{"id":23,"date":"2013-03-11T07:29:14","date_gmt":"2013-03-11T12:29:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lettersoflaura.blog.lib.mcmaster.ca\/?p=23"},"modified":"2013-03-11T07:29:14","modified_gmt":"2013-03-11T12:29:14","slug":"review-of-an-effective-presentation-bodies-categories-and-ambivalence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/lettersoflaura\/2013\/03\/11\/review-of-an-effective-presentation-bodies-categories-and-ambivalence\/","title":{"rendered":"Review of an Effective Presentation: “Bodies, Categories, and Ambivalence”"},"content":{"rendered":"

The conference presentation<\/a> I have chosen to review is a talk given by a doctoral candidate from the University of Copenhagen, Trine Mygind Korsby, at a 2011 conference of the Society for Cultural Anthropology in Romania. The title of this talk was \u201cBodies, Categories, and Ambivalence: Fieldwork with Romanian Victims of Trafficking,\u201d and it was given at a conference centering on material culture in anthropology. Korsby spoke about fieldwork she had completed with young women who had been trafficked from Romania to Italy, discussing various social relationships that shaped the lives of these women following their trafficking experiences. I found a recorded version of this presentation in a random online search, and was drawn in by the subject matter. The talk proved to be interesting, well delivered, and concise.<\/p>\n

I enjoyed listening to this presentation, and found myself liking the presentation style although it is very different than the type of talk given at most of the conferences I have attended. The presenter uses no visual aids, forcing the audience to focus on her words. While it may have been possible to design visual materials to add to this presentation, I think they also may have ben distracting to the audience particularly during the relation of narrative episodes. While Korsby has quite a strong accent, she speaks clearly and at a good pace. Her voice is animated while remaining consistent. Since the talk is mainly read from a script, there is not much body movement apart from relatively frequent eye contact with the audience. While I think that the presenter could have engaged more with the audience, I do recognize that the incorporation of anecdotes from her field research that are so rich in detail would be very difficult to relay accurately if not previously written out.<\/p>\n

The fieldwork that Korsby uses as the basis for her talk is preliminary work with contacts for her upcoming doctoral research. Examples of different types of social relations important to these young women, such as with their families and friends back home and with their traffickers, are used to illustrate the concepts of ambivalence, detachment, and distance. The presenter makes excellent use of anecdotes from her fieldwork, primarily focusing on the experiences of one young woman. Descriptions of interactions with \u201cAmelia,\u201d illustrating her relationships with her mother and childhood friends as well as her relationship with her traffickers throughout and after her ordeal, alternate with a discussion of how these types of relationships affect and are affected by the lives of the young women living in the shelter. Each anecdote is used to illustrate a concisely explained point about how these interactions shape and are shaped by the experiences of these women. In this way, anecdotal narrative and theoretical discussion are smoothly incorporated. The presentation progresses logically and flows well, and Ms. Korsby’s conclusions are introduced broadly at the beginning of the talk and then built more specifically throughout using well chosen examples to illustrate her points.<\/p>\n

In this presentation, Korsby focuses on points of contrast within social relations: presence and absence, fear and trust, detachment and dependency. She argues, ultimately and very poignantly, that despite and perhaps because of absences both physical and emotional, family members and traffickers are extremely present in these young women\u2019s lives and shape their experiences in terms of actions, possibilities, and agency. The presenter also focuses on contrast in terms of the established categories of victims and traffickers, which in the minds of most are well-defined in terms of which is good and which is evil. However, she also describes two of her contacts that are young women who were trafficked in the same way as the others, but who left the shelter and became traffickers themselves. In this way, Ms. Korsby questions the rigidity of these categories and the absolute contrast between them.<\/p>\n

This work is presented as preliminary to Korsby\u2019s doctoral research, and as such there are several questions that were mentioned only in terms of her future plans to expand her discussion on these points based on future fieldwork. Mentioning the direction in which she plans to take her research allowed the presenter to extend the implications of her research beyond this presentation alone. Having contacts on \u201cboth sides\u201d of the story, those who are victims and\/or perpetrators of trafficking, Korsby is uniquely positioned to examine the relationship between these categories. In this presentation, she clearly demonstrates the importance of social relationships characterized by both presence and absence in shaping the experiences of young women involved in human trafficking, and outlines the ways in which she hopes to contribute further to these dialogues with the research she will complete in her dissertation. The talk succeeded in drawing me in and getting me interested in the young women Korsby studies, and ultimately left me wondering what her further research will show.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The conference presentation I have chosen to review is a talk given by a doctoral candidate from the University of Copenhagen, Trine Mygind Korsby, at a 2011 conference of the Society for Cultural Anthropology in Romania. The title of this … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":42,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nReview of an Effective Presentation: "Bodies, Categories, and Ambivalence" - Letters of Disease<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/lettersoflaura\/2013\/03\/11\/review-of-an-effective-presentation-bodies-categories-and-ambivalence\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Review of an Effective Presentation: "Bodies, Categories, and Ambivalence" - Letters of Disease\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The conference presentation I have chosen to review is a talk given by a doctoral candidate from the University of Copenhagen, Trine Mygind Korsby, at a 2011 conference of the Society for Cultural Anthropology in Romania. The title of this … Continue reading →\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/lettersoflaura\/2013\/03\/11\/review-of-an-effective-presentation-bodies-categories-and-ambivalence\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Letters of Disease\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2013-03-11T12:29:14+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"laural\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"laural\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/lettersoflaura\/2013\/03\/11\/review-of-an-effective-presentation-bodies-categories-and-ambivalence\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/lettersoflaura\/2013\/03\/11\/review-of-an-effective-presentation-bodies-categories-and-ambivalence\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"laural\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/lettersoflaura\/#\/schema\/person\/14a9531768aa4fbd28262956077ee7d6\"},\"headline\":\"Review of an Effective Presentation: “Bodies, Categories, and Ambivalence”\",\"datePublished\":\"2013-03-11T12:29:14+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/lettersoflaura\/2013\/03\/11\/review-of-an-effective-presentation-bodies-categories-and-ambivalence\/\"},\"wordCount\":818,\"commentCount\":7,\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/lettersoflaura\/2013\/03\/11\/review-of-an-effective-presentation-bodies-categories-and-ambivalence\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/lettersoflaura\/2013\/03\/11\/review-of-an-effective-presentation-bodies-categories-and-ambivalence\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/lettersoflaura\/2013\/03\/11\/review-of-an-effective-presentation-bodies-categories-and-ambivalence\/\",\"name\":\"Review of an Effective Presentation: \\\"Bodies, Categories, and Ambivalence\\\" - Letters of Disease\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/lettersoflaura\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2013-03-11T12:29:14+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/lettersoflaura\/#\/schema\/person\/14a9531768aa4fbd28262956077ee7d6\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/lettersoflaura\/2013\/03\/11\/review-of-an-effective-presentation-bodies-categories-and-ambivalence\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/lettersoflaura\/2013\/03\/11\/review-of-an-effective-presentation-bodies-categories-and-ambivalence\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/lettersoflaura\/2013\/03\/11\/review-of-an-effective-presentation-bodies-categories-and-ambivalence\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/lettersoflaura\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Review of an Effective Presentation: “Bodies, Categories, and Ambivalence”\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/lettersoflaura\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/lettersoflaura\/\",\"name\":\"Letters of Disease\",\"description\":\"Vitamin D, TB, and my PhD\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/lettersoflaura\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/lettersoflaura\/#\/schema\/person\/14a9531768aa4fbd28262956077ee7d6\",\"name\":\"laural\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/d68eb2d25e0b983959c8d451a7cc42f1babe24606f58bacd8ab33ee395f0fb92?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/d68eb2d25e0b983959c8d451a7cc42f1babe24606f58bacd8ab33ee395f0fb92?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/d68eb2d25e0b983959c8d451a7cc42f1babe24606f58bacd8ab33ee395f0fb92?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"laural\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/lettersoflaura\/author\/laural\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Review of an Effective Presentation: \"Bodies, Categories, and Ambivalence\" - Letters of Disease","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/lettersoflaura\/2013\/03\/11\/review-of-an-effective-presentation-bodies-categories-and-ambivalence\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Review of an Effective Presentation: \"Bodies, Categories, and Ambivalence\" - Letters of Disease","og_description":"The conference presentation I have chosen to review is a talk given by a doctoral candidate from the University of Copenhagen, Trine Mygind Korsby, at a 2011 conference of the Society for Cultural Anthropology in Romania. The title of this … Continue reading →","og_url":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/lettersoflaura\/2013\/03\/11\/review-of-an-effective-presentation-bodies-categories-and-ambivalence\/","og_site_name":"Letters of Disease","article_published_time":"2013-03-11T12:29:14+00:00","author":"laural","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"laural","Est. reading time":"4 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/lettersoflaura\/2013\/03\/11\/review-of-an-effective-presentation-bodies-categories-and-ambivalence\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/lettersoflaura\/2013\/03\/11\/review-of-an-effective-presentation-bodies-categories-and-ambivalence\/"},"author":{"name":"laural","@id":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/lettersoflaura\/#\/schema\/person\/14a9531768aa4fbd28262956077ee7d6"},"headline":"Review of an Effective Presentation: “Bodies, Categories, and Ambivalence”","datePublished":"2013-03-11T12:29:14+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/lettersoflaura\/2013\/03\/11\/review-of-an-effective-presentation-bodies-categories-and-ambivalence\/"},"wordCount":818,"commentCount":7,"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/lettersoflaura\/2013\/03\/11\/review-of-an-effective-presentation-bodies-categories-and-ambivalence\/#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/lettersoflaura\/2013\/03\/11\/review-of-an-effective-presentation-bodies-categories-and-ambivalence\/","url":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/lettersoflaura\/2013\/03\/11\/review-of-an-effective-presentation-bodies-categories-and-ambivalence\/","name":"Review of an Effective Presentation: \"Bodies, Categories, and Ambivalence\" - Letters of Disease","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/lettersoflaura\/#website"},"datePublished":"2013-03-11T12:29:14+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/lettersoflaura\/#\/schema\/person\/14a9531768aa4fbd28262956077ee7d6"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/lettersoflaura\/2013\/03\/11\/review-of-an-effective-presentation-bodies-categories-and-ambivalence\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/lettersoflaura\/2013\/03\/11\/review-of-an-effective-presentation-bodies-categories-and-ambivalence\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/lettersoflaura\/2013\/03\/11\/review-of-an-effective-presentation-bodies-categories-and-ambivalence\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/lettersoflaura\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Review of an Effective Presentation: “Bodies, Categories, and Ambivalence”"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/lettersoflaura\/#website","url":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/lettersoflaura\/","name":"Letters of Disease","description":"Vitamin D, TB, and my PhD","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/lettersoflaura\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/lettersoflaura\/#\/schema\/person\/14a9531768aa4fbd28262956077ee7d6","name":"laural","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/d68eb2d25e0b983959c8d451a7cc42f1babe24606f58bacd8ab33ee395f0fb92?s=96&d=mm&r=g","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/d68eb2d25e0b983959c8d451a7cc42f1babe24606f58bacd8ab33ee395f0fb92?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/d68eb2d25e0b983959c8d451a7cc42f1babe24606f58bacd8ab33ee395f0fb92?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"laural"},"url":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/lettersoflaura\/author\/laural\/"}]}},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/lettersoflaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/lettersoflaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/lettersoflaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/lettersoflaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/42"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/lettersoflaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/lettersoflaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/lettersoflaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/lettersoflaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/lettersoflaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}