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First Fieldwork: The Misadventures of an Anthropologist
Twelve months in a tiny island village facing the wild North Sea. . . . Anderson takes readers there--to the experience of first fieldwork. Written with wit and insight, fifteen chapters (each exploring a key anthropological concept) chronicle daily life in a Danish maritime community. From the arrival of the Anderson family to their eventful departure, readers follow the professional and personal challenges of a culture change study. Forces of urbanization are turning the life (but not the soul) of thatched-roof Taarnby from the sea to the nearby city of Copenhagen. From cooking and culture shock to data gathering and childbirth, First Fieldwork animates the lighter side of fieldwork, its follies and foibles, triumphs and disasters. Anyone who has done fieldwork will identify with the humor and the pathos; anyone planning it will profit from the demystification that Anderson brings to this anthropological rite of passage. It is wonderfully human, thoroughly professional.
- GenresNonfictionAnthropology
150 pages, Paperback
First published November 1, 1989
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
July 11, 2008
This ethnography is an excellent record of Anderson's encroachment on the village of Taarnby, Denmark. Throughout the story she teaches us about the village's past, and we learn of an unknown future bound to exist and change the communities in unforeseen capacities, but most importantly she charts the people’s progression and reactions to life. Their behavior is indicative of a fearful response to change, while motivating every emotion, retort, and accomplishment. What the villagers of Taarnby understood, was what they had to fear. While although this community wanted to prosper, they also wanted to remain unchanged in their ways, retaining their abilities to both trade and remain separate, yet at the same time not be cut off from the outside world. Anderson provides an accurate account of her perceptions and feelings while recording the same of those in her community, and put together makes for a remarkable and satisfying story.
May 9, 2022
I am not an anthropologist, but I went to live in Denmark (to learn the language for my graduate studies in linguistics.)
In those 10 years Dragør (the real name of the island, which lies between Copenhagen and southern Sweden at the mouth of the Baltic, not the North Sea, Vesterhavet—the western sea, which is between Denmark's west coast an England, became the home of the international airport I landed in, and evidently the two major bridges connected the island Amager with Copenhagen must have been built not long before they arrived.
My Danish family (because I ended up marrying a Dane) were farmers, living in Jutland, the peninsular mainland of Denmark. But I definitely recognized a lot of their experiences. Particularly the scene with the "kaffeebord" caused a lot of shock and embarrassment for my future husband when I took a cookie before the bread and butter.
In the years that followed (I lived there nearly 30 years) when young people got more education and also traveled more, these customs barely exist, although kaffe with a piece of cake or cookies at 3 PM is pretty common. My daughter, born in 1974, thinks i'm exagerating, because even the next generation of farm people don't follow them.
Old Town Dragør still exists, although not with thatched roofs and outhouses. Beds like they slept in are now relegated to folk open-air museums.
In those 10 years Dragør (the real name of the island, which lies between Copenhagen and southern Sweden at the mouth of the Baltic, not the North Sea, Vesterhavet—the western sea, which is between Denmark's west coast an England, became the home of the international airport I landed in, and evidently the two major bridges connected the island Amager with Copenhagen must have been built not long before they arrived.
My Danish family (because I ended up marrying a Dane) were farmers, living in Jutland, the peninsular mainland of Denmark. But I definitely recognized a lot of their experiences. Particularly the scene with the "kaffeebord" caused a lot of shock and embarrassment for my future husband when I took a cookie before the bread and butter.
In the years that followed (I lived there nearly 30 years) when young people got more education and also traveled more, these customs barely exist, although kaffe with a piece of cake or cookies at 3 PM is pretty common. My daughter, born in 1974, thinks i'm exagerating, because even the next generation of farm people don't follow them.
Old Town Dragør still exists, although not with thatched roofs and outhouses. Beds like they slept in are now relegated to folk open-air museums.
July 3, 2019
What is it like to travel as an anthropologist, living in a foreign culture for a year, as both observer and participant?
As Barbara Gallatin Anderson says, the traditional anthropological monograph has done little to answer that question. With some exceptions, most anthropologists writing scholarly monographs about the societies they lived in have revealed little about their personal experience in the field. Indeed, as Gallatin observes, anthropologists were traditionally trained to suppress “extraneous personal reporting”—precisely the stuff that travel readers and newbie fieldworkers would want to hear about.
Anderson, an anthropologist who has written scholarly works, gives us something altogether different in her delightful book, First Fieldwork. Setting aside academic theory, fictionalizing names and places to protect privacy, and writing with a nice dose of self-deprecation, she chronicles in personal detail the challenges and mishaps of her first fieldwork in a small Danish fishing village.
As the author explains early on, she had initially hoped to do fieldwork in Ghana. But when she discovered that she was pregnant, she decided instead to go to Taarnby (not its real name) with her husband Thor, who was also an anthropologist, and their 5-year-old daughter, Katie.
This was clearly a safer choice, but it was not especially easy. The accommodations alone were a challenge. Their small cottage—available only because “no fisherman would live in it”—was equipped with only a potbellied stove to see them through the freezing northern winter, a two-plate burner for cooking, no indoor toilet or bathing facilities, and a very peculiar-sounding loft arrangement for sleeping.
For all that she was an observer, Anderson also knew that she was being closely observed, and that in Taarnby, as in any small town, her errors would be widely known with incredible speed. Not surprisingly, with no previous knowledge of customs and only a phrasebook knowledge of Danish (“Give my regards to your aunt and uncle”), she made many errors.
In hilarious vignettes, she describes destroying a meatloaf (with sugar!) in a local cooking class run by “Talia the Terrible”; bursting out with a completely inappropriate expression of thanks at one of the village’s ubiquitous coffee hours (translation: “That tasted goddamned good!”); and offering garbled praise to a hostess that comes out as “Thank you for the snack. It was lovely and almost enough.” She figures the villagers consider her a dolt.
Anderson does an excellent job conveying the strains of her situation while also revealing the gradual changes that take place as she becomes increasingly accepted in Taarnby. That her daughter is so comfortably part of the children’s network helps: the village cares enormously about its children, taking them in and feeding them as they appear at kitchen doors. This growing acceptance leads to a poignant scene where Taarnby greets Anderson and her new baby with a banner that says, “Welcome to our adopted daughter!”
Organized by theme—“Culture Shock,” “An Ethical Issue,” “Acculturation: The Enduring Cold”—First Fieldwork offers insight into the anthropological process, and I’m sure the book would be extremely helpful to any anthropologist heading out to the field—if they still do fieldwork these days. Indeed, I wish my husband and I could have read it before heading off to New Guinea. We might have realized—as Anderson intends—that the messiness on the ground doesn’t necessarily preclude the possibility that a well-organized monograph might follow.
But it is as a travel book that I recommend First Fieldwork. Anthropological fieldwork is, after all, a particular—and peculiar—form of travel, and Anderson captures it with intelligence, self-awareness, and a marvelous sense of humor.
As Barbara Gallatin Anderson says, the traditional anthropological monograph has done little to answer that question. With some exceptions, most anthropologists writing scholarly monographs about the societies they lived in have revealed little about their personal experience in the field. Indeed, as Gallatin observes, anthropologists were traditionally trained to suppress “extraneous personal reporting”—precisely the stuff that travel readers and newbie fieldworkers would want to hear about.
Anderson, an anthropologist who has written scholarly works, gives us something altogether different in her delightful book, First Fieldwork. Setting aside academic theory, fictionalizing names and places to protect privacy, and writing with a nice dose of self-deprecation, she chronicles in personal detail the challenges and mishaps of her first fieldwork in a small Danish fishing village.
As the author explains early on, she had initially hoped to do fieldwork in Ghana. But when she discovered that she was pregnant, she decided instead to go to Taarnby (not its real name) with her husband Thor, who was also an anthropologist, and their 5-year-old daughter, Katie.
This was clearly a safer choice, but it was not especially easy. The accommodations alone were a challenge. Their small cottage—available only because “no fisherman would live in it”—was equipped with only a potbellied stove to see them through the freezing northern winter, a two-plate burner for cooking, no indoor toilet or bathing facilities, and a very peculiar-sounding loft arrangement for sleeping.
For all that she was an observer, Anderson also knew that she was being closely observed, and that in Taarnby, as in any small town, her errors would be widely known with incredible speed. Not surprisingly, with no previous knowledge of customs and only a phrasebook knowledge of Danish (“Give my regards to your aunt and uncle”), she made many errors.
In hilarious vignettes, she describes destroying a meatloaf (with sugar!) in a local cooking class run by “Talia the Terrible”; bursting out with a completely inappropriate expression of thanks at one of the village’s ubiquitous coffee hours (translation: “That tasted goddamned good!”); and offering garbled praise to a hostess that comes out as “Thank you for the snack. It was lovely and almost enough.” She figures the villagers consider her a dolt.
Anderson does an excellent job conveying the strains of her situation while also revealing the gradual changes that take place as she becomes increasingly accepted in Taarnby. That her daughter is so comfortably part of the children’s network helps: the village cares enormously about its children, taking them in and feeding them as they appear at kitchen doors. This growing acceptance leads to a poignant scene where Taarnby greets Anderson and her new baby with a banner that says, “Welcome to our adopted daughter!”
Organized by theme—“Culture Shock,” “An Ethical Issue,” “Acculturation: The Enduring Cold”—First Fieldwork offers insight into the anthropological process, and I’m sure the book would be extremely helpful to any anthropologist heading out to the field—if they still do fieldwork these days. Indeed, I wish my husband and I could have read it before heading off to New Guinea. We might have realized—as Anderson intends—that the messiness on the ground doesn’t necessarily preclude the possibility that a well-organized monograph might follow.
But it is as a travel book that I recommend First Fieldwork. Anthropological fieldwork is, after all, a particular—and peculiar—form of travel, and Anderson captures it with intelligence, self-awareness, and a marvelous sense of humor.
March 9, 2008
Life is universal
August 3, 2008
A short but completely satisfying read. I'd say more but hell, just read Catherine's review and you'll get the idea!
July 31, 2015
Read this for my Intro to Socio-cultural Anthropology class in college.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews