Comments on: “The Most Wonderful Shade of Brown”

By: Jason Antrosio (@JasonAntrosio)

Jason Antrosio (@JasonAntrosio) — Mon, 28 Jul 2014 19:10:25 +0000

With regard to Barth, the cobbler, and national identity, I’m pretty sure I heard almost the exact same wisdom about fieldwork, making shoes, and the price of leather from Sidney Mintz.

By: Louis Anthstrong

Louis Anthstrong — Sun, 27 Jul 2014 13:51:39 +0000

You know what? I’m glad people like those mentioned exist in our discipline. ‘Political correctness is killing anthropology’. There can be no progress without occasional mistakes to learn from.

By: djhatf

djhatf — Sat, 26 Jul 2014 01:17:39 +0000

@rex. i remember that barth visit. he also said something about fieldwork that remains with me. he said that he had been advising a student who wanted to work on national identity (remember what a hot topic that was in the 1990s just before everyone started in on globalization?) and said something like “you will go [to a city in certain nation state] and apprentice yourself to a cobbler and spend all day with him making shoes. for months, you will feel that you are not learning anything about national identity. then one day he will say something about people in [name of another national unit here] in relationship to the price of leather. then you will learn about national identity.” this remark on how one does fieldwork still informs my work.

in keeping with the theme of this post, as a melanin deprived resident on the southeast coast of taiwan i can tell you that “most wonderful shade of brown” cuts two ways. in the field, people are always making jokes about how ridiculous it is that i turn pink within 30 minutes of exposure. the politics of anthropology has paid far too little attention, imho, to our own vulnerability and to the ways that those with whom we work exert both formal and informal power over the course of our research

By: Fayana Richards

Fayana Richards — Fri, 25 Jul 2014 16:58:53 +0000

I didn’t know St. Clair Drake was anthropologist until I read African American Pioneers in Anthropology edited by Ira E Harrison and Faye V Harrison.

By: Carole McGranahan

Carole McGranahan — Fri, 25 Jul 2014 16:52:42 +0000

Alternative title: Anthropology That Makes You Cringe. There’s historical context and then there’s….well….parts of the discipline’s past that are really difficult to come to terms with no matter what context one applies…

By: david

david — Fri, 25 Jul 2014 08:26:51 +0000

You can see 1000’s of Christoph von Furer-Haimendorf’s photographs, slides, lantern slides and a few of his films, all of of which have been digitised here:

http://digital.info.soas.ac.uk/cgi/c/Furer-Haimendorf/F%C3%BCrer-Haimendorf%20Collection_Homepage

By: John McCreery

John McCreery — Fri, 25 Jul 2014 05:23:30 +0000

Rex, thanks for the pointer to St. Clair Drake. Have just read the Wikipedia entry and am stunned that I hadn’t heard of him before.

As for CvH-F, shouldn’t we say that while we may never forgive or forget, our prime directive is to understand what he thought he was doing and the context in which he was doing it?