Review by Choice Review
Anthropologists often talk about the mystery of fieldwork but Werner and Schoepfle are generally successful at rationalizing the often nebulous attempt at understanding another culture. These are how-to volumes for the anthropological fieldworker. As such the tone is didactic, the scope encompassing, the results informative. However, the book can be very tedious. Every imaginable step in the process from preparing for fieldwork, to sorting and organizing the resultant data, to eventual interpretation are considered in detail. This is no mere mechanical exercise, however, since the authors also take the position that ethnoscience (i.e., presenting the natives' cultural universe from their own perspective) is the proper mode of anthropological interpretation. This is a reasonable orientation, central to the disciplines' interests and concerns; it is also a potentially limited and (for some topics) debatable approach. It is regrettable that the prose and argument are awkward and stylistically pseudoscientific at this point. The constant reference to other sections of the volumes is also disconcerting. However, this obvious labor of love is to be both commended and welcomed for advanced readers.-W. Arens, SUNY at Stony Brook
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
