Currently working on human-animal relations in veterinary practice in the intensive livestock production industry in the Netherlands under a Veni grant of the Dutch Research Council.
Statistics suggest that in the Netherlands and elsewhere being overweight has become an ‘epidemic... more Statistics suggest that in the Netherlands and elsewhere being overweight has become an ‘epidemic’ and major public health concern. In response individuals are often admonished to take control of their weight. They should make so-called healthy choices and engage in good behavior. In her research, Else Vogel articulates alternatives to such calls for bodily discipline. She derives these alternatives from an ethnographic study of care practices for people who classify as overweight or obese, or who feel fat or at risk of becoming so. Vogel’s fieldwork included techniques as diverse as dietary recommendations, exercise regimes, meditation, tasting, diet shakes and surgery. These do not just intervene in the bodies of the people involved, but also reconfigure their lives. They change everyday practices and their meaning – from cooking and eating, to pain and pleasure; from shopping for food, to being a family. However, different forms of care help to shape daily life in different ways....
Experimenting with Ethnography: A Companion to Analysis, 2021
As ethnographers we continually make differences, relations between a ‘here’ and a ‘there’, a ‘th... more As ethnographers we continually make differences, relations between a ‘here’ and a ‘there’, a ‘this’ and ‘that’. But as we compare and contrast, we also decide to keep some things stable rather than others. How do we decide which differences matter? In this chapter I discuss an analytic technique for engaging with this question, which I have coined “juxtaposition”. This technique was my strategy for dealing with a challenge all anthropologists face: how to relate to the dominant stories in our field? How to avoid strengthening them while still recognizing their power? In my attempt to ‘reverse-engineer’ the craft of this technique, I draw on my PhD research on eating and health as they get problematized in the context of the reported ‘obesity epidemic’ in the Netherlands. In my analysis, contrasting logics about healthy eating and living, in which different things were at stake, came to the fore. Juxtaposition was part of each step of my research: in relating to the literature, when making a field, in articulating worlds enacted and when writing an argument. Note the active verbs: the elements I contrasted are not out there for us to ‘find’ or ‘recognize’; they are products of the analysis. Working through juxtaposition is thus not only about doing justice to the material. It is about offering a description that is also a rescription, that changes how we can see, engage with and care for the practices we study. Describing always means intervening. This is, after all, ethnography’s critical potential
The figure of the imposter can stir complicated emotions, from intrigue to suspicion and fear. Bu... more The figure of the imposter can stir complicated emotions, from intrigue to suspicion and fear. But what insights can these troublesome figures provide into the social relations and cultural forms from which they emerge?
Edited by leading scholars in the field, this volume explores the question through a diverse range of empirical cases, including magicians, spirit possession, fake Instagram followers, fake art and fraudulent scientists.
Proposing ‘thinking with imposters’ as a valuable new tool of analysis in the social sciences and humanities, this revolutionary book shows how the figure of the imposter can help upend social theory.
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Books by Else Vogel
Edited by leading scholars in the field, this volume explores the question through a diverse range of empirical cases, including magicians, spirit possession, fake Instagram followers, fake art and fraudulent scientists.
Proposing ‘thinking with imposters’ as a valuable new tool of analysis in the social sciences and humanities, this revolutionary book shows how the figure of the imposter can help upend social theory.