"Experimental" Ethnicity: Meetings in the Diaspora

Methodological pragmatism is more often than not employed in ethnographic enterprises, but not often discussed. Claiming that methodological discussions are most fruitful when referring to concrete research topics and the researcher's dilemmas in the field, the author discusses pragmatic uses of her own self in constructing the field. Referring primarily to the shared ethnicity as the "experimental arena", she proposes an evaluation of the heuristic potentials of her meetings with people in diasporic contexts, and reveals some of the fieldwork situations important for gaining ethnological insights.