Re: Pair-wise

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On 5/21/95 Robert Thornton writes:

> as a nominal'prisoner' as an enemy alien. So, even Malinowski did
> not intend, in the first place, to do his field work alone! It just
> worked out that way. Nevertheless, it seems unlikely that either he
> or Witkacy could have collaborated on any product-- and I think this
> is really the point. While one can share the experiences of
> fieldwork, one can not make much headway in a group or committee on
> sorting it out and writing the final product. That is an individual
> product. Anyone who has ever worked with even a co-editor will know
> how difficult it can be, and in that case, neither of you is
> responsible for most of the actual text! I can not imagine trying to
> wirte something in a team or in a pair. The fact that it almost
> never happens, makes the idea that it should happen look more like a


However, if Malinowski had taken a female colleague with him to the
Tobriands, perhaps he would not have been so lacking in his research
about the opposite gender. Feminist Anth has, in my opinion,
successfully shown that many of the great early ethnographers were woefully
lacking in cross-gender comparisons. I believe that this shortcoming of
anth continues today, a relatively recent example would be Paul Taylor's
work amongst the Korowai. Due to Korowai custom, Paul Taylor was unable
to interview any of the women, and his producer, Judy Hallet, did not
speak the language. If I were in a position to write research grants, I
would highly favor male/female research teams over solo, single-sex
efforts. Just my thoughts...

Bret

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