The cultural politics of gesture: Reflections on the embodiment of ethnographic practice

Abstract

Ethnographers enter the field as legible signs of otherness to their interlocutors. In this article, I explore the ramifications of my personal experience of being variously 'read' in the course of encounters in Bangkok, Thailand, to show how a gradual process of bodily inculcation can reduce the sense of difference and partially overcome the expectations induced by phenotype in particular, leading to greater access to the protected zones of cultural intimacy (including recognition of the newcomer's linguistic capacities). Such transitions also entail a learned increase of ease with informal modes of embodiment, as opposed to postures signaling varieties of power that are intrusive and palpa..