Montserrat Place and Monsrat neaga: An Example of Impressionistic Autoethnography

Authors

Johnathan Skinner, University of OxfordFollow

Abstract

This is an impressionistic tale from the field. It is a composite of fieldwork days, the dramatic recall of ethnographic work on Montserrat, a British Dependent Territory in the Eastern Caribbean. At the tail-end of my fieldwork research period, I was evacuated from the island as a volcano erupted, eventually destroying almost all of where this piece is set - where the ethnography was practiced. Though this is not salvage ethnography, there is thus an element of reconstruction to this piece, of paradise regained. On Montserrat, neaga is a term with derogatory connotations, but it is also an inclusive term referring to folk. This experimental insight into doing ethnography, autoethnography in this case, is dedicated to Pippa and those who have been killed and displaced by the volcano.

Keywords

Montserrat, Impressionistic Autoethnography, Narrative, Self

Publication Date

9-1-2003

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 4.0 International License.

DOI

10.46743/2160-3715/2003.1884

Recommended APA Citation

Skinner, J. (2003). Montserrat Place and Monsrat neaga: An Example of Impressionistic Autoethnography. The Qualitative Report, 8(3), 513-529. https://doi.org/10.46743/2160-3715/2003.1884