Anthropology in Action

Patchwork ethnography is a viable methodological and theoretical approach. Fieldwork can be accessible, achievable and accommodating of both personal and professional circumstances and responsibilities of the researcher, and external factors such as living within a COVID-19 world. In this article, we explain patchwork ethnography and showcase how the methodology was implemented during the first author's PhD fieldwork conducted in 2020–2021 relating to peeking behind the physical and metaphorical curtains of the death industry to understand the handling, management and conceptualisation of the dead human body in Adelaide, South Australia. We demonstrate how field sites were constructed and discuss the methodological tools utilised to produce an ethnographic experience. We also question the ongoing viability of notions of ‘traditional’ fieldwork practices.

This article explores how a group of paramedics were cross-trained as community health workers (CHWs) in Indiana. Cross-training paramedics as CHWs provided a foundation to better understand the social issues that occur outside of the hospital and clinic, thereby enabling further empathy among paramedics and seeking means to connect patients to other health and social services agencies. I detail how earning a certification as a CHW shifted the mindset of the paramedics and their approach toward caregiving. Ultimately, I argue how cross-training healthcare professionals can further expand the general awareness of CHWs and possible opportunities for employment. However, steps must be taken to ensure that reducing the CHW model to a cross-training opportunity will not minimise the impacts of hiring a full-time CHW.

In China, when people have a meal together, it is certainly possible for individuals to order a personal dish that is not for sharing with others. But it is far more common for food to be exchanged directly between hands, between hands-and-mouths and, as I will describe shortly, effectively between mouths. This describes the circumstance when consumers directly eat food from a shared dish, with the effect that they encounter each other's saliva. This mode of consumption is called gong can. On the face of it, it seems foolhardy to continue to eat together in such a way during a pandemic that travels between bodies through connecting droplets, like saliva, especially when other forms of eating together are available. Why is such a mode preferred during the COVID-19 pandemic? What makes it safe?

Inspired by the forceful emergence of youth activism around climate change in 2019 and the body of scholarship on youth political involvement, we evaluate youths’ claims to being political in the international climate governance process. To do this, we survey documentation of youth activity around the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), so we can gauge the extent of youth participation. We produce analyses of four sets of records: mainstream newspapers, UNFCCC programming, independent media outlets and youth NGO websites. We find that, while youth are participating more, existing forms of documentation are inadequate. We suggest that genre writing can capture lost voices in politics, and that standard documentation remains critically important to recording youth political participation.

Drawing on my involvement as a researcher in mining conflicts on customary land in Central Kalimantan, I reflect on my positionality, assumptions, roles, expectations and impacts on social change. Constant re-thinking of my own biases was necessary in order to grasp the nuanced and complex nature of villagers’ attitudes towards mining, and their entangled relations with the mining companies. My attempt to act as a process facilitator, by persuading an indigenous rights organisation to support villagers in their dispute over land rights with the mining company, was unsuccessful. I conclude that a constant reassessment of expectations and aims is needed in order to achieve the co-production of knowledge that is relevant for social change and for the attempt to enhance villagers’ participation in decision making.