people - lenses - people

I worked in darkroom when I was in college. It was always a magical place to me staring at the timer and waiting for the images to reveal themselves in the tubs. Then I had little knowledge about different lenses. I thought Nikon and Canon made the best lenses and therefore pictures. Not until we moved to Davis, CA, starting over my graduate work, I began to play with Rolleiflex, Mamiya, Leica, Horseman. There're lenses that can make my heart sing for the life I have and for the life of others. I often find the subjectivity of the social sciences loves to slice up a culture for analyses. As a trained anthropologist of religion, I feel torn between the professional indoctrination and my own sense of how I connect with peoples who do not speak my languages. We are taught to mark boundaries with others, but on the individual level I rather see the opposite of what we are taught - we desire to be connecting and connected, we long for wholeness rather than partiality and divisiveness. Anthropologists love to relativize everything and anything universal is questionable to them(us). I'm a marginal anthropologist as I told my doctoral committee members when I was having the oral defense session. I read everything and am only willing to conform to those ideas that best articulate my research results...

I have to pack for my trip to Yunnan tomorrow. I'll be leading my students for a field research trip in Lijiang and Tengchong. Our research project is "Tourism: Modern consumption of ethnic landscapes." So, we'll speak to local peoples, hike on the mountains and listen to what the landscapes there are going to tell us:)!