Restless Anthropologist

Doing new fieldwork reminds us of how to be naïve, as we compel ourselves to ask new questions in new fieldsites. One might even say that insofar as doing new fieldwork is intrinsic to the anthropological mission, it is what makes us anthropologists.

Once they do field research, anthropologists realize that they do not simply enter, leave, or return to it but rather engage it as part of their ongoing lives in a range of locations that constitute both a part of field research itself and a part of the lives of their interlocutors.

we might say that choosing a new fieldsite is about three factors—timing, timing, timing

cultural anthropology, our years of ever-deepening expertise in an area—its history, daily practices, deep cultural assumptions, and especially its language(s)—are a just source of pride, an achievement we exhibit as a prime distinction between us and survey researchers and other quantitatively oriented colleagues

[Fieldwork is] the central ritual of the tribe [of anthropologists].
GEORGE STOCKING