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taking parents to the field
DIANE BENNETT (Diane.Bennett@VUW.AC.NZ)
Fri, 26 May 1995 16:24:22 +1200
People often speak of taking children to the field as if the children
themselves were a special bond. But perhaps it is more general--that
showing ourselvces as people with families, concerns, etc is what's
important.
My parents vistied me in the field, and my mother still coresponds with
people she met in Greece in the 1980s. Certainly that has affected my
interactions with people in the village--who ask after my parents the way
they ask after PPatsy's son.
Yesterday I heard a woman who has worked for forty years with the Maoris in
New Zealand talk about the difference in rapport when, 25 years after her
first field work, she took her aging father with her to care for him.
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