The Taste of Ethnographic Things: The Senses in Anthropology

Anthropologists who have lost their senses write ethnographies that are often disconnected from the worlds they seek to portray. For most anthropologists, Stoller contends, tasteless theories are more important than the savory sauces of ethnographic life. That they have lost the smells, sounds, and tastes of the places they study is unfortunate for them, for their subjects, and for the discipline itself.

The Taste of Ethnographic Things describes how, through long-term participation in the lives of the Songhay of Niger, Stoller eventually came to his senses. Taken together, the separate chapters speak to two important and integrated issues. The first is methodological--all the chapters demonstrate the rewards of long-term study of a culture. The second issue is how he became truer to the Songhay through increased sensual awareness.

Author: Paul Stoller
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
Published: 09/01/1989
Pages: 200
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.78lbs
Size: 9.46h x 7.52w x 0.47d
ISBN: 9780812212921

About the Author
Paul Stoller is Professor of Anthropology at West Chester University and the author of Sensuous Scholarship, also available from the University of Pennsylvania Press.