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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
". . . 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
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Most helpful customer reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent introduction to African life,
By A Customer
This review is from: Dancing Skeletons: Life and Death in West Africa (Paperback)
I am not an anthropologist but a tourist who has visited Africa and is interested in learning more about African people. I found Katherine Dettwyler's book an excellent introduction to how real people live and deal with their lives in Africa. Dettwyler tells us how mothers and children interact, the way families view their children, what day-to-day life in rural Africa is really like. I found it fascinating especially because Dettwyler talks honestly about her reactions to what she found. This book shouldn't be restricted to anthropoogy students.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Good book read for an Anthropology course,
By A Customer
This review is from: Dancing Skeletons: Life and Death in West Africa (Paperback)
I had to read this book, and a less then enjoyeable textbook, for a cultural anthropolgy course I just got done taking. This book presents various concepts important to anthropological field work in an interesting and an understandable way. Often times reading the examples found in Dettwyler's book, helped me understand some of the concepts "defined" in my other text. I personaly recomend it to anyone taking a course concering cultural anthropolgy or anyone wondering how anthropologists do field work in foreign places.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great ethnography,
By A Customer
This review is from: Dancing Skeletons: Life and Death in West Africa (Paperback)
Some of the reviewers of Katherine A. Dettwylerï¿s 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 Dettwylerï¿s book must have been disappointed with her study because they were expecting an objective ethnography, free from the exposure of the anthropologistï¿s weaknesses. However, in Dettwylerï¿s 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 oneï¿s 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 Dettwylerï¿s 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 Dettwylerï¿s 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.
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