Dancing Skeletons: Life and Death in West AfricaThis personal account by a biocultural anthropologist illuminates important, not-soon-forgotten messages involving the more sobering aspects of conducting fieldwork among malnourished children in West Africa. With nutritional anthropology at its core, Dancing Skeletons presents informal, engaging and oftentimes dramatic stories from the field that relate the author's experiences conducting research on infant feeding and health in Mali. Through fascinating vignettes and honest, vivid descriptions, Dettwyler explores such diverse topics as ethnocentrism, culture shock, population control, breastfeeding, child care, the meaning of disability and child death in different cultures, female circumcision, women's roles in patrilineal societies, the dangers of fieldwork, and the realities involved in researching emotionally draining topics. Readers will alternately laugh and cry as they meet the author's friends and informants, follow her through a series of encounters with both peri-urban and rural Bambara culture, and struggle with her as she attempts to reconcile her very different roles as objective ethnographer, subjective friend, and mother in the field. -- Publisher description. |
Contents
Return to the Field | 1 |
Of Mosquitoes and Men | 13 |
Not Just Another Bit of Exotic Ethnographic Trivia | 25 |
Copyright | |
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adults American AMIPJ animatrices anthropologist arms arrondissement asked baby bache Bakary Bamako Bambara birth Bozo breastfeeding chicken child chloroquine circumcised clitoridectomy compound cooking culture Daouda Daouda's mother death Dettwyler diarrhea died disease Dogo arrondissement door locks E. E. Evans-Pritchard Embassy explained eyes face Falaye Fat Lady Freedom from Hunger French friends Fulani girl goat goiter greetings growth hand head Heather husband infant inside intestinal parasites Kafoune karite kids knew kwashiorkor legs live look Macina Magnambougou malaria Mali Malian malnourished malnutrition Marché measles measuring medicine millet Miranda morning Moussa N'tenkoni never night nutrition education parasites pounding pregnant rice river rural sauce Sikasso sleeping someone speak Bambara Steven Tamasheq Thiero Timbuktu took Torokoro toubabs traditional tree trying turned urine village walked wanted West Africa woman women young