This book is both research report and performance piece. Here is a team of researchers as they study communication on the volleyball court. And here are the voices and actions of the volleyball coach and his players as they practise and play. Research in process and research findings are represented in a play script which brings vividly to life both ethnographic research methods and communication in the world of sport. This highly original book adds innovation and imagination to the representation of language in social life.

This book argues for an approach to linguistic ethnography which departs from the singular gaze of the academic researcher, to amplify instead the voices of participants, researchers and collaborators. The authors offer an account of writing ethnography polyphonically, incorporating the complexity of individual voices. In doing so they challenge the imperative to make meaning from, and explain the culture of, ‘the other’. Together, the essays open up the emic perspective by considering the experiential, aesthetic, emotional, moral and ethical value people bring to encounters with others. The book is an essential addition to research methods courses in applied linguistics and sociolinguistics, and an invaluable contribution to knowledge about research-based drama, theatre and creative practice.

This book asks what it takes for people to encounter one another ethically when practices, worldviews and imaginations clash. It engages over 40 contributors across geographies, disciplines, art forms and practices in a conversation that touches on topics ranging from the climate catastrophe to the disintegration of the welfare state and the erasure of certain bodies from public spaces. It is concerned with how these ‘big’ questions play out in ‘small’ everyday encounters in classrooms, rehearsal rooms, arts projects, charity events or city markets. The book’s polyphonic text does not present answers to its central questions in the way a typical research publication might do. Instead, it creates a flow and invites the reader to join a conversation. By refusing to deliver an argument, the book opens new possibilities for relating to others in the academy and arts. This book is open access under a CC BY ND licence.

This volume highlights the role of language ideologies in the process of negotiation of identities and shows that in different historical and social contexts different identities may be negotiable or non-negotiable.

After fifteen years of teaching anthropology at a large university, Rebekah Nathan had become baffled by her own students. Their strange behavior—eating meals at their desks, not completing reading assignments, remaining silent through class discussions—made her feel as if she were dealing with a completely foreign culture. So Nathan decided to do what anthropologists do when confused by a different culture: Go live with them. She enrolled as a freshman, moved into the dorm, ate in the dining hall, and took a full load of courses. And she came to understand that being a student is a pretty difficult job, too. Her discoveries about contemporary undergraduate culture are surprising and her observations are invaluable, making My Freshman Year essential reading for students, parents, faculty, and anyone interested in educational policy.

Play is one of humanity's straightforward yet deceitful ideas: though the notion is unanimously agreed upon to be universal, used for man and animal alike, nothing defines what all its manifestations share, from childish playtime to on stage drama, from sporting events to market speculation. Within the author's anthropological field of work (Mongolia and Siberia), playing holds a core position: national holidays are called "Games," echoing in that way the circus games in Ancient Rome and today's Olympics. These games convey ethical values and local identity. Roberte Hamayon bases her analysis of the playing spectrum on their scrutiny. Starting from fighting and dancing, encompassing learning, interaction, emotion and strategy, this study heads towards luck and belief as well as the ambiguity of the relation to fiction and reality. It closes by indicating two features of play: its margin and its metaphorical structure. Ultimately revealing its consistency and coherence, the author displays play as a modality of action of its own. "Playing is no 'doing' in the ordinary sense" once wrote Johan Huizinga. Isn't playing doing something else, elswhere and otherwise ?

This book explores censorship, particularly film and video censorship, in Japan in modern times. It shows how most censorship has been the film and video industry exercising self-censorship and how this system has been problematic in that it has allowed dominant players in the industry to impose their own standards and exclude independent filmmakers. It outlines notable obscenity cases and discusses how industry self-censorship bodies have been undermined both by industry outsiders setting up their own alternative regimes and by the industry self-censorship bodies themselves being prosecuted for obscenity. The book also examines the conflict between the obscenity law, introduced in Meiji times when Japan was importing Western models, and the freedom of speech law, which was put in place by the US occupation administration after World War II. The book concludes by assessing the current state of censorship in Japan and likely future developments.