Hazey Ethnographer

In an old Jewish town, eerily void of Jews, I learnt that on August 25th, 1941, the Jews of Tykocin were rounded up and told they were being transported to a ghetto. Sat back on the coach I listened to the educator’s briefing. I knew exactly where we were going. The words became background noise as we drove on. My eyes began to glaze over as the dense forest, just beyond the road, presented itself. The coach gently stopped. We were told to silently exit and walk into Łopuchowo forest.  A path cuts through a sea of neatly lined pine trees. Birds were singing gently and I noticed a large pile of trees, bureaucratically assembled on top of each other by loggers. I entered the clearing and the group pulled in close to hear the educator.  On August 25th 1941, there was no birdsong. Instead, the deafening sound of machine guns and screaming. The sky was dark and rain fell. Every ten minutes, groups were brought to be shot into pre-dug pits. Three pits; twelve metres long, four metre...

Many religious people go on pilgrimage, but for some, visiting their sacred land is not enough. Certain individuals wish to migrate more permanently. For Jewish people, this is known as Aliyah , which means 'to go up' , and refers to diaspora Jews immigrating and returning to their homeland, Israel. Aliyah is something many Jewish people do, with over 46.7% of world Jewry  now residing in Israel. It is a very unique and reliable type of migration, which is enabled by Israel's law of return policy. Vertovec writes about diaspora groups as transnational communities and identifies a triadic relationship between "globally dispersed yet collectively self-identified ethnic groups", "the territorial states and contexts where such groups reside", and "the homeland states... whence they or their forebears came." (Vertovec 1999:449) Jewish people fit into this diaspora category, because Judaism is an ethnoreligion. This means "being a member of a g...

  Sample Vaccine Passport (Source: GETTY) As travel restrictions begin to lift across the globe, vaccines become even more crucial in reducing the spread of coronavirus. But what becomes just as important is proof of vaccination . Many countries will be asking travellers for evidence of vaccination, and in the early stages when vaccines have not been offered to everybody; proof of a negative test. A large number of countries will thus be requiring an official vaccine passport, and in some cases, these are being conceptualised digitally. However, no universal method of certification has yet been decided on, and it is understood that documentation will be different for each country. At a basic level, vaccine passports would not only allow people more freedom, they would also serve to keep vulnerable people safe, and allow them the same freedoms as other members of society. (Brown et al. 2020:61) For Max Weber, bureaucracy has been recognised as "a dehumanized system of impersonal, r...

When settling in a city like London, the 'moneybag' of England (Simmel 2004:14), one almost expects to never meet their neighbours . You could see them in public and vaguely recognise them. (Simmel 2004:16) A polite smile, perhaps even a wave, but a chat would be far too bold. For many people in cities, being relationally distant from those physically closest to you is an accepted reality.  Compared to rural life which "flows more slowly" (Simmel 2004:13), urban life has a much faster pace. The internal and external stimuli of the city cause inhabitants to become detached as a means of protection. We can draw on Marx's concept of Entfremden , or estrangement (Marx et al. 1970:10), wherein an individual can become alienated from themselves and from other people. Through his study of the city, Simmel is also led to a "theory of cultural alienation." (Frisby 2013:104) With the outbreak of coronavirus, this has begun to change. What happens to Simmel's i...