Welsh Communities

New Ethnographic Perspectives

Edited by Charlotte Aull Davies and Stephanie Jones

Contents

Welsh Communities is a critical examination of the diverse Welsh experiences of community: rural and urban; traditional and alternative; inward and outward migrations. The essays in the volume – the first collection of ethnographic writing on Wales for a number of decades – advocate a contemporary theoretical approach to the study of communities. Each essay is based on original ethnographic research, using methods that involve a long-term and comparatively intimate relationship between researchers and their research subjects and locales.

‘ . . . an interesting and enjoyable read . . . a fascinating glimpse into modern Welsh culture.’ (Regional Studies)

The contributors analyse the nature of community and explore how different groups symbolically construct and experience ‘community’ on a day-to-day basis. The groups and topics considered include: a former mining village in south Wales; traditional healing in mid-Wales; farming; incomers and alternative lifestyles in west Wales; two contrasting neighbourhoods in Swansea; and the London Welsh community. In the course of these studies, various questions are also raised concerning how or whether the contributors as ‘native ethnographers’ belong to those communities they are studying. Welsh Communities represents a major original contribution to the development of anthropological studies of Welsh society and culture.

‘ . . . fascinating insight into the diversity of lives that are Welsh . . . highly readable glimpses behind curtains of a diverse range of “communities” . . .’ (Planet – The Welsh Internationalist)

Charlotte Aull Davies is senior lecturer in sociology and anthropology in the School of Social Sciences and International Development, University of Wales Swansea. Among her previous publications are Welsh Nationalism in the Twentieth Century: The Ethnic Option and the Modern State (1989) and Reflexive Ethnography: A Guide to Researching Selves and Others (1999). Stephanie Jones is an associate lecturer in the Faculty of Social Sciences at the Open University. She has researched and published on supported employment, gender and community in south Wales, and families of people with learning difficulties.

Contents
Foreword
Acknowledgements
List of contributors
1 Conceptualizing community Charlotte Aull Davies
Section I: LOCALITIES and IDENTITIES
2 Supporting the team, sustaining the community: gender and rugby in a former mining village Stephanie Jones
3 Research on your own doorstep: Welsh rural communities and the perceived effects of in-migration Emma James
4 Family and social change in an urban street community Martin O'Neill
5 Being here and there in The Field: a look at insider ethnography De Murphy
Section 2: SOCIAL NETWORKS and BELONGING
6 Wool measurement: community and healing in rural Wales Sue Philpin
7 Family farm businesses and the farming community: revisiting farm families in west Wales eighteen years on John Hutson
8 Vegetarian biographies in time and space: vegetarians and alternatives in Newport, west Wales Janice Williams
9 Constructing communities away from home: Welsh identities in London Jeremy Segrott
10 Conclusions: reflecting on Welsh communities Charlotte Aull Davies and Stephanie Jones
Personal names index
Subject index