This article examines strands of an intellectual history in Media and Cultural Studies and Science and Technology Studies in both of which researchers were prompted to take up ethnography. Three historical phases of this process are identified. The move between phases was the result of particular displacements and contestations of perspective in the research procedures within each discipline. Thus concerns about appropriate contextualization led to the eventual embrace of anthropological ethnographic methods. The article traces the subsequent emergence of a 'crisis of context' in the deployment of ethnography within these disciplines. The analysis of these historical changes is informed by a particular depiction of Euro-American knowledge conventions. The article suggests that the limits currently perceived for ethnography are a specific instance of the more general limits now recognized for these knowledge conventions.

This article draws attention to the deep sense of attachment maintained by Hanoi families to their ancestral villages or rural 'home places' (que). It explores both the emotional and material dimensions of these attachments against the background of a now-defunct system of state rationing in late socialist Vietnam. It is suggested that for urban dwellers the home place has become an image of human relatedness and belonging that has evolved along with and in response to state-socialist efforts of social integration. This image promotes a time orientation that had been discredited in Vietnamese state socialism. The latter defined thrift as a duty of families and individuals toward the progress of xa hoi ('society'). The experience of shortage and self-restraint in socialist states and the question of how collectivism affected customary notions of community have thus far remained mostly distinct research areas. This article seeks to bring both together within a single framework of analysis by drawing attention to the question of temporality. Vinh's home placeTogether with his younger brother and older sister, Vinh, 1 a retired schoolteacher, left Hanoi in the early morning hours to return to his home place (que). The three were the oldest, most immediate, descendants of their family who had remained in Northern Vietnam. The journey took them not further than to a village in the neighbouring province of Bac Ninh. Descending a steep path to a field of high-grown shrubbery, they reached the cemetery of their native village. The area was swamped and they had to climb over large stone blocks, covered by weed, to get to the family's grave. Vinh's sister, who was clearly more knowledgeable about ritual matters than her two brothers, distributed joss sticks.Having concluded the commemorative ritual, the three entered the village and called at the house of a cousin. Together with him, they visited the local pagoda, which had been severely damaged by flooding. Vinh was shown around by a monk who explained the extent of the damage. He was then guided to a nearby wooden structure, which was to become the new pagoda. He and his younger brother sat down together with the highest-ranking bonze and a representative of the People's Committee. Following a brief exchange of polite phrases, Vinh began to pull out bundles of 50,000 dong notes, the

During the Vietnam War, unprecedented numbers of dead soldiers were buried in unmarked graves and remain missing today. Starting in the mid-1990s, the services of psychics came into high demand, prompting the establishment of a state-approved Center for Research into Human Capabilities that continues to offer grave-finding assistance for the general public. This article discusses the cases of two well-known female psychics. As the case studies demonstrate, such research programs have established a niche for psychics on the perimeters of the official discursive nexus of truth, science, and visuality. They also highlight the variability of social and semantic proc esses by which different psychics are positioned in relation to recognized distinctions between legitimate and illegitimate knowledge practices and truth claims.

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