Field work invites absurdities and blunders, and I’ve seldom seen these expressed better and more enjoyably than Napolean Chagnon’s study of the Yanomamo, a tribe of native Americans living in the deep Amazon.They quickly grasped what I was up to and that I was determined to learn everyone’s ‘true name’, which amounted to an invasion of their system of prestige and etiquette, if not a flagrant violation of it. They reacted to this in a brilliant and devastating manner: They invested false names for everybody in the village and systematically learned them… The Bisaasi-teri headman was called ‘long-dong’ and his brother ‘eagle shit’… And so on.
I’ve had similar, although less absurd, experiences with running surveys in East Africa. In western Kenya, parents were reluctant to name their exact number of children lest it be seen as boastful, provoking God to take one of them away. In a nearby region, white foreigners were feared as vampires and kidnappers, and the children we were supposed to interview would run into the bush in fear of us. In the former case, we learned with time to ask about an eldest child, counting down child-by-child without ever mentioning the total number. In the latter, we hid in the truck while a teacher or priest prepared the children and community for the appearance of ‘white ghosts’ who would ask them strange questions about their schooling and health.
Chagnon’s book is a classic of anthropolgy, and has generated its fair share of controversy. Some of the field methods raise ethical eyebrows, but I nevertheless love how Chagnon captures the often inescapable absurdities, amateurishness, and audaciousness of most field work:
I suddenly realized the absurdity of my situation and the magnitude of what I was doing. Here I stood, in the middle of an unexplored, unmapped jungle, a few feet from a previously uncontacted group of Yanomamo with a reputation for enormous ferocity and treachery, led there by a 12-year old kid, and it was getting dark. My only marks of being human were my red loincloth, my muddy and torn sneakers, my hammock, and a bow with three skinny arrows.
Jeannie and I are heading back to northern Uganda this Sunday. While not nearly as remote nor treacherous as the deep Amazon, Kitgum and Pader always bring their share of ridiculousness. With our new wireless Internet device, I hope to make regular postings from the field.
P.S. Thanks to my close CGD colleague Michael Clemens for turning me on to this book.
I have a ton of respect for individuals/organizations that do field work in developing countries. Kudos and much thanks and respect to all of them.