The Secret Lives of Anthropologists: Lessons from the Field

Cover
Half Title
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Table of Contents
List of Illustrations
	Figures
	Table
Notes on Contributors
Acknowledgements
Introduction: pulling back the curtain
	A few secrets I wish I’d known
	Paths into the field
	Gendered relations and other challenges in the field
	The observer and the observed: the metamorphosis of research, methods, and the researcher
	Dangerous fields
	Ethics, advocacy, and other everyday moral dilemmas of research
	Conclusion
	References
Part I
	Paths into the field
		1 Learning fields
			The long walk into the field
			Learning from the field
			Concluding remarks
			Questions for reflection
			Note
			References
		2 Stumbling around the sacred: some personal observations
			Introduction
			Why I might study religion
			Luck, fast and dumb
			Studying the sacred
			On qualifications and authenticity
			Relax, it’s only sacred
			My rebirth
			Conclusion
			Acknowledgements
			Questions for reflection
			Notes
			References
		3 From the Orinoco to Sorority Row: searching for a field site as an evolutionary anthropologist
			Questions for reflection
			Notes
			References
Part II
	Gendered relations and other challenges in the field
		4 Doing ethnomusicological research as a white woman in Cameroon and the Central African Republic
			Being a woman in the field
			Doing a man’s job
			Questions for reflection
			Notes
			References
		5 A boss, a mother, a red antelope, and all the things in between
			Introduction
			Am I really a woman?
			To be “patron” and becoming “ma fille”
			The ethnomusicologist and the xylophone mother bar
			White girl, mother, grandmother, and novice in Gabon
			My Gabon modus vivendi
			“La blanche” and the bishop
			Mother Hélène’s daughter
			The novice and the Myene people
			Conclusion
			Questions for reflection
			Notes
			References
		6 Culturally appropriate solutions to fieldwork challenges among Mbendjele BaYaka hunter-gatherers of the Congo Basin
			Introduction
			Mbendjele BaYaka
			The fieldsite
			Informants’ “overwhelming” behaviours
			Dealing with unwanted male attention
			Issues with interviewing
			The fear of lacking data
			Discussion
			Acknowledgements
			Linguistic transcriptions and transliterations
			List of abbreviations
			Questions for reflection
			Notes
			References
Part III
	The observer and the observed: the metamorphosis of research, methods, and the researcher
		7 My life in the school of hard knocks: how an aspiring anthropologist became a white Cameroonian
			Finding my way to “the field”
			“Participant observation” or life under the African microscope?
			“Yes, boss”: the mysteries of African hierarchy
			Has anyone seen my agenda?
			Pygmies: hunter-gatherers, farmers, clients, or entrepreneurs?
			Things fall apart: initiation into the life of an applied anthropologist
			Things fall apart II: the land crisis in the Congo Basin
			Laughing to keep from crying: the rise of the white Cameroonian
			What is anthropology?
			Questions for reflection
			Notes
			References
		8 Spā߀min, ethnographers, and mixed methods
			An alien introduction
			Crash-landings
			Culture shock, personality, and metaphorical triangulation
			Mixed methods and thinking in teams
			Mixed methods in Dominíca
			Teams in Tanzania
			Brief “insightful” conclusion
			Acknowledgements
			Questions for reflection
			Notes
			References
		9 Mothering in the field: participant observation of cultural transmission
			Meeting the Tsimane’ with Vincent (1999–2001)
			Clara (Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia 2001)
			Lea (Barcelona, Spain 2003)
			Ana (Hyderabad, India 2006)
			In closing
			Acknowledgements
			Questions for reflection
			Notes
			References
		10 The quiet joy of fieldworkers in the Kalahari
			The Kalahari Desert
			The giving and taking of objects
			A giraffe’s spoor
			Going beyond the wind that blows in the desert
			Acknowledgements
			Questions for reflection
			References
Part IV
	Dangerous fields
		11 The origins of Surviving Fieldwork
			Questions for reflection
			References
		12 When all hell breaks loose: conducting ethnographic fieldwork amid gunplay, catastrophe, and mayhem
			The case for an ethnography of the dangerous field
			Ethnography in the first person: a reflexive approach to crisis
			Fateful decisions
			The ethnography of violence and catastrophe: writing horror from experience
			A strategic evacuation
			Setting the stage: mayhem in Cité Soleil
			Threat and theory: towards a calculus of risk
			Anthropologist, defend thyself: self-preservation and the precepts of non-lethality and discretion
			The price of doing business
			A way of telling a story
			Questions for reflection
			Notes
			References
Part V
	Ethics, advocacy, and other everyday moral dilemmas of research
		13 Surviving Agta fieldwork
			Janet’s first contact with the Agta
			Background: why did we choose to live this way?
			Learning to embrace new perspectives
			Mistakes both funny and painful
			Agta food sharing customs
			Becoming a contributing member of the society: paramedical work, our main emic contribution
			The anthropologist as entertainer
			Anthropologist as advocate and bodyguard: diplomacy goes a long way
			A lowlander shoots an Agta child
			The wrong way to lobby against a logging company destroying the Agta forest
			Existential threats facing the Agta
			The day my mom and dad freed a slave for eighty dollars
			Raising three children among the Agta
			Questions for reflection
			Notes
			References
		14 Do you consent to participate in this research study?
			An ad hoc sampling protocol for anthropological genetics studies
			The genesis of a multidisciplinary sampling protocol
			The data collection protocol itself, a priori …
			The informed consent procurement itself, a priori …
			Informed consent has to be procured in a written form? Really?
			Are you informed and voluntarily consenting to participate?
			Troubled benefits and compensations
			Conclusion
			Acknowledgements
			Questions for reflection
			Note
			References
		15 Who owns poop? And other ethical dilemmas facing an anthropologist who works at the interface of biological research and indigenous rights
			The Hadza foragers of Tanzania
			How I began working with the Hadza
			Dietary research, anti-poaching laws, and indigenous land rights
			Hadza GM research and the importance of community consultation
			A way forward
			Questions for reflection
			References
		16 But what if the “field” is a mother–baby behavioural sleep laboratory? How it happened, what it is like; the good, the fantastic, and the downright ugly
			Prelude
			Musical beds?
			When the personal and the professional intersect …
			Jeffrey’s second contribution
			In the meantime …
			A rocky road ahead … where nobody dared (but needed) to go …?
			And the plan was … step by step
			Anybody seen one? A sleep lab that is?
			And so we began
			Do great oaks from little acorns still grow? (Apparently, they do)
			The first mother–baby behavioural sleep laboratory (in the world)
			The “field” as lived: the good part
			Communicating to the public … to the press, a critical part of this “field”
			Countering the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and the NICHD “safe to sleep” recommendation against any and all bedsharing (the not so good)
			So, what is the controversy about?
			Oh where, oh where are the principles of EBM in the practices of the AAP and NICHD, who claim to follow them? Let’s take a look!
			Going to court, defending the rights of parents and infants, another dimension of this “field”
			And the good that this career brings is …?
			Concluding reflection
			Questions for reflection
			References
Appendix: regional packing list and other favourite items in the field
	Congo Basin
	Tanzania
	Cameroon, Central African Republic
	Philippines
	Venezuelan Amazon, Southern California
	Central African Republic, Ethiopia, Gabon, Republic of Congo
	Botswana-Namibia, Dobe area of Kalari Desert
	Haiti
	Central Africa, Gabon
	Congo Basin, Cameroon
	Andaman Islands
	Southern Siberia
	Bolivian Amazon
	Southern Africa
	Commonwealth of Dominíca, Venezuela, Ethiopia, northern Tanzania
	Central Africa
Index