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The Innocent Anthropologist

This series chronicles the adventures of an anthropologist venturing into remote cultures for study. Each book transports readers to a new setting, where the protagonist navigates cultural misunderstandings and humorous mishaps. With wit and insight, the narratives explore the clash between Western perspectives and traditional ways of life. It's an observational journey highlighting the challenges and unexpected discoveries of cross-cultural engagement.

A Plague of Caterpillars
The innocent anthropologist: notes from a mud hut

Recommended Reading Order

  1. 1

    Nigel Barley was a ?new anthropologistOCO, one of the younger generation of academics whose learning and research had been acquired in institutes, research departments, from academic journals and university libraries. But after suffering years of gentle put-downs from leathery old field-workers, their ?teeth permanently gritted from years of dealing with nativesOCO, he was determined to gain his own experience. The two years he spent among the Dowayo people in the Cameroons (1978-80) produced a comic masterpiece of travel writing, The Innocent Anthropologist, which remains as honest, as funny and as compelling a read as when it was first penned ? and a devastating critique of academics attempting to impose their rules and their order on West African life."

    The innocent anthropologist: notes from a mud hut
  2. 2

    When local contacts tipped off Nigel Barley that the Dowayo circumcision ceremony was about to take place, he immediately left London for the village in northern Cameroon where he had lived as a field anthropologist for 18 months.

    A Plague of Caterpillars