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First Fieldwork

The Misadventures of an Anthropologist

Barbara Gallatin Anderson

Twelve months in a tiny island village facing the wild North Sea. . . . Anderson takes readers there—to the experience of first fieldwork. Written with wit and insight, fifteen chapters (each exploring a key anthropological concept) chronicle daily life in a Danish maritime community. From the arrival of the Anderson family to their eventful departure, students follow the professional and personal challenges of a culture change study. Forces of urbanization are turning the life (but not the soul) of thatched-roof Taarnby from the sea to the nearby city of Copenhagen. From cooking and culture shock to data gathering and childbirth, First Fieldwork animates the lighter side of fieldwork, its follies and foibles, triumphs and disasters. Anyone who has done fieldwork will identify with the humor and the pathos; anyone planning it will profit from the demystification that Anderson brings to this anthropological rite of passage. It is wonderfully human, thoroughly professional.
 

$15.50 list, 150 pages

10-digit ISBN: 0-88133-491-X

13-digit ISBN: 978-0-88133-491-3

© 1990

Table of Contents

Prologue

1. Fieldwork: A Rite of Passage

2. Getting Started: First Impressions

3. Participant Observation: Cooking School

4. Demands of Daily Living: The Bathhouse

5. Social Networking: The Queen’s Lace Caper

6. Acquiring Status: A New Villager

7. Identifying Cultural Themes: A Framework for Data Analysis

8. A Key Informant: The Store by the Sea

9. Maintaining Goodwill: The Ballad of Ole

10. Acculturation: The Enduring Cold

11. Mores and Symbols: Taarnby’s Coffee Hours

12. Culture Shock: Trouble Along the Way

13. Celebration and Challenge: The Goose Girl

14. An Ethical Issue: Shooting the Outhouse Man

15. Leaving the Field: Disaster and Deliverance

Epilogue