Anthropologists study cultural and social of human life. We do this by analysing our experiences of doing fieldwork. This usually consists in participating in and observing the lives of people we study. As it can take months or years, an anthropologist typically only gets the chance to do fieldwork in only one or two locations. In early 2014, I journeyed to my second, and maybe last, fieldwork location: The Cocos (Keeling) Islands.
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| Home Island, one of two inhabited islands on the Cocos (Keeling) Islands |
The Cocos (Keeling) Islands are two atolls which are part of Australia’s Indian Ocean territories. Keeling Island is uninhabited, while the Cocos Islands atoll to the south has two inhabited islands. West Island accommodates about 130 people from mainland Australia, while Home Island is home to about 420 Cocos Malays. My fieldwork project is based on Home Island. I have described, with Monika Winarnita, a little about life on Home Island.
Our trip to the Cocos Islands begins at dawn in Perth, Western Australia. Short of sailing my family there by yacht (as some intrepid ‘yachties’ regularly do), flying represents the only practical way to proceed. So our airport transfer cruises through the semi-industrial and outer-suburban areas of this expansive town heading into the rising sun. Commuters and tradesmen who have woken before dawn stream by; some with their headlights still on. The planet’s rotation brings the sun inexorably into view— and I feel dismal. I haven’t been able to eat, and the tea I drank sloshes around in my stomach. I sit next to the driver of our airport transfer. When he asks me where we are going, I manage to summon up a mumbled response.
“We need to go the International Airport”, he tells me. Even though I visited the islands two years ago, I forgot this. Cocos (Keeling) Islands and Christmas Island are part of Australia’s Indian Ocean Territories, but you have to go through customs and immigration (who require a passport or drivers licence) when you leave and arrive. Aside from that, the islands also constitute a duty-free zone; meaning alcohol and electronics are cheaper. As the shadows from the hills recede, I feel queasy and sticky. I desperately want to turn back the clock and lose myself in sleep. Normally, I’m a chatty guy, but hungry and sick, hot and cold, I’m just focusing on keeping that tea in my stomach.
“So what are you doing there?” he asks, breaking the silence.
“What?”
“In the Cocos Islands?”
I didn’t realise I’d feel so poorly when I had jumped the front seat. I take a breath and explain, sounding a little more testy and precious than I intend, “Well, the government gave me some money to go and do some research there”.
His face says that he’s thinking: “great, a junket on a tropical paradise at the taxpayer’s expense.”
So I continue, “Were gonna study the culture and customs of the people there—me and my wife”
OK that last bit didn’t make it any better, now his face says, “oh so we’re paying for your wife too!”.
I am from this town, so I know the feeling. No one likes taxes, but growing up in Western Australia (WA), railing against taxes is part of the local identity. The Swan River Colony was established in 1829, so this ‘colony’ is just three years younger than the Cocos Islands. When all the colonies federated into Australia, properly called “The Commonwealth of Australia”, WA joined, beating the Cocos Islands by 82 years. But in the 1930s it voted to secede—a decision that the British Parliament revoked. Even when I was a boy, talk of secession sometimes cropped up. It was part of the story of who ‘we’ Western Australians are: “we work hard and pay taxes so soft bastards ‘over east’ spend it all on shit”. Some people my age and older still view the strange construct of the ‘Eastern States’ that we have developed for ourselves with suspicion, if not hostility, and it looks like my driver is a case in point.
So I explain, “She’s also got a PhD in anthropology. Us anthropologists, we often work in husband-wife teams”. It just isn’t coming out right…
“Anthropology…is that like Indiana Jones, old bones and stuff”.
“Nah, not really”. Now I go into first year uni lecturer mode, trying to sound more enthusiastic than I feel, explaining “stones and bones are for archaeologists. My wife and I are cultural anthropologists: we analyze social and cultural aspects of what it is to be human.” Usually, this either sounds so vague or boring that it stops the conversation. But not this time.
“So you’re gonna work out their race and how developed they are.”
“Yeah…not really”. Read: not at all. But at least that seems to have exhausted the conversation, so I’m not too troubled about it.
I could try to explain the basics of it: There are four kinds of anthropology. Archaeology, which he’s thinking of. Linguistic anthropology, which, like the discipline of linguistics deals with language, but focuses more on things like everyday conversation and what it tells us about human culture. Biological Anthropology compares humans with other primates and also branches into exciting things like forensics.
Sociocultural anthropology, which I do, seeks to understand social and cultural aspects of what it is to be human. It is known as ‘the fieldwork discipline’, so called because we value fieldwork as a way of obtaining understanding. The fieldwork has a special name; being called either “ethnography” or “participant observation”. When you do this, you live with local people. You try to focus on what people think the good life is, what is important, what really matters; something like that. Normally what is really important goes without saying, it is taken largely for granted. So the anthropologists have to tease things out. They take advantage of their outsider status; as a stranger learning different ways of being, or acting and thinking…. I could try to explain all this, but I’m not going to.
Anyway, it forces me to think, “why am I going there again?” Last time I was in the field I spent a year alone in an Indonesian village, amongst an ethnic group known as the “Osing”, doing research on a witch hunt that had gripped the district. Around 100 sorcerers got killed, and I needed to speak to the families of the victims, local officials, and most of all, the killers. The latter were the easiest to talk to—yes they had killed sorcerers, they told me, and they were proud of it.
The fieldwork experience also provided me with some useful experience for what lies ahead. The language and customs of many ethnic groups from peninsular and island Southeast Asia could be broadly called “Malayic”. “Malayic” groups range from the huge (more 100 million Javanese), the large (over 20 million Malays), the small (less than 1 million Osing), to the tiny (just over 400 Cocos Malays on Home Island). There is a broad family resemblance which makes swapping from one to the other easier, than for example, swapping to an African or American ethnic group. My Indonesian fieldwork experience also gave me a basic introduction to the mundane, day-to-day practices of Islam in this region.
Anyway, I got my PhD by writing about my fieldwork experiences. Then, I got a job at a university in the outer suburbs of Melbourne. I now have two children—one in kindy the other just started school. My life has been completely and happily absorbed in fatherhood and work. But as for adventure, coming from a life where a trip to MacDonalds constitutes a weekend ‘outing’, well that has been something to be avoided.
So back to the question of why I am going to board a flight to Cocos Islands. The last few months of organizing the move out of our house in Melbourne, getting a new school for the kids, getting the documentation for grants, ethics and leave have been quite distracting. Pulling up to the departures ‘lounge’, that’s as far as my thoughts get.
“I’ll tell you one thing about the Cocos Islands.”
“Please don’t” I’m thinking.
“I hope you like Bailey’s [Irish Cream] on your cornflakes!” he continues.
“What…?”
One passenger he had taken to the airport told him that the only milk available is long life (UHT) milk. Aside from its taste, the price on Cocos Islands is repellent. Bailey’s Irish Cream is cheaper, given the duty-free status, and it tastes better. So the passenger preferred Bailey’s on his cereal.
I call out, “Thanks mate”, trying to recover myself, as he slides the minibus door shut.
Now, together Monika and I have to move two sleepy kids, and a mountain of luggage through check-in, customs, and immigration. Take a deep breath…
Airplane fuel fumes rush in. Irish Cream on cornflakes whooshes around in my mind. Tea lurches in my stomach. In time, I would hear many stories from Australian mainlanders, travellers, even journalists about the Cocos (Keeling) Islands. As an anthropologist, my job is to take these ‘on board’, but also to dig deeper.
“We need to go the International Airport”, he tells me. Even though I visited the islands two years ago, I forgot this. Cocos (Keeling) Islands and Christmas Island are part of Australia’s Indian Ocean Territories, but you have to go through customs and immigration (who require a passport or drivers licence) when you leave and arrive. Aside from that, the islands also constitute a duty-free zone; meaning alcohol and electronics are cheaper. As the shadows from the hills recede, I feel queasy and sticky. I desperately want to turn back the clock and lose myself in sleep. Normally, I’m a chatty guy, but hungry and sick, hot and cold, I’m just focusing on keeping that tea in my stomach.
“So what are you doing there?” he asks, breaking the silence.
“What?”
“In the Cocos Islands?”
I didn’t realise I’d feel so poorly when I had jumped the front seat. I take a breath and explain, sounding a little more testy and precious than I intend, “Well, the government gave me some money to go and do some research there”.
His face says that he’s thinking: “great, a junket on a tropical paradise at the taxpayer’s expense.”
So I continue, “Were gonna study the culture and customs of the people there—me and my wife”
OK that last bit didn’t make it any better, now his face says, “oh so we’re paying for your wife too!”.
I am from this town, so I know the feeling. No one likes taxes, but growing up in Western Australia (WA), railing against taxes is part of the local identity. The Swan River Colony was established in 1829, so this ‘colony’ is just three years younger than the Cocos Islands. When all the colonies federated into Australia, properly called “The Commonwealth of Australia”, WA joined, beating the Cocos Islands by 82 years. But in the 1930s it voted to secede—a decision that the British Parliament revoked. Even when I was a boy, talk of secession sometimes cropped up. It was part of the story of who ‘we’ Western Australians are: “we work hard and pay taxes so soft bastards ‘over east’ spend it all on shit”. Some people my age and older still view the strange construct of the ‘Eastern States’ that we have developed for ourselves with suspicion, if not hostility, and it looks like my driver is a case in point.
So I explain, “She’s also got a PhD in anthropology. Us anthropologists, we often work in husband-wife teams”. It just isn’t coming out right…
“Anthropology…is that like Indiana Jones, old bones and stuff”.
“Nah, not really”. Now I go into first year uni lecturer mode, trying to sound more enthusiastic than I feel, explaining “stones and bones are for archaeologists. My wife and I are cultural anthropologists: we analyze social and cultural aspects of what it is to be human.” Usually, this either sounds so vague or boring that it stops the conversation. But not this time.
“So you’re gonna work out their race and how developed they are.”
“Yeah…not really”. Read: not at all. But at least that seems to have exhausted the conversation, so I’m not too troubled about it.
I could try to explain the basics of it: There are four kinds of anthropology. Archaeology, which he’s thinking of. Linguistic anthropology, which, like the discipline of linguistics deals with language, but focuses more on things like everyday conversation and what it tells us about human culture. Biological Anthropology compares humans with other primates and also branches into exciting things like forensics.
Sociocultural anthropology, which I do, seeks to understand social and cultural aspects of what it is to be human. It is known as ‘the fieldwork discipline’, so called because we value fieldwork as a way of obtaining understanding. The fieldwork has a special name; being called either “ethnography” or “participant observation”. When you do this, you live with local people. You try to focus on what people think the good life is, what is important, what really matters; something like that. Normally what is really important goes without saying, it is taken largely for granted. So the anthropologists have to tease things out. They take advantage of their outsider status; as a stranger learning different ways of being, or acting and thinking…. I could try to explain all this, but I’m not going to.
Anyway, it forces me to think, “why am I going there again?” Last time I was in the field I spent a year alone in an Indonesian village, amongst an ethnic group known as the “Osing”, doing research on a witch hunt that had gripped the district. Around 100 sorcerers got killed, and I needed to speak to the families of the victims, local officials, and most of all, the killers. The latter were the easiest to talk to—yes they had killed sorcerers, they told me, and they were proud of it.
The fieldwork experience also provided me with some useful experience for what lies ahead. The language and customs of many ethnic groups from peninsular and island Southeast Asia could be broadly called “Malayic”. “Malayic” groups range from the huge (more 100 million Javanese), the large (over 20 million Malays), the small (less than 1 million Osing), to the tiny (just over 400 Cocos Malays on Home Island). There is a broad family resemblance which makes swapping from one to the other easier, than for example, swapping to an African or American ethnic group. My Indonesian fieldwork experience also gave me a basic introduction to the mundane, day-to-day practices of Islam in this region.
Anyway, I got my PhD by writing about my fieldwork experiences. Then, I got a job at a university in the outer suburbs of Melbourne. I now have two children—one in kindy the other just started school. My life has been completely and happily absorbed in fatherhood and work. But as for adventure, coming from a life where a trip to MacDonalds constitutes a weekend ‘outing’, well that has been something to be avoided.
So back to the question of why I am going to board a flight to Cocos Islands. The last few months of organizing the move out of our house in Melbourne, getting a new school for the kids, getting the documentation for grants, ethics and leave have been quite distracting. Pulling up to the departures ‘lounge’, that’s as far as my thoughts get.
“I’ll tell you one thing about the Cocos Islands.”
“Please don’t” I’m thinking.
“I hope you like Bailey’s [Irish Cream] on your cornflakes!” he continues.
“What…?”
One passenger he had taken to the airport told him that the only milk available is long life (UHT) milk. Aside from its taste, the price on Cocos Islands is repellent. Bailey’s Irish Cream is cheaper, given the duty-free status, and it tastes better. So the passenger preferred Bailey’s on his cereal.
I call out, “Thanks mate”, trying to recover myself, as he slides the minibus door shut.
Now, together Monika and I have to move two sleepy kids, and a mountain of luggage through check-in, customs, and immigration. Take a deep breath…
Airplane fuel fumes rush in. Irish Cream on cornflakes whooshes around in my mind. Tea lurches in my stomach. In time, I would hear many stories from Australian mainlanders, travellers, even journalists about the Cocos (Keeling) Islands. As an anthropologist, my job is to take these ‘on board’, but also to dig deeper.
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