At a regional Asian Studies conference recently there was a roundtable event held to highlight a documentary film on L. Keith Brown, professor of anthropology emeritus at the University of Pittsburgh. The film, produced and directed by David Plath, is “Can’t Go Native?” Keith was there on hand to answer questions about his long engagement with the people of Mizusawa, Japan. A few years ago Mizusawa folks held a 50th anniversary to honor his years of anthropological fieldwork there. Whoa. Huh? 50 years going to one fieldsite? One of Keith’s comments was that doing fieldwork in the same place over such a long period of time “keeps you honest.” You can’t, he said, blow into town for a one-shot roughshod survey like those University of Tokyo researchers often do. One question from the audience was “How many other anthropologists have been celebrated like this by the community where they do research?”
Great question. I can’t answer it.
Not many people come to mind, but then I wasn’t trained as a cultural anthropologist. I did, however, immediately offer William Bright as a similar case. Bill began to study the Karuk language of northern California in 1949 for a BA in linguistics at Berkeley. He was 21 and scared and lonely. His nickname was Uhyanapatanvaanich, “little word-asker.” His New York Times obit is worth reading, it makes it clear that there is a reason some of us studied linguistics in anthropology departments (thus “linguistic anthropology”) and not in linguistics departments under the oppressive weight of Chomskyian generative grammar. Quoting from the article, for Bill “language was inseparable from its cultural context, which might include songs, poetry, stories and everyday conversation. And so, lugging unwieldy recording devices, he continued to make forays into traditional communities around the world, sitting down with native speakers and eliciting words, phrases and sentences.”
Just before Bill died in 2006, the Karuk people honored his decades of work to document and preserve the Karuk language by making him an honorary member of the tribe. Bill told me that some younger Karuk asked if this would open the floodgates to other White People who would seek membership. But the Karuk Elders said if they spend over 50 years studying our language and culture like Bill did, then, sure, they can join us.
I was curious about whether or not there are other anthropologists in other subfields who have been honored in these ways? In addition, do new anthropology PhD students think about this? What if you knew you would be returning to your field site over a lifetime, would you write anything differently? With a shift to multi-sited ethnography (as in my own work), is this type of honoring of anthropologists a thing of the past?
For myself, I have long pictured my research and interactions to be part of a lifetime of contact. I am a relatively recent phd, 2010, but don’t know about my peers. I suppose some of this is influence from certain profs from my undergrad classes, as well as several of my grad school advisors, who stressed long-term engagement, and where possible, various types of mutual collaboration with people in the field. Through their examples I have always tried to be creative in finding ways to continuously maintain these connections. Made easier these days since they are all online, email and yes, Facebook. Also the previous nasty history between our two countries (I work in Vietnam) also made me strive for projects in which there might be mutual benefit and friendship rather than the alternatives.
The Wyandotte Nation of Oklahoma just funded and co-organized an exhibition commemorating the centennial of Marius Barbeau’s fieldwork in the community. http://www.snomnh.ou.edu/exhibits/
“In addition, do new anthropology PhD students think about this? What if you knew you would be returning to your field site over a lifetime, would you write anything differently?”
An interesting question which assumes that one’s field site is not also where one lives. Just an observation, but one which I also speaks to Anthropology’s history of studying the foreign ‘elsewhere’.
Probably not what most of us have in mind in response to this question. But there was also the case of Robert J. Smith, Goldwyn-Smith Professor of Anthropology and Asian Studies at Cornell.
“Among many honors, the Order of the Rising Sun was conferred on Smith by the government of Japan in 1994, in recognition of his contributions to the field of Japan studies.”
I suspect that there are actually a very large number of anthropologists who have been honored in this way — we just haven’t heard about them because they have been more interested in doing ethnography with their communities than in Becoming Famous To Anthropologists. David French springs to mind for me. In the Pacific there are also many anthropologists with deep connections to their communities who may not have received formal recognition (something that rubs against the egalitarian ethos of many Pacific Island societies) but who have relationships with their research respondents like Bill Bright: Mac Marshall, and Alan Howard and Jan Rensel.
I may be wrong, but if I’m right then I feel like your post raises an important question: what sort of discipline have we created where being well-known to anthropologists and being well-respected in your fieldwork community are at odds with one another?
Discuss White Privilege That’s a good point. I recently invited someone to contribute an essay to a journal issue I’m editing who will be writing on this very issue. In linguistic anthropology we have many scholars who work on their own speech community, but even saying that doesn’t mean they live in the same place as the fieldsite. So, for example, Claudia Mitchell-Kernan studied African American English “signifying and marking” verbal art using data collected in the Bay Area, but she was from Indiana and then spent the rest of her career in LA.
Phyllis Kaberry was dubbed a Queen Mother by the Nso’ people of Cameroon, who also held a mourning ceremony on hearing of her death.
“…what sort of discipline have we created where being well-known to anthropologists and being well-respected in your fieldwork community are at odds with one another?”
Good question.
we just haven’t heard about them because they have been more interested in doing ethnography with their communities than in Becoming Famous To Anthropologists.
It may also be the case that, while not well known by other anthropologists, they are honored in other academic circles. Robert Smith is a good example. A towering figure in Asian (and especially Japanese) studies, he was, I suspect, easily ignored and rarely cited by anthropologists chasing the latest theoretical fads.
I stumbled across this about Roger Keesing once, and always thought there must be a really good story behind it, but never really followed up on it:
“Keesing died suddenly of a heart attack at the Canadian Anthropology Society dance and reception in 1993, and his ashes were transferred to the Solomon Islands, where the families of his Kwaio associates accord him the status of an andalo or ancestral spirit.” Interesting as he worked a bit on ancestors, and the final words of his “not a fish”-text echo weirdly now – it goes something like “I will never be more than an outsider who knows a little about how it is to be an insider”. And now he is an ancestral spirit. How much more inside can you be?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Keesing
One source is the Ton Otto obit linked from there.
My colleague at SUNY/Buffalo, Phillips Stevens, will be made an honorary chief of the Esie Kingdom in Nigeria on December 1, in recognition of his nearly 50 years of involvement with that community.
http://www.buffalo.edu/ubreporter/2012_09_20/stevens_chieftaincy
At the very same conference Laura reports on, in another room, sessions were held to honour and reflect on the long-term work of David Holmberg and Kathryn March in Nepal. Those gathered for those sessions remarked again and again on the ways these two scholars made real their commitment to their community of primary research and to the country as a whole.
Throughout the conference, Kath provided simultaneous translation for their long-time fieldwork collaborator from the village where Kath and David first worked in the 1970s.
Thanks for all the additional examples everyone! It’s great to know about the other anthropologists who have been recognized by various communities.