"The innocent anthropologist" Notes from a mud hut - a book of Nigel Barley By Penguin Travel Library (1983), Penguin Books

Résumé du document

A respectable anthropologist, British Museum's curator, Nigel Barley is yet distinguishable by two aspects from his eminent colleagues. First he chose for his thesis to study "Old English material in published and manuscript form" (11), involving the disapproval of many ‘purists' of the discipline. When he decided then to go on the fieldwork, he chose to make a report of his experiences in books in which the tone is far from the academic clumsiness of most monographs. "The Innocent Anthropologist" fluctuate between the travel story and the methodological manual : how to "do anthropology" (51), that's what he tackles in a funny tone, often with self-derision, and with many concrete anecdotes about the every day life of a anthropologist on fieldwork. About that, "the innocent anthropologist" is especially interesting because it's the narration of Nigel Barley's first fieldwork. His narration is chronological, about the reason why and the preparations for his departure (chap 1 and 2), about his difficulties of beginning as fieldworker among the Dowayos in North Cameroon (chap 3 to 5),a bout progress, idle periods and other problems (chap 6 to 12), and at last about the shock of return (chap 13).

Extraits

[...] I was never able to bring myself to eat more than one or two of these African delicacies, of which Dowayos are inordinately fond. I was brought a cow's foot in a large enamel bowl of hot water. When I say ‘cow's foot' I do no mean something based upon a cow's foot, but the entire article complete with hoof, hide and hair. Try as I might, there seemed no way of even getting into it. I declared a sudden loss of appetite. [...]

[...] There was no difficulty in telling a high tone from a low but in the middle, it seemed, anything could happen. The matter was complicated by the fact that Dowayos also combine tones to form glides and a tone may well be affected by the tones of neighbouring words. Added to this were dialect problems. Some areas collapse tones together as well as using different vocabulary and syntax. Fortunately, the assistant is there : my assistant greatly enjoyed the role of teacher and took great delight in drilling me in verb forms until I could stand no more. [...]

[...] His relationships with officialdom had something in common with an obstacle course. - in the Cameroonian Embassy the relevant gentleman was absent and it was not known when he would return [ ] to fill in a form in triplicate - in airport : here I had my second lesson in Cameroonian bureaucracy. It seemed that we had to collect three pieces of paper relating to our visas, health certificates and migrations arrangements. - for right of residence : I suffered a long bout of bureaucracy; as it took about three weeks to have my documents processed 39) - for daily life For the car : it was as this point that bureaucracy laid me low again I could not leave town in my Peugeot 404 without sorting out the papers but they were always improper contrary to good administrative order For the mail : actually getting one's hands on the mail was a nostalgic return to the jostling bureaucracy. [...]

[...] This involved much of the same treatment that I endured when I first arrived. (178) He came up often again a lack of understanding and a considerable mistrust : required me to explain myself yet again, looking the whole time extremely suspicious of my motives [ ] How could make money out of such studies ? [ ] Spying, mineral prospecting or smuggling must be real motive. (16/17) + same idea pages 38 and 165) and he had often unpleasant surprises, instead of the two years I had asked for, I had been mysteriously given nine months in the country so all cooperation left him absolutely amazed : He would be delighted to have someone look through the law reports for me; I could even take them away with me. [...]

[...] It is a fact that we tend to forget in the West that people have to learn to be able to see photographs. [ ] I tried using photographs of lions and leopards. Old men would stare at the cards, which were perfectly clear, turn them in all manner of directions, and then say something like I do not know this man.' The methodological sore points The first of these sore points is the choice of assistants. Barley underlines that the anthropologist's assistant is a figure who seems suspiciously absent from ethnographic accounts.» Yet this figure is indispensable to the anthropologist, to help this last to understand the linguistic and symbolic systems. [...]