read that is just text that doesn’t really say anything, that has been produced, maybe to further a career or what do I know. I want to skip those and focus on the relevant ones, like Sedgwick. Because reading takes time. You can’t read it all. So one must be selective.

Japanese

Anki, kanji, lots of news, anime, and:

  • Saitō Tamaki: Finished this one. Not so relevant for my research (as it turned out), but good Japanese training.
  • Shaman King (episodes 11-17) – I’m starting to really like this series, which was so childish in the beginning.

My feeling now

Exhausted and energised.