In the closing chapters of this book, three contributors explore what
they have discovered about the strengths and limitations of conven-
tional research methods and agendas once they ventured on the ec-
static side of fieldwork. In these essays we see more explicitly how ex-
periential ethnographers weave themselves, “or are woven by others,”
into the communities they study, “becoming cultural actors in the very
dramas of the society [they] endeavor to understand” (Cooley 1997 ,
18 , in Goulet 1998 , 254 ). A common thread running through these
essays is that of apprenticeship, of truly learning from people we en-
gage with and who become our mentors.
In “A Pathway to Knowledge: Embodiment, Dreaming, and Ex-
perience as a Basis for Understanding the Other,” Denise Nuttall de-
scribes her apprenticeship as a tabla player, in a musical tradition that
is found in Indian Hindustani (classical Northern) tabla (percussion)
communities as well as within the South Asian Diaspora in North
America. In her discussion of this journey as an apprentice to a mas-
ter, she shows how this indigenous way of knowing contrasts sharply
with that of Western knowledge systems in the teaching and learning
of not only artistic but other forms of knowledge. In Indian ways of
knowing, oral tradition is privileged over the Western focus on tex-
tual knowledge. The ideal of the guru/shishya relationship promotes
a total embodiment and mimesis of the master. This pathway to expe-
riential knowledge includes much more than simply attending classes
and practicing one’s craft. The intensity of learning a tradition in this
way often leads to the phenomenon of dreaming of the guru, his art
and his life. Experiencing the dreams and spiritual side of a musical
Part Five
Apprenticeship and Research Practices