Gerald Berreman describes a dilemma within ethnography: “how to be scientific and at the same time retain the humanistic insights—the human relevance—without which no account of human beings makes sense” (1966: 346). He suggests that, rather than choosing one or the other, ethnographers should develop a methodology that is both insightful and scientific. How to accomplish this in practice is still a question for ethnographers today.
This presentation is a visual ethnography of a tachinomiya (standing drink bar) in Osaka, Japan, called Tenbun. The bar features many kinds of food and drink in a “grimy” (Farrer 2019) and lively atmosphere, populated with an array of colorful characters. Following the recent work of Kajimaru et al. on the concept of ba (place, space), this research describes Tenbun as more than a location. Rather, it is “a co-emergence of performance, place and peoples” (2021: x). The ethnographer plays a dual role as an immersed participant at Tenbun and later as a distanced cultural analyst. My attempt to describe Tenbun in both insightful and scientific ways uses multimodality (Collins et al. 2017), sensory ethnography (Pink 2009) and photography.
Conference Information:
Old Discipline, New Trajectories: Theories, Methods and Practices in Anthropology
Hosted by Faculty of Philosophy at Vilnius University
Vilnius, Lithuania June 16-18, 2022
Webpage: https://www.sasciconf2021.fsf.vu.lt/
My paper is in Panel session no.2, ANTHROPOLOGICAL EXPLORATION OF ART AND PERFORMATIVE PRACTICES.
JUNE 16, 2022 (Thursday), 13:00-15:00 local time.
Japan time: JUNE 16, 2022 (Thursday), 19:00.
Special Bonus Photo:
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