Trickster: An Anthropological Memoir

Eileen Kane is an applied anthropologist who chaired the first department of anthropology in Ireland and now works on participatory development and education programs in Africa. She is the author of Doing Your Own Research (Boyars, 2001) and numerous World Bank and aid agency studies.

Foreword

Acknowledgments

Introduction, Alice Beck Kehoe

1. Vows

2. At Home on the Range

3. The Kah'nii

4. Missing Bomb City

5. Anthropology: A Mirror for Man

6. Two Italian Towns

7. Not Worrying

8. The Tribal Council

9. Why Anthropology?

10. Crossing Boundaries

11. The Murder

12. Drawing Lessons

13. Kinship Patterns

14. Game-Playing

15. Two-Thirds of the Way

16. Who We Are

17. The Rabbit Net

18. Ethnobabble

19. Ruin...

20. ...and Reprieve

20. The Killer

21. The Mission

22. The Parting

Epilogue

Discussion Points and Exercises

References and Further Readings

A real page turner. Kane has turned her first fieldwork experience into an engaging 'Margaret Mead meets Tony Hillerman' narrative, with vivid characters, many tricksters, and even a mysterious death.

Louise Lamphere, Distinguished Professor Emerita, University of New Mexico and past president of the American Anthropological Association

Trickster... should become essential reading for young anthropologists, if only because of its ruminations about the discipline as theory and praxis.

Michael Hittman, Long Island University

Kane avoids stilted ethnographic prose and instead revels in a self-effacing, first-person narrative that is richly textured, beautifully written, moving, and hilarious—precisely the kind of yarn that grabs and holds the attention of students and seasoned anthropologists alike.

Liam D. Murphy, California State University, Sacramento

A must read for every scholar who aspires to bring intellectual work to bear on the problems of real people and their communities.

Louis S. Warren, University of California, Davis

Eileen Kane is a fantastic writer—in fact, one of the best I've ever seen in anthropology, past or present. She keeps the story moving briskly, she has a novelist's eye for detail, and she renders perfect dialogue, which as Anne Lamont says, is the way to convey character. She's one of those rare anthropologists who can tell a great story while imparting cultural understanding. I hope she continues to tell stories. Anthropology needs a voice like hers.

Peter Wogan, Willamette University

Kane's book combines the depth of anthropology with the accessibility of the novel. It is written in a captivating and yet rich style, hilarious and entertaining for almost all readers. But above all, the book shows real people and normal human beings. Unlike other anthropology books, often riddled with meaningless, esoteric, anthropological jargon, Kane speaks in plain words and refuses to stand between the reader and the studied. Perhaps we should all go back to our field notes and rewrite our long-forgotten Ph.D. theses in the way Kane does here. The future of anthropology as a discipline may demand just that.

Irish Journal of Anthropology

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