Welsh Communities: New Ethnographic Perspectives

(Hardback)

Publishing Details

Classifications

Physical Properties

Description

Welsh Communities is a critical examination of the diverse Welsh experiences of community: rural and urban; traditional and alternative; inward and outward migrations. The essays in the volume - the first collection of ethnographic writing on Wales for a number of decades - advocate a contemporary theoretical approach to the study of communities. Each essay is based on original ethnographic research, using methods that involve a long-term and comparatively intimate relationship between researchers and their research subjects and locales. The contributors analyse the nature of community and explore how different groups symbolically construct and experience 'community' on a day-to-day basis. The groups and topics considered include: a former mining village in south Wales; traditional healing in mid-Wales; farming; incomers and alternative lifestyles in west Wales; two contrasting neighbourhoods in Swansea; and the London Welsh community. In the course of these studies, various questions are also raised concerning how or whether the contributors as 'native ethnographers' belong to those communities they are studying. Welsh Communities represents a major original contribution to the development of anthropological studies of Welsh society and culture.

Reviews

' ... fascinating insight into the diversity of lives that are Welsh ... highly readable glimpses behind curtains of a diverse range of "communities" ...' (Planet - The Welsh Internationalist) ' ... an interesting and enjoyable read ... a fascinating glimpse into modern Welsh culture.' (Regional Studies) "This volume is a thought-provoking and welcome addition to the long tradition of Welsh community studies." D. Douglas Caulkins, Grinnell College, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute Vol. 13

Author Bio

Charlotte Aull Davies is senior lecturer in sociology and anthropology in the School of Social Sciences and International Development, University of Wales Swansea. Among her previous publications are Welsh Nationalism in the Twentieth Century: The Ethnic Option and the Modern State (1989) and Reflexive Ethnography: A Guide to Researching Selves and Others (1999). Stephanie Jones completed her doctorate in social anthropology at the University of Wales Swansea and is now an associate lecturer at the Open University.