Mindfulness Practice in Socially Engaged Ethnographic Fieldwork

DOI

10.2991/soshec-17.2018.1How to use a DOI?

Keywords

mindfulness practice, compassion, ethnographic fieldwork, engaged anthropology, social change, sustainable development

Abstract

In recent years, the Buddhist practice of mindfulness has become the subject of research in the cognitive sciences and a potent tool in clinical psychology and counseling. While Buddhism, itself, is the subject of countless studies in the social sciences and histories of religion, there is a surprisingly small literature on the application of mindfulness practice in the social sciences in general and in ethnographic research in particular. This paper aims to begin to fill that gap by raising for discussion several ways in which mindfulness practice might be incorporated into ethnographic research and, in the process, increase the effectiveness of projects that are aimed, as is suggested by the theme of this conference, at promoting social change for sustainable development goals. Drawing upon examples from my own research, I will show how mindfulness can help social scientists and development workers gain insights into the nature of social change and, consequently, become more effective as catalysts in enabling others as they seek a secure and sustainable future.

Copyright

© 2018, the Authors. Published by Atlantis Press.

Open Access

This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY-NC license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Gene Ammarell
PY  - 2017/10
DA  - 2017/10
TI  - Mindfulness Practice in Socially Engaged Ethnographic Fieldwork
BT  - Proceedings of Social Sciences, Humanities and Economics Conference (SoSHEC 2017)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 1
EP  - 7
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/soshec-17.2018.1
DO  - 10.2991/soshec-17.2018.1
ID  - Ammarell2017/10
ER  -