An Interview with Roy Ellen

<p>I decided to undertake this interview with Professor Ellen, simply because I thought such a distinguished career deserved to be marked as he was retiring. Roy was happy to make time for our interviews, in the form of loosely structured conversation which, like the Arabian Nights, Roy pointe...

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Main Author: Nejm Benessaiah
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Society of Ethnobiology 2014-03-01
Series:Ethnobiology Letters
Online Access:http://ojs.ethnobiology.org/index.php/ebl/article/view/167
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author Nejm Benessaiah
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description <p>I decided to undertake this interview with Professor Ellen, simply because I thought such a distinguished career deserved to be marked as he was retiring. Roy was happy to make time for our interviews, in the form of loosely structured conversation which, like the Arabian Nights, Roy pointed out, could have gone on forever, but I decided to draw the line at three sessions. Perhaps it could, and will go on to form part of a more in-depth biography, as I continued to discover other aspects and adventures of Roy’s interesting life in the course of other contexts, much as one does in the field. Much is known about what ethnobiologists and anthropologists say about another people’s lives; less is known about their own, apart from rare reflections, diaries and memoires. I found Roy’s reflections a source of comfort as I embarked on my own PhD fieldwork, reassuring me as I fumbled around, making my own unique but comparable mistakes among the insights I gleaned. The following is an edited version of the original interview. I hope it will be as enjoyable to the reader as it was to me working on it.</p>
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spelling doaj.art-1620ece65c854cbd8cf6f9a5957a47142022-12-22T03:58:36ZengSociety of EthnobiologyEthnobiology Letters2159-81262014-03-0150313910.14237/ebl.5.2014.16793An Interview with Roy EllenNejm Benessaiah0School of Anthropology and Conservation, University of Kent, Canterbury, Kent, UK CT2 7NZ<p>I decided to undertake this interview with Professor Ellen, simply because I thought such a distinguished career deserved to be marked as he was retiring. Roy was happy to make time for our interviews, in the form of loosely structured conversation which, like the Arabian Nights, Roy pointed out, could have gone on forever, but I decided to draw the line at three sessions. Perhaps it could, and will go on to form part of a more in-depth biography, as I continued to discover other aspects and adventures of Roy’s interesting life in the course of other contexts, much as one does in the field. Much is known about what ethnobiologists and anthropologists say about another people’s lives; less is known about their own, apart from rare reflections, diaries and memoires. I found Roy’s reflections a source of comfort as I embarked on my own PhD fieldwork, reassuring me as I fumbled around, making my own unique but comparable mistakes among the insights I gleaned. The following is an edited version of the original interview. I hope it will be as enjoyable to the reader as it was to me working on it.</p>http://ojs.ethnobiology.org/index.php/ebl/article/view/167
spellingShingle Nejm Benessaiah
An Interview with Roy Ellen
Ethnobiology Letters
title An Interview with Roy Ellen
title_full An Interview with Roy Ellen
title_fullStr An Interview with Roy Ellen
title_full_unstemmed An Interview with Roy Ellen
title_short An Interview with Roy Ellen
title_sort interview with roy ellen
url http://ojs.ethnobiology.org/index.php/ebl/article/view/167
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