Description
Book SynopsisTells the story of anthropological fieldwork centred at Rhodes-Livingstone Institute in Northern Rhodesia during mid-twentieth century. Focusing on collaborative processes rather than on the activity of individual researchers, this book places anthropologists' assistants and informants in a central role in the making of anthropological knowledge.
Trade Review“Schumaker’s work, which takes a completely different approach to the study of anthropology, is by far the most revealing account I have ever read, not only of the Rhodes-Livingstone Institute but of anthropology in Africa. Both highly innovative and extremely convincing, it sets new standards for Southern African intellectual history.”—Terence Ranger, University of Zimbabwe
“This is one of those rare books that is capable of shaping basic understandings among several disparate audiences at the same time—among anthropologists, for whom it will be a revelation about the role of research assistants in shaping the discipline, among historians of science, who will gain important new insights about colonialism and the field sciences, and among historians, who will see anthropology and history in a new light. Schumaker addresses familiar issues concerning anthropology and colonialism, and replaces pious generalizations with textured descriptions based on excellent sources.”—Steven Feierman, University of Pennsylvania
“Lyn Schumaker’s splendid history provides a balanced and sensitive account of the growth of a particular form of the discipline.” -- Peter Fry * TLS *
"It is the great virtue of Lyn Schumaker’s study that it forces readers to think in a more nuanced and case-specific manner about the ‘colonial situation’ of anthropology. . . . Throughout, Schumaker displays a wonderfully nuanced and wide-ranging contextual understanding of issues that are all too often assumed rather than ‘open for investigation.’ . . . Schumaker has produced a work that will be of substantial interest not only to anthropologists and their historians, but to historians of science generally, and beyond to students of African history and the history of European colonialism."
-- George W. Stocking Jr. * American Historical Review *
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments
1. “The Water Follows the Stream”
2. Contexts and Chronologies
3. Archetypal Experiences
4. The Laboratory in the Field
5. “A Lady and an American”
6. Atop the Central African Volcano
7. Africanizing Anthropology
8. The Culture of Fieldwork
Epilogue
Notes
Bibliography
Index
