ABSTRACT
Contingencies of time shape the sites and conditions of ethnographic research and discovery, as well as when a manuscript emerges into print. As with my other current writing, an unpredictable temporal relationship inscribes itself into the processual methodology of research and publication. It fashions differing interpretive contexts for permutations of silence in the making of knowledge and to its reception. What I am saying elsewhere when writing on being a feminist ethnographer during a challenging time when religious women are falling, once more, into strategic silences, it is my concluding statement here too (Jaschok forthcoming):
‘What I am describing therefore reflects a time past, but not a time concluded nor irrelevant. For history not to be misrepresented, records must continue to be written, kept, and made public where and when possible. The canon of scholarship when it comes to the modern and contemporary history of Chinese women of religious identity is all too limited, their pertinence to the historical memory is immeasurable’.
