Ayur Zhanaev ORCID 0000-0002-8976-8811 University of Warsaw

Ayur Zhanaev ORCID 0000-0002-8976-8811 University of Warsaw THE FALLING RAIN WILL STOP, THE GUEST WHO ARRIVED WILL LEAVE: ONCE AGAIN ON “INSIDER” AND “OUTSIDER” POSITIONS 1 IN THE BURYAT FIELD* 99 The fi eldwork and the problems one encounters there are an integral part of the research, and an integral part of its descrip- tion, as they illustrate the implementation of methodological knowledge in the fi eld and disclose ethical issues of the work. In most of the cases, however, authors prefer to conceal this part of the research process, fearing to betray possible deviations from “ideal” methodological standards (Thøgersen and Heimer 2006, 2). Indeed, the fi eldwork as an integral part of a PhD students’ learning process never follows forethought plans or meets all expectations, a fact which requires working out one’s individual coping strategy (Saether 2006). Both successes and * This article is a revised version of the introductory part of my PhD dissertation published as: The Human Being in Social and Cosmic Orders: Categories of Traditional Culture and the Problems of Contemporary Buryat Identity (Zhanaev 2019, 23–34). Ayur Zhanaev failures in the fi eld could be useful in learning and drawing conclusions, which is richly described in scholarly literature (cf. Rabinow 1977). In my opinion, the process of gathering empirical data and the role played therein by the researcher’s personality are an interesting topic to discuss. I would like to share my own fi eldwork experience, with special emphasis on the researcher’s position in the fi eld and the knowledge to which one could have access owing to it. I conducted fi eldwork in diff erent regions of ethnic Buryatia1 and in Mongolia, in close cooperation with my mentor Ewa Nowicka, as well as Wojciech Połeć and Blanka Rzewuska in 2012, 2013 and 2014;2 and independently during sum- 100 mer vacations between 2012 and 2016. My PhD project was dedicated to ideas of the social order in Buryat culture. This is not an issue that could be investigated through straightforward questions, but a topic that demands from the researcher con- siderable creativity and imagination to (re)construct/discover the theory used in everyday practices. Conducting the research itself could be seen as a sort of disturbance the order of things, as a “breaching” experience (Garfi nkel 1991). One of the reasons that ideas of the social order, which were the main topic of my research, grasped me from the very fi rst steps in the fi eld was how very diff erent the reaction of the fi eld was 1 A region in Southeastern Siberia, which includes the Republic of Buryatia and parts of Irkutsk Oblast and Zabaikalskii Krai. 2 The research project led by Ewa Nowicka, entitled “Between Russia, Mongolia and China: Buryats and the Challenges of the 21st Century,” was funded by the National Science Center (decision no. DRC-2011/03/B/HS6/01671). I accompanied the project participants only in Aga Okrug, Ulan-Ude and Kizhinga Aimag of the Buryat Republic and Khentii Aimag of Mongolia. THE FALLING RAIN WILL STOP, THE GUEST WHO ARRIVED... depending on whether the researcher was a, loosely defi ned, outsider or insider. GUEST RESEARCHER IN BURYATIA Despite the controversial ways of its applications and the eff ects thereof, the Western scientifi c discourse could already be considered a common meaningful ground between the Western researcher and a non-Western community. This is not the 18th or 19th century, when the Western researcher could arrive in an “intact” community and draw a line between the scholarly and the local. The ideology of objectiveness and the privileged position of science (or anything with pretensions 101 to the status of science) have already come into dialogue (unfair as it often is) with the local milieu and transported various ideas between these worlds. Thus, the academic categories and elements of sociological analysis are common discourses to be encountered in the Buryat fi eld. This is what Anthony Giddens claims in his theory of double hermeneutics: “the ‘fi ndings’ of the social sciences very often enter constitutively into the world they describe” (Giddens 1993, 150), and the other way round (Giddens 1993, 150–53). One should also add to this picture of the modern ethnographic encounter the common use of the Russian language as a factor facilitating interaction for the both sides. Moreover, in the case of Polish researchers, the common historical experience within the Russian Empire, infl uence of USSR policies and many other historical events make it impossible to consider fi eldwork interaction in places Ayur Zhanaev like Buryatia merely in terms of “cultural diff erences.” Rather, it is one link in the chain that is a history-long dialogue. All in all, therefore, I had a general impression that the distance between the Western researchers and the Buryat fi eld is often exaggerated by both sides. When I was off ered a position of co-researcher and inter- preter during the fi eldwork of Polish anthropologists, I took it as a perfect opportunity to learn about their methodology and to gather my own fi eld material. During my fi rst visits to the fi eld, I decided to see my work as an open-ended explorative project. I was overwhelmed with the conceptual cosmologies of these two worlds, that of the Polish social scientists and that of 102 their Buryat interlocutors, which, despite the processes of global- ization and some common historical experience that I described above, were still very distant in many respects. The project of the Polish team was devoted to the modern cultural “canons” of Buryats living in Russia, Mongolia, and China. During the previous researches of Ewa Nowicka in Ust-Orda Buryat Okrug (2000, 2010) and in the Republic of Buryatia (1993 and 1994) she was constantly told about Aga Buryat Okrug as the most “traditional” Buryat region, where language and culture survived in the most undisturbed form in comparison to the rest of ethnic Buryatia. This was also the opinion I myself heard many times in regular life. I would like to emphasize this point here. I neither make or dispute claims about this region being more “traditional.” This defi nition was “taken from the fi eld.” My experience of accompanying foreign anthropologists acquainted me with the privilege and prestige that they enjoyed THE FALLING RAIN WILL STOP, THE GUEST WHO ARRIVED... and that I later missed working on my own (see below). Foreign anthropologists were classifi ed as “respected guests” and, to cite Uradyn Bulag’s defi nition, important “cultural brokers” (Uradyn 1998, 6) that brought certain “outsider possibilities” (Young 2004, 192). Their position of “teachers” (bagsha) and scholars (erdemten) at university added more prestige than if they had been just regular guests, for having education (erdem) is traditionally a highly valued trait among the Buryats. People in Aga Okrug were extremely helpful. Ewa Nowicka in her book The Roots of the Altargana Run Deep (Nowicka 2016), based on the material of this fi eldwork, even called these conditions “luxurious” (Nowicka 2016, 9). Indeed, the local people did much to accommodate the “guests.” In Aginskoe, 103 the local administration even supplied us with transportation to get to the remote villages. In Duldurga, a local TV journalist shot a reportage about the Polish researchers for the local news channel and another journalist took an interview with them for a newspaper, so that when we visited other localities, many people already knew about us. We were shown all the key places of local importance, places of cult, and historic sites. I had the opportunity to watch the image and symbols of Buryatness that local people tried to present to the foreign guests. In July 2012, we visited the town of Aginskoe in Aga Buryat Okrug during the opening of the Altargana International Buryat Festival, uniting the Buryats from Russia, Mongolia, and China. According to rough estimations, it gathered around 10,000 people. We were able to conduct interviews with guests who arrived from various parts of ethnic Buryatia and even Ayur Zhanaev with those living abroad. Importantly, we made contacts with people from other parts of Aga Buryat Okrug, whom we visited after the festival, during the remainder of our stay. In 2013, during our second visit to Aga Buryat Okrug, we decided to visit the remaining third part of the Okrug – Mogotuiskii District (Raion). Here, in the village of Mogotui, we used our own contacts from the Buryat State University and, again, the local administration helped us with transportation and accommodation. After that, we made shorter and longer visits to the villages of Usharbai, Zugaalai, and Kusochi. In every village, we were met by locals and accommodated in their homes, local school dormitories, and once even in 104 a Buddhist temple. In 2014, we visited my home Kizhinga District in the Re - public of Buryatia. This is another region treated as especially “traditional,” where I spent most of my years from the kinder- garten to the end of school. I had a network of relatives and acquaintances in this place. They were very helpful and took us to the important places of the region, off ering their assis- tance and guidance. We visited a mass ceremony dedicated to Buddha Maitreya, in which more than 13,000 people gathered in Kizhinga, and a minor oboo ceremony in Ulzyte dedicated to the respected lamas from this locality. After visiting Kizhinga, we continued our research in Mongolia in the predominantly Buryat village of Dadal in Khentii Aimag, where we had the opportunity to partici- pate in the tenth edition of Altargana Festival.

Load more