The article is available at: https://quillette.com/2019/10/05/the-dangerous-life-of-an-anthropologist/
It’s worth reading, covering the research of Napoleon Chagnon among the Yanomamo of the Amazon. His book The Fierce People was published early in my undergraduate time – with a total lack of the “noble savage” perspective. If I recall correctly – and a half-century can tilt one’s memory – there’s a spot in his field notes where he regularly uses the term “those bastards” to describe the subjects of his research.
Turns out that life among the Yanomamo was only a little less hazardous than life at the university as an anthropologist. This chart, from 1996, gives some idea of the violence within some of these societies:
I liked reading Chagnon’s writings on the topic – he moved from an ethnographer’s perspective into socio-biology – a study that, while not wholly accepted today will likely become a much more significant aspect of future social research. His last book referred to his life midst two dangerous groups – the Yanomamo and the anthropologists.
Leave a Reply