Travel is like a muscle; if you don’t flex it often enough, it atrophies

Because of COVID-19, I’ve been grounded since March 15, 2020, but I finally managed to haul myself onto a plane last week for a much-needed trip to Eastern Europe. As an ethnographer, my research requires fieldwork, which means talking to people in their own language and in their own country, trying to understand their dynamic worldviews from inside that amorphous and elusive thing that anthropologists used to call “culture.” While some of my more technologically savvy colleagues moved their scholarly research into digital realms during the pandemic, I’m old fashioned. For me there is no replacement for walking the streets of the city, eavesdropping on bits of dialogue as people go about their daily lives, or chatting for hours over coffee, wine, or rakija. 
 
After a delayed flight forced a missed connection, I spent nine hours in Munich airport delirious with sleeplessness before boarding the plane to Bulgaria. Read more…