August 9 to 27, 2014 Field research of Dmitri M. Bondarenko and Veronica V. Usacheva in the USA

Field research by members of the Institute for African Studies in August 2014

From August 9 to 27, 2014, the research into mutual perceptions of, and the relationship between recent migrants from Africa and African Americans, launched by the Institute for African Studies in the previous year, was continued in three cities of the state of Alabama: Albertville, Guntersville, and Huntsville. The research is supported by the Russian Foundation for Humanities (projects 13-01-18036 and 14-01-00070). This year, fieldwork was done by the Institute Vice-Director Prof. Dmitri M. Bondarenko and Senior Research Fellow Dr. Veronica V. Usacheva.

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The main distinction of fieldwork in 2014 was a shift in focus from as wide as possible geographic, social, national coverage of respondents to a case study of two clearly defined and comparable with each other small religious (Christian) communities: an African American Methodist Episcopal and Ethiopian Orthodox. Besides, this time research was concentrated on the situation not in the cities of historically more progressive, cosmopolitan, and tolerant North of the USA but in towns in the depth of the nation’s South known for its conservatism and traditionalism. Combination of the evidence got in 2013 and 2014 should allow a more comprehensive and multifaceted picture of mutual perceptions of, and the relationship between African Americans and recent migrants from Africa.

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