Ethnographical Fieldwork: Sasaks

Chapter 8
Student’s Name
Institution
Chapter 8
In Chapter 8 of the Being There, Cameron narrates her encounters during ethnographical fieldwork featuring a community known as the Sasaks. The setting is an island called Lombok in Indonesia. The folks within this land are peasant farmers whose economic conditions are ramshackle. Cameron is welcomed in a religious family composed of eleven people whose head is a spiritual leader known as Amaq Mol. With a high population density, the members of the community live in dire economic conditions. Nevertheless, the Sasaks are devout Muslims and they advanced the health and the spiritual well-being of their children. The different life stages such as marriage, pregnancy, naming, separation, and circumcision are always accompanied by rituals. It is during the circumcision rituals that Cameron experienced how truth and shame are handled in a socio-centric society as opposed to ego-centric societies. 
Cameron narrates how a photographer who she had invited to cover a circumcision ceremony lost money and photographs through theft. Although the photographer, Parni, did not care about the money lost, he felt that he should let Cameron know of the incident. Cameron narrates how she had found many of her belongings in the hands of La Nan, Amaq Mol’s eldest daughter. One and half years later, Cameron invited Parni to cover yet another circumcision ceremony but this time she wanted to avoid the thefts happening again. Her efforts to seek clarifications on what had h...