What is it like to be an anthropologist or, more specifically, a woman anthropologist? Here we see highly trained and qualified women anthropologists examining their own efforts to live and work in alien cultures in many parts of the world. New chapters have been added to this ground-breaking volume, and each contributor is, in one way or another, a pioneer. All have chosen to devote their lives and energies to the understanding of worlds not their own. All have felt it important to explain what they do, why they do it, and how they feel about their work.
Cultures vary widely in their perception of a woman engaged in anthropological field work. Each of these women has had to deal with the influence of her gender, as well as the subject of her study, on the mechanics of establishing a living-working relationship with people of another culture. The diversity of their responses to the presence of a foreign woman at work in their midst gives the book an invaluable cross-cultural perspective, as does the great variety of reactions and strategies on the part of the authors themselves. Besides providing rare insight into field work in general, Women in the Field mirrors the difficulties and delights of any person thrust into an unfamiliar culture.
Women in the Field Anthropological Experiences, Expanded and Updated
About the Book
Table of Contents
Preface to the Second Edition
PEGGY GOLDE
Introduction
JEAN BRIGGS
Kapluna Daughter
LAURA THOMPSON
Exploring American Indian Communities in Depth
PEGGY GOLDE
Odyssey of Encounter
LAURA NADER
From Anguish to Exultation
RUTH LANDES
A Woman Anthropologist in Brazil
HELEN CODERE
Field Work in Rwanda, 1959-1960
NIARA SUDARKASA (nee GLORIA A. MARSHALL)
In a World of Women: Field Work in a Yoruba Community
ERNESTINE FRIEDL
Field Work in a Greek Village
CORA DUBOIS
Studies in an Indian Town
HAZEL HITSON WEIDMAN
On Ambivalence and the Field
ANN FISCHER
Field Work in Five Cultures
MARGARET MEAD
Field Work in the Pacific Islands, 1925-1967
DIANE C. FREEDMAN
Wife, Widow, Woman: Roles of an Anthropologist in a
Transylvanian Village
RENA LEDERMAN
The Return of Redwoman: Field Work in Highland New Guinea
Selected Bibliography, compiled by Srila Sen
Supplemental Selected Bibliography,
compiled by Stephen E. MacLeod