This volume contains personal, imaginative accounts of ethnographic fieldwork that do not fit into a traditional scholarly context, yet are a vital part of research at undergraduate level and beyond.

With contributions from leading researchers in the fields of anthropology, ethnomusicology, and folklore, this volume contains personal, imaginative accounts of ethnographic fieldwork that do not fit into a traditional scholarly context, but are a vital and engaging aspect of studying different cultures. Individual pieces vary from autobiographical accounts of ethnographers' experiences in the field to fictional narratives. Together they invite the reader to places across the globe, offering richly detailed portraits of informants, local cultures, and life in the field.

The first serious ethnomusicological study of Malagasy music, Recollecting from the Past evokes the complex sound and performative aesthetic in Madagascar called maresaka. Maresaka pertains not only to musical expression but extends into ways of remembering the past, aesthetics of everyday life, and Malagasy concepts of self and community. Ron Emoff focuses on tromba spirit possession ceremonies in which Malagasy use devotional practice as an occasion to expressively re-figure worlds often impeded by colonialism and postcolonial phenomena, extreme material poverty, and widespread illness....

Marie-Galante is a small island situated in the Caribbean to the south of Guadeloupe. The majority of Marie-Galantais are descendants of the slave era, though a few French settlers also occupy the island. Along with its neighbours Guadeloupe and Martinique, Marie-Galante forms an official departement of France. Marie-Galante historically has never been an independent polity. Marie-Galantais express sentiments of being 'deux fois colonise', or twice colonized, concomitant with their sense of insularity from a global organization of place. Dr Ron Emoff translates this pervasive sense of...