Feb 5, 2003
Encounter: Anthropological Notes
I lived in Bolivia for just over a year between 1995 and 1996, performing
independent anthropological fieldwork on ritual and identity in the Andes,
as part of my studies back home in the UK.
There is a (rather Freudian) theory within Anthropology in which ‘the field’ (where the anthropologist
performs research) is seen as female, and the anthropologist as male –
the field is therefore ‘penetrated’ by the quizzical explorations of the
anthropologist.
I tend to share the more recent view that such ‘penetration’ is mutual –
the anthropologist is affected as much by his or her experiences
in the field as he or she affects the field itself.
To say that I was affected by my experiences in Bolivia would
be the understatement of the century. A lot happened.
In anthropology these days, ethnography is no longer seen as being a cold, clinical, objective
record of a group of people, but rather as a record of the encounter
between the anthropologist and the culture concerned.
As part of the research, I had to write up my results
in a scientific way – the dissertation. But I didn’t feel that this exercise gave
sufficient expression to the experience I had had. Over a year after my
return from South America, I began to write. The words that in this section are just the beginning of my account of a year that changed
everything.
