Dancing Skeletons: Life and Death in West Africa |  | Author: Katherine Dettwyler
Publisher: Waveland Press
Category: Book
List Price: $16.50
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Rating:  18 reviews
Media: Paperback
Pages: 172
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 6.6 x 4 x 1.1
ISBN: 088133748X
Dewey Decimal Number: 306.461
EAN: 9780881337488
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Product Description
1995 Margaret Mead Award winner! This 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 authorâs 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, womenâs 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 authorâs 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. (Not-for-sale instructor resource material available to college and university faculty only; contact the publisher directly.)
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Showing reviews 1-5 of 18
 Great ethnography March 29, 2002
19 out of 21 found this review helpful
Some of the reviewers of Katherine A. Dettwylerýs Dancing Skeletons are critical of her book because they sense that she devoted much of her study to analyzing her own thoughts, feelings, likes, and dislikes, rather than devoting her full attention to the culture itself. ...
The reviewers of Dettwylerýs book must have been disappointed with her study because they were expecting an objective ethnography, free from the exposure of the anthropologistýs weaknesses. However, in Dettwylerýs book, they encountered her weaknesses (such as when she unexpectedly cried after seeing a child with Down Syndrome) and accounts of her biases (especially toward Malian food). For a social scientist, such accounts deviate from the study at hand, making it more of a personal diary than an ethnography itself.
However, these reviewers seem to have forgotten that Katherine Dettwyler is approaching her field of study from the hermeneutic point of view. Unlike social scientists, who study their subjects objectively as a way to counter bias, hermeneuts use bias as an important tool to better comprehend a culture. Through the self-evaluation of oneýs thoughts and feelings, and negotiation between informant and interviewer, the hermeneut is able to begin drawing a complete picture of the culture at hand.
Hence, through Dettwylerýs questioning and self-evaluation, the reader is able to see Mali through the eyes of a human being and not from a distanced scientist gathering raw data for his or her doctorate study. Through Dettwylerýs journey of trial and error, the reader begins to comprehend Mali each step at a time, the very same way Dettwyler does. Instead of being lectured at scientifically, the reader is taken on a trip through Malian society, both rural and urban, experiencing with Dettwyler the joys and tragedies of life in a rural village. Her thoughts and feelings provoke thoughts and feelings on the readers, making them, along with Dettwyler, active learners of Malian culture.
Excellent introduction to African life September 14, 2002
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
I am not an anthropologist but a tourist who has visited Africa and is interested in learning more about African people. I found Katherine Dettwyler's book an excellent introduction to how real people live and deal with their lives in Africa. Dettwyler tells us how mothers and children interact, the way families view their children, what day-to-day life in rural Africa is really like. I found it fascinating especially because Dettwyler talks honestly about her reactions to what she found. This book shouldn't be restricted to anthropoogy students.
Good book read for an Anthropology course April 20, 2002
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
I had to read this book, and a less then enjoyeable textbook, for a cultural anthropolgy course I just got done taking. This book presents various concepts important to anthropological field work in an interesting and an understandable way. Often times reading the examples found in Dettwyler's book, helped me understand some of the concepts "defined" in my other text. I personaly recomend it to anyone taking a course concering cultural anthropolgy or anyone wondering how anthropologists do field work in foreign places.
Required Read for Class December 16, 2008
Aly (Indiana)
I had to read this ethnography for my anthropology class at Ball State. We had already read other ethnographies, and, since I am not an anthropology major, I found them difficult to get through. They were quite dry. What a nice change this book provided! I could hardly put it down! I think that the author accomplished something great with this study. By writing it in this way, she makes it accessible to those who aren't necessarily anthropologists or students majoring in the discipline. I believe that books like this can help to put a face on the problem of malnutrition in Africa. It held my interest and I learned a lot. More ethnographies should be written like this one.
A Different View July 28, 2000
Molley Dodd (College Station, TX)
8 out of 8 found this review helpful
As I have taken several classes from Dr. Dettwyler at Texas A&M University, I have a bit of a different view on this ethnography. She is an extremly interesting woman, and her passion for her field is amazing. This shines through in Dancing Skeletons, and I feel that despite it's "scientific" value it is a great source for understanding a culture. This is what Anthropology is all about.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 18
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