THE YAKHA: CULTURE, ENVIRONMENT AND DEVELOPMENT IN ...

March 1989 and October 1990, in the company of my partner in
anthropology and matrimony, Tamara Kohn.
No research takes place in a social, economic and pol it ical vacuum.
It is particularly important in social science research to try to tease
out some of the more significant influences and events which affected
what was studied and the methods that were used, in order to appreciate
the nature, strengths and weaknesses of the final work: 'the role of the
researcher' and ' the constructedness of the text', to use more
contemporary jargon, This chapter thus introduces the observer, and
looks at the reasons why I came to be interested in Nepal, ecological
anthropology and the Yakha. It also introduces Tamaphok, the village in
which the bulk of my fieldwork was conducted, and outlines some of the
methods used in my research. Numerous texts are produced as part of the
research process, of which the thesis is only one. The structure of
this thesis derives in no small measure from texts produced as the
research progressed, as well as the ways in which my research experience
was constructed by events both within and beyond my control. This
chapter therefore brings together methods and results, observer and
observed, in a study of methodology which attempts to go beyond a simple
description of "how I studied the Yakha", It is both a prelude and an
explanation of the rest of the thesis, the structure of which is
outlined at the end of this chapter.