Russel-Research-Method-in-Anthropology

376 Chapter 13
she was not bound by the expectation. In fact, Davis says that ‘‘being paired
off’’ made women more comfortable with her because she was ‘‘simply breaking
a rule everyone else broke’’ (1986:254).
With changing sexual mores in our late industrial society, anthropologists
have become more open about the topic of sex and fieldwork. Several anthologies
have been published in which researchers discuss their own sexual experiences
during participant observation fieldwork (Kulick and Willson 1995;
Lewin and Leap 1996; Markowitz and Ashkenazi 1999). Proscriptions against
sex in fieldwork are silly, because they don’t work. But understand that this is
one area that people everywhere take very seriously.
The rule on sexual behavior in the field is this: Do nothing that you can’t
live with, both professionally and personally. This means that you have to be
even more conscious of any fallout, for you and for your partner, than you
would in your own community. Eventually, you will be going home. How will
that affect your partner’s status?
Surviving Fieldwork
The title of this section is the title of an important book by Nancy Howell
(1990). All researchers—whether they are anthropologists, epidemiologists,
or social psychologists—who expect to do fieldwork in developing nations
should read that book. Howell surveyed 204 anthropologists about illnesses
and accidents in the field, and the results are sobering. The maxim that
‘‘anthropologists are otherwise sensible people who don’t believe in the germ
theory of disease’’ is apparently correct (Rappaport 1990).
One hundred percent of anthropologists who do fieldwork in south Asia
reported being exposed to malaria, and 41% reported contracting the disease.
Eighty-seven percent of anthropologists who work in Africa reported exposure,
and 31% reported having had malaria. Seventy percent of anthropologists
who work in south Asia reported having had some liver disease.
Among all anthropologists, 13% reported having had hepatitis A. I was hospitalized
for 6 weeks for hepatitis A in 1968 and spent most of another year
recovering. Glynn Isaac died of hepatitis B at age 47 in 1985 after a long
career of archeological fieldwork in Africa. Typhoid fever is also common
among anthropologists, as are amoebic dysentery, giardia, ascariasis, hookworm,
and other infectious diseases.
Accidents have injured or killed many fieldworkers. Fei Xiaotong, a student
of Malinowski’s, was caught in a tiger trap in China in 1935. The injury left
him an invalid for 6 months. His wife died in her attempt to go for help.
Michelle Zimbalist Rosaldo was killed in a fall in the Philippines in 1981.