Ja visas dienas varētu nodzīvot tā, kā šodienu (sazin, varbūt visa atslēga ir gulēt ne vairāk kā trīs h, nevis 11 h). Izņemot vienu tiešām smagu noguruma brīdi ap kādiem desmitiem vakarā, kad lasīju, es esmu jutusies ļoti labi un daudz ko izdarījusi. Un gandrīz visu dienu nepārtraukti ir bijusi tā skaidrības un drošības sajūta, kas par spīti tam, ka tu esi haosa vidū, un daudzas aukliņas un pavedieni joprojām ir atrisuši un nesaprotami, ļauj tev apzināties, ka tu esi savas dzīves pašā centrā, ka viss ir kārtībā, kaut arī nav. Es gribu palikt šajā punktā.

Both the danger and the value of anthropology lie in the clash and collision of cultures and interpretations as the anthropologist meets her subjects in a spirit of open engagement, frankness and receptivity. There was, I concluded, no 'politically correct' way of doing anthropology. Anthropology is by nature intrusive and it entails certain amount of symbolic and interpretive violence to the 'native peoples" own intuitive though still partial understanding of their part of the world. The question then becomes the ethical one: What are the proper relation between the anthropologist and her subjects? To whom does she owe her loyalties, and how can these be met in the course of ethnographic field work and writing especially within the problematic domain of psychological and psychiatric anthropology where the focus on disease and distress, difference and marginality overdetermine a critical view.

(Nancy Scheper-Hughes "Ire in Ireland")

At the heart of the anthropological method is the practice of witnessing, which requires engaged immersion over time in the lived worlds of our anthropological subjects. Like poetry, ethnography is an act of translation and the kind of 'truth' that it produces is necessarily deeply subjective, resulting from the collision between two worlds and two cultures. And so, the question often posed to anthropologist - ethnographers about the dangers 'of losing one's objectivity' is really quite beside the point. Our task requires of us only highly disciplined subjectivity. There are scientific models and methods appropriate of doing anthropological research, but ethnography, as I understand it, is not a science.
Very much like the poet who decides to enter another oeuvre for the purpose of translation – Seamus Heaney, for example, describing his entering the poetry of Dante3 – the anthropologist sees something in another world that intrigues them. It can be as simple as ‘Oh, I like that! Let me see if I can’t understand how that particular mode of being and thinking and feeling and sensing the world works, the sense it makes, the logic and the illogic of it, the pragmatics and the poetics of that other way of life.’ And so we think, ‘Yes, I’ll go there for a while and see if I can’t come back with a narrative, a natural history, a thick description – call it what you will – that will enrich our ways of understanding the world’. Like any other form of ‘translation’ ethnography has a predatory and a writerly motive to it. It is not done ‘for nothing’ in a totally disinterested way. It is for something, often it is to help us understand something – whether it is about schizophrenia as a projection of cultural themes or about ways of solving perennial human dilemmas around the reproduction of bodies and families and homes and farms.

(Nancy Scheper-Hughes "Ire in Ireland")

Kopš man ir mans jaunais telefons, kurā es varu izmantot Talkback, par spīti tam, ka neesmu visu baigi labi apguvusi, plus, tas nelasa latviski (bet e-speak es nevaru saņemties uzinstalēt, jo kaut kad to izmēģināju planšetē, un kvalitāte ir briesmīga), man ir tik ļoti daudz vieglāk, es pat varu uz ielas, nelienot nekādos tumšos stūros sameklēt vajadzīgo kontaktu un kādam piezvanīt, kas ir diezgan lieliski. Bet vienu lietu gan es nesaprotu, kā cilvēki var gribēt, ka viņiem uz telefonu nāk e-pasti, fb ziņas utt, un ka viņi tās arī nonstop čeko un atbild. Tas taču ir briesmīgi - man tā liekas ar visu to, ka es izmantoju tikai wifiju - man nepatīk sajūta, ka esmu pieejama un sasniedzama "nepārtraukti". Protams, ir forši zināt, ka vajadzības gadījumā es varētu tos e-pastus apskatīt (principā es to no telefona vai planšetes ārpus mājām īpaši nepraktizēju), bet kopumā es to negribu, man patīk, un pat īpaši saspringtos brīžos, iziet no mājām uz pusdienu un zināt, ka es nesēdēšu internetā un nerefrešošu e-pastu. Vienmēr paļaujos uz to, ka, ja būs kaut kas superneatliekams, cilvēki man piezvanīs, bet principā pasaule neapstāsies arī, ja es atbildēšu tad, kad būšu mājās.