Problem For Detwyler For Her Study example essay topic

The job of an anthropologist is not an easy one by any means. To properly conduct a study of any kind there are many obstacles that stand in their way and they range anywhere from the size of mole hills to mountains. Some of these factors are completely managerial in nature and others are factors that pertain to study side of the anthropologists work. Throughout the book "Dancin Skeletons, Life and Death in West Africa" by Katherine Detwyler, we are shown many examples of the trial and tribulations she faces and how she deals with them while conducting her study on child malnutrition in west Africa. Upon entering the location of their field study, there are many managerial and practical challenges that face a Anthropologist before they can even start the smallest part of their research. There are many obstacles that need to be crossed such as obtaining suitable lodging, finding food and drinking water, medical concerns, transportation concerns, language barriers, getting informants, obtaining transportation, and of course finding the research materials and data needed to conduct their study.

Luckily for Detwyler these were mostly rather smaller problems for her during her study in which she wrote the book about for she had already done research in Mali eight years before hand. Detwyler had little trouble finding more than suitable lodging (i.e. air conditioned), she knew exactly where to find things such as food and medical facilities and she even spoke the language fairly well. Also, due to her previous study, Detwyler had already made contact with an informant (Moussa) to help her, and many of the case examples she would use for data on her study of child malnutrition. There was however one more additional problem to solve that was more exclusive to Detwyler's case and that was that she had brought her daughter Miranda along because she "needed the company" (Detwyler pg. 3).

A anthropologist who was involved in a study who's goal was to study a societies culture and their behaviour would not likely bring this sort of emotional attachment along with them into the field because of the hindrance it would be to their work. This did not prove to be as much of a problem for Detwyler (though her daughter did prove to present her with problems such as the chicken chasing incident on pg. 81 and when she fell ill in chapter 13) for her study was based mostly on the collection of data due to interviews and scientific data. Along with these more practical problems that Detwyler experiences while in Mali, she also encounters the problems that almost anyone else would when entering a new society and that is being the "outsider". This is why much of the time anthropologists would use translators if they did not speak the language and informants to help them understand what was going on and why things were the way they were. But often is the case that there is a separate treatment from the other side towards the researcher in the country. Being a white female women in a predominately black Muslim country, Detwyler stood out like a sore thumb.

Often it was found that there were many stereotypical perceptions of her and often people attempted to take advantage of her. For one, white people are often associated with being the ones giving immunization shots and having a readily supply of pills and medicine to fight disease. So often during the course of her study, Detwyler is constantly asked for medicine by the people she studies such as the lady with the child who had "funny bunn a" on pg. 73. People also associated Detwyler with being wealthy and would attempt to take advantage of her as well as they did other "tou babs" as in such was the case with the "bache boy" who attempted to cheat her on pg. 39. Cases such as these are not merely isolated to someone who would be conducting research in Mali, but would be evident for anyone travelling abroad and entering an area of a different culture.

Once overcoming all of the initial problems facing an anthropologist when they first enter the area of their study, there are always the factors such as ethnocentrism that deeply impact their study. Haviland defines ethnocentrism as holding the belief that the ways of one's own culture are the only proper one (Haviland pg. 51). Ethnocentrism is a rather problem to an anthropologists work. If a totally cultural relativistic view is not held, the work becomes tainted and unusable. It would seem to the average person that it would be rather easy for a professional anthropologist to hold the highest possible holistic perspective during their study. Though this is the way it should be, we have to remember that these are people too and just as the people they study are en cultured into their society's customs so are the researcher's into their own.

This makes it difficult for someone who has grown up in a different society and culture to form a proper hypothesis about another culture without being culture-bound (Haviland pg. 21). Detwyler runs into this problem of ethnocentrism more than once during her time in Mali. On one occasion Detwyler goes to visit her friend "the Fat Lady from Timbuktu" and finds herself being guilty of holding ethnocentric views. During her visit, Detwyler noticed the poor malnourished state of the servant's child and attempts numerous times to educate the mother on proper feeding practices but to no avail. Detwyler gets angrier and angrier upon every returning visit because she finds that the mother is not catching on and the child is getting worse and worse. Finally Detwyler blows up on the servant and tells her that she should just kill her baby instead of it dying slowly.

But it is not until after this point that Detwyler realizes that the woman is retarded and does not understand what Detwyler is attempting to teach her. "Slowly realization dawned on me - I, the mother of a retarded child, had failed to recognize that Dauoda's mother was mentally retarded. It had never occurred to me that anything other than his mother's ignorance and lack of concern stood between Dauoda and good heath. In retrospect, I realize that I had just assumed, ethnocentrically, that if you were mentally retarded in Mali, you would be unlikely to hold down a job, be married, and have kids. But Malians don't necessarily share American prejudices toward the mentally retarded" (Detwyler pg. 34). Though this is a rather innocent case of ethnocentrism, it does go to show how easily it can happen to someone and even more how it can happen to even those who try to avoid it the most.