Hi Shree,

That's a good question.

Central to answering to your question should be the concept of culture. Culture is not created by a certain location; it is rather created, maintained, and adapted by a group/community who lives in one or many locations. Culture follows the ones who live (people) not the things that die (location).

By this definition, studying a group who have a culture of migration to many places from time to time by focusing on one fixed location is less effective than following them to locations they have been to.

Ethnography is based more on participant observation which requires researchers to live, experience the phenomena with participants, acquiring emic perspectives/the internal ways of creating meanings. Thus, it is better to be with them in those locations.

But it is also dependent on your research questions. Your research questions may only seek to touch on several aspects of the target group's culture. These aspects may be only created, maintained, adapted in one fixed location, rather than in many locations. In this case, you might focus on one location.

The bigger question for you, I think, is the feasibility of your research. It is the matter of negotiation among research goals, institutional requirements, your resources (time, finance, human resources, tools, etc.) to find a compromise point where you can better achieve your goals.

Hope it helps,

best,

Hi Shree,

I believe that ethnographic specificity is configured in relation (in response to) with local environmental characteristics. Therefore, research of this specific is efficient where the characteristics of the relationship with the environment can be captured.

What part of ethnographic specificity is preserved in the case of migration, is another exciting research theme. But this last theme involves previous research conducted in the place of origin of migrants

You probably need to take notice of what both the answers above have said, but remember that these days multi-sited ethnography is possible, and culture is a dynamic human response to change (for good or ill!) So you might want to map differences between the culture of origin and the new destinations and see what morphologies emerge. Are the sites culturally connected? Is there a sense of psychosocial territory? Does the diaspora look to the origin for anything, or does the origin culture make demands on the diaspora? Do those who move away come back, and if so do the have difficulty in fitting in? Is cultural capital equivalent in each site, or does it change, and is this a problem? That last one is a particular nod to Bourdieu - George Marcus is very useful on multi-sited ethnography.

These answers above are all helpful as is some consideration of the impact of remittances from overseas to the local culture and for the actual /perceived diaspora experience as positive or negative cultural capital for migrants and family left behind at ´home´and within ´host´ nations. Remittances are vital to some economies but maybe,especially these days with migration such a big issue in EU, US, Myanmar/Burma, South America and parts of Africa an extra dimension namely survival, assimilation and/or levels of adaptation to ´host´ environment is also important .

You have posed a nice question. Conventionally , ethnography used to be confined into a single research site e.g. in Thakkhola. Realizing the influence of globalization and other factors and also the nature of group of people , Thakali itself is quite appropriate in this context , ethnographers have accepted the evolving reality and accepted that single site may not be sufficient to carry out ethnographic studies. Therefore , as some other researchers have pointed out above, multi-sited ethnography is there in the practice and many scholars are adopting this.

A very interesting question! To selsct a geographical area for your study depends on your research questions. If you are going to analyze how something is produced in Africa, for example, but sold in the US it might be useful to follow your respondents or to conduct fieldwork at several sites. So the selection o your fieldsites depends if you are interested in local production or global trade with the products. In addition, there is some literature on 'multi-sited ethnography' (see e.g. George Marcus 1995 and 1997). Good luck with your research!

This is an important question! Anthropologists take culture from a broader perspective! Since you are planning to study "Thakali culture of Nepal" it seems that you are going to focus on the entire way of life of this group of people. While geographic location of the people is important it may not be the fact that Thakali people will have the same type of culture. Because they may migrate to urban centres and some other people may stay in the remote part. There must be a difference of cultural practices among the people living in rural and urban areas. The central research question and research objectives must be consistent with either urban people or rural/village people. If you are planning to ethnographic research methods for studying the urban people you may not able to apply all the key components of ethnographic research method if you take your research in remote areas. So many different contexts and factors may need to review to get a better idea.

All answers above have a common ground which is the ethnographic research that is based on the direct contact with people being studied. for diaspora, I think it is important to conduct comparative inquiry between the Thakali people of Nepal and those who migrated or mover to other places. I applied this ethnographic-comparative analysis in my work dealing with Muslims in their homeland and Muslim diaspora in the US. For more information, please, read my book, Muslim Worldviews and Everyday lives (AltaMira press 2012). https://books.google.com/books/about/Muslim_Worldviews_and_Everyday_Lives.html?id=CnzhXfJfkAMC

I wonder what Franz Boas might suggest? Perhaps going to your field site first to see how everyday life unfolds? After a period of immersion, you might see things happening that pique your curiosity. In asking why these things are happening in the manner that they do, your search for answers might lead you to multi-sited fieldwork or they might not. In other words, Boas would advise to first go to the field before even doing a literature review. Anything else is premature.

Follow a family.

Yes, it is good to start doing the ethnographic work in the site, but it is also good to do literature review that provides insight for future work. Good luck.

I'm interested to know your future findings of your project. Please, share.

Dear all experts,

I am very grateful for your wonderful advice and suggestions. Now, I became confident and decided to use multi-sited ethnography as the methods of my study.

Actually, my study is related to the queer community (LGBTIQ) of Nepal, not Thakali, I had just used it as example. This community has not any fixed geographical territory or origin from where they migrate as Thakali people. May I apply your suggestions that are given for studying Thakali culture? For some years, I have been working with them, I have taken the LGBTIQ people from six districts from Teria to Hill, where I found similarities in biological and in psychological aspects but a bit differences in sociological aspects. In such context, may I replicate your suggestions for studying the scattered and nomadic LGBTIQ people using critical ethnography as research methodology?

Expecting due advice and suggestions

Thank you!

Than you for update. Yes, of course you are welcome to use the suggestions and feedback. Please do not hesitate to contact us/me for any further information. Wishing you the best of luck.

Multi-sited ethnography as recommended by two researchers should I think attract our attention. I applied it to musical performance using ethnography but the subject and the data suggested it; so taking a look at your site and subject first as a preliminary step would equally be profitable as suggested.

i think it is fine because it enables us generating credible information by giving focus in a certain area.This in turn leads to some what plausible conclusion

Great contributions!