The University of Wisconsin Press


Anthropology / History of Anthropology



Observers Observed
Essays on Ethnographic Fieldwork
Edited by George W. Stocking, Jr.

History of Anthropology (VOLUME ONE)
Richard Handler, Series Editor


“This first volume focuses on ethnographic fieldwork, a keystone of cultural anthropology that is at once a unique means of collecting data (participant observation is often spoken of as an ‘anthropological’ method) and a crucial rite of passage that transforms novices into professionals. . . . The collection as a whole is of high quality, presenting valuable information and provocative analyses. For an anthropologist, the essays by historians offer fresh perspectives that differentiate this book from others on fieldwork. If this volume is a augury of things to come, HOA [the History of Anthropology series] promises to be a significant contribution to anthropological and historical literature.”
American Scientist

History of Anthropology is a series of annual volumes, each of which treats an important theme in the history of anthropological inquiry. For this initial volume, the editors have chosen to focus on the modern cultural anthropology: intensive fieldwork by “participant observation.” Observers Observed includes essays by a distinguished group of historians and anthropologists covering major episodes in the history of ethnographic fieldwork in the American, British, and French traditions since 1880. As the first work to investigate the development of modern fieldwork in a serious historical way, this collection will be of great interest and value to anthropologist, historians of science and the social sciences, and the general readers interested in the way in which modern anthropologists have perceived and described the cultures of “others.”

George W. Stocking, Jr.George W. Stocking, Jr. (1928–2013) was the Stein-Freiler Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus in the Department of Anthropology and the Committee on the Conceptual Foundations of Science at the University of Chicago. He was the author of many books, including Victorian Anthropology; After Tylor: British Social Anthropology, 1888–1951; and The Ethnographer’s Magic, and was the founder and long-time editor of the History of Anthropology series published by the University of Wisconsin Press. He was awarded the Huxley Medal of the Royal Anthropological Institute and the Franz Boas Award for Exemplary Service by the American Anthropological Association. His most recent book with the University of Wisconsin Press is Glimpses into My Own Black Box: An Exercise in Self-Deconstruction.

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January 1983

LC: 83-47771 GN
256 pp.   6 x 9
12 illus., maps

Book icon Paper $24.95 x
ISBN 978-0-299-09454-6
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Included in this volume are the contributions of:

Homer G. Barnett
University of Oregon

James Clifford
University of California, Santa Cruz

Douglas Cole
Simon Fraser University

Richard Handler
Lake Forest College

Curtis Hinsley
Colgate University

Joan Larcom
Mount Holyoke College

Paul Rabinow
University of California, Berkeley

George W. Stocking
University of Chigago

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