Vitebsky, and images from Girton College’s Stanley Library

At the end of September, I attended Piers Vitebsky’s Festschrift as a +1 to one of his former students. Piers is a social anthropologist  retiring from the Scott Polar Institute in Cambridge, who has conducted long term ethnographic fieldwork in India, Sri Lanka and Russia. In addition to marveling at the timeframes under discussion (30, 40 years of ethnographic engagement with people, their children, their children’s children) and enjoying the presence of priorities of other eras, I learned a lot about joy, wit, and the possibilities generated through generosity of intellect. The presentations ranged from personal reflections on Piers as a colleague, supervisor or teacher, to engagements with his extensive work and concepts.

His books include Dialogues with the Dead, The Shaman, Reindeer People, and a forthcoming volume returning to the Sora from Dialogues with the Dead. It was clear that the long running seminar “The Magic Circle” had a significant role in the lives of many students – his own and those warmly invited. Here are some lines from my notebook.

Michael Bravo: [On learning from Piers] The first job of a scholar is to decolonise the self

Janne Flora: [On being one of Piers’ PhD students] Fieldwork has to be specific to settings, as each field raises its own requirements. Learning to be there, learning to have patience.

Marilyn Strathern: [On Piers’ work with the Sora] now living a life that began outside of them, the now has displaced the then, one has become a different being. Another life has become a source of one’s own.

Madeline Reeves: [On the Magic Circle] The ability to play with boundaries, and navigate intrinsic ambiguities… enacted subjuncting. Suspend what is, and what if becomes collectively sustained. Rituals are important. It can be enough that we do it together and we do it well. It matters that we meet, that the mood is playful, hanging out in the playground is no fun if the object is seeing who can ride higher on the swing.

Madeline Reeves: Piers as an animator of scholarly conversation, his sincerity, intensity and lightness

Adeel Kahn: [On the Magic Circle] Playful pedagogy of hesitation / Centrality of the concept of refuge

Judy Pettigrew: [On becoming a supervisor herself] In the quantification of the role of the supervisor, what is missing is the inspiring, humanistic approach: what it feels like. This is not ‘captured’ in any evaluation – the passion, inspiration, how not to humiliate, shame or embarrass students.

Piers Vitebsky: There is endless scope to be endlessly fascinated