Dancing Skeletons: Life and Death in West Africa (Paperback)

~ Katherine Dettwyler (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Review

" . . . a sobering, painful look at problems of a still-poor developing country that will be particularly instructive to international public health workers, nutrition educators, planners and clinical nutritionists concerned with Third World problems. It is a recommended reading." -- ECOLOGY OF FOOD AND NUTRITION 1995

". . . this book has two main advantages. First, it engages the reader, because it is well written. Second, it offers a broad scope for discussion of academic and practical issues." -- JOURNAL OF BIOSOCIAL SCIENCES, Vol.27 1995

"Katherine Dettwyler has written an easily accessible and particularly vibrant description of life in modern Mali . . . It offers a vivid portrait of Malian people and places as well as thoughtful account of the issues and problems that face anthropologists in the field." -- AFRICAN STUDIES REVIEW, Vol. 38, No. 2 1995

"The ongoing critique of ethnography has, happily, changed the genre, and today real people walk the pages of the best ethnographies. Dettwyler's DANCING SKELETONS is surely one of the best. The text emerges as an extended meditation on applied fieldwork as a gradual melding of people and meaning." -- AMERICAN JOURNAL OF HUMAN BIOLOGY, Vol. 6, No. 5 1994

Product Description

1995 Margaret Mead Award winner! This personal account by a biocultural anthropologist illuminates important, not-soon-forgotten messages involving the more sobering aspects of conducting fieldwork among malnourished children in West Africa. With nutritional anthropology at its core, Dancing Skeletons presents informal, engaging and oftentimes dramatic stories from the field that relate the author’s experiences conducting research on infant feeding and health in Mali. Through fascinating vignettes and honest, vivid descriptions, Dettwyler explores such diverse topics as ethnocentrism, culture shock, population control, breastfeeding, child care, the meaning of disability and child death in different cultures, female circumcision, women’s roles in patrilineal societies, the dangers of fieldwork, and the realities involved in researching emotionally draining topics. Readers will alternately laugh and cry as they meet the author’s friends and informants, follow her through a series of encounters with both peri-urban and rural Bambara culture, and struggle with her as she attempts to reconcile her very different roles as objective ethnographer, subjective friend, and mother in the field. (Not-for-sale instructor resource material available to college and university faculty only; contact the publisher directly.)

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Product Details

• Paperback: 172 pages
• Publisher: Waveland Press (July 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 088133748X
• ISBN-13: 978-0881337488
• Product Dimensions: 6.6 x 4 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #22,556 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great ethnography, March 29, 2002

By A Customer

Some of the reviewers of Katherine A. Dettwylers Dancing Skeletons are critical of her book because they sense that she devoted much of her study to analyzing her own thoughts, feelings, likes, and dislikes, rather than devoting her full attention to the culture itself. ...
The reviewers of Dettwylers book must have been disappointed with her study because they were expecting an objective ethnography, free from the exposure of the anthropologists weaknesses. However, in Dettwylers book, they encountered her weaknesses (such as when she unexpectedly cried after seeing a child with Down Syndrome) and accounts of her biases (especially toward Malian food). For a social scientist, such accounts deviate from the study at hand, making it more of a personal diary than an ethnography itself.
However, these reviewers seem to have forgotten that Katherine Dettwyler is approaching her field of study from the hermeneutic point of view. Unlike social scientists, who study their subjects objectively as a way to counter bias, hermeneuts use bias as an important tool to better comprehend a culture. Through the self-evaluation of ones thoughts and feelings, and negotiation between informant and interviewer, the hermeneut is able to begin drawing a complete picture of the culture at hand.
Hence, through Dettwylers questioning and self-evaluation, the reader is able to see Mali through the eyes of a human being and not from a distanced scientist gathering raw data for his or her doctorate study. Through Dettwylers journey of trial and error, the reader begins to comprehend Mali each step at a time, the very same way Dettwyler does. Instead of being lectured at scientifically, the reader is taken on a trip through Malian society, both rural and urban, experiencing with Dettwyler the joys and tragedies of life in a rural village. Her thoughts and feelings provoke thoughts and feelings on the readers, making them, along with Dettwyler, active learners of Malian culture.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Different View, July 27, 2000

By	Molley Dodd (College Station, TX) - See all my reviews

As I have taken several classes from Dr. Dettwyler at Texas A&M University, I have a bit of a different view on this ethnography. She is an extremly interesting woman, and her passion for her field is amazing. This shines through in Dancing Skeletons, and I feel that despite it's "scientific" value it is a great source for understanding a culture. This is what Anthropology is all about.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars nice reflection on time spent in the field, February 14, 2002

By A Customer

Dettwyler tells the story of her anthro work in Mali, and it is certainly an interesting read. But there is a tone throughout that is just kind of whiny. Definitely not an ethnography, although I'm not sure it was intended to be, but more of an account of what it is like to do work in rural villages. This is a nice easy read and should give some insight on village life in this part of west Africa, but the book shifts focus quite a bit and the author's tone grows a bit tiresome as the book goes on, but don't let that deter you if you are interested in this subject. Not great, but definitely worthwhile...