Product Description

When British anthropologist Nigel Barley set up home among the Dowayo people in northern Cameroon, he knew how fieldwork should be conducted. Unfortunately, nobody had told the Dowayo. His compulsive, witty account of first fieldwork offers a wonderfully inspiring introduction to the real life of a cultural anthropologist doing research in a Third World area. Both touching and hilarious, Barley’s unconventional story—in which he survived boredom, hostility, disaster, and illness—addresses many critical issues in anthropology and in fieldwork.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #227498 in Books
• Published on: 2000-09-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 190 pages

From the Publisher
Also by Nigel Barley and available from Waveland Press: Grave Matters: Encounters with Death around the World (ISBN 9781577664314). Additional titles of related interest from Waveland Press: Anderson, Around the World in 30 Years: Life as a Cultural Anthropologist (ISBN 9781577660576); DeVita, Stumbling Toward Truth: Anthropologists at Work (ISBN 9781577661252); Gardner-Hoffman, Dispatches from the Field: Neophyte Ethnographers in a Changing World (ISBN 9781577664512); and Grindal-Salamone, Bridges to Humanity: Narratives on Fieldwork and Friendship, Second Edition (ISBN 9781577664246).

Excerpted from The Innocent Anthropologist : Notes from a Mud Hut by Nigel Barley. Copyright © 2000. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved
"The prevalence of factual data in anthropological monographs stems . . . from an attitude of 'when in doubt, collect facts.' This is, in a sense, an understandable approach. So off I went every day, armed with my tobacco and notebooks and paced out the fields, calculated the yields, counted the goats in a flurry of irrelevant activity. This at least had the virtue of making my weird and inexplicable ways familiar to the Dowayos and I began to know them by name." (from Chapter 6)

Customer Reviews

If you ever suffered through an anthropology course ...
Suffering is the proper word. Anthropology should be totally, completely fascinating -- it's the study of human cultures, for heaven's sake -- but it's often a dry-as-dust class for college students.

This book is not dry. In fact, it's probably the only anthropology book that can bring the reader to tears of laughter.

Which is not to say that the book is a comedy. It's not. The book is a sympathetic and interesting take on the writer's study of the Dowayo people. But the Dowayo people -- like any other ethnic group or people -- have quirks that the people themselves cannot see. Nigel Barley lives among the Dowayo and documents their lives, tells how he does anthropology, and manages to do so in a way that makes the book one I sometimes pick up, open at random, and enjoy.

Brief but Satisfying
Stumbling upon this book was total luck! The only motive I had to get this book was a desire to learn more about Anthro as informal as possible- yet have it be completely nonfiction.

I just want people to know that this is my first actual review. That being said, everyone who reads this review should understand that I liked this book SO much that I not only sent it from my house in Japan to a friend in the states, but I also came back here to write a short blurb on it.

I promise any future reviews won't be such a waste of everyone's time! Take a chance and get this book!

One of my favorites!
I borrowed this book in the early 90s from a British friend (thanks Mark!) and it fast became one of my favorites (a close second to Brave New World). Witty, touching, and hilarious - I would love to have Nigel Barley over for a dinner party! I just wish he had written more books like this one!