Includes Foreward,
Introduction and Commentary by Charles O. Frake, Joel Kuipers, Ray
McDermott, Clifford Geertz, Myrdene Anderson, Harold Scheffler, Eugene
Hunn, Dell Hymes, Nicole Revel, and Michael Dove.
Across decades of fieldwork in the Philippines, Harold
C. Conklin wrote classic papers for anthropologists working
everywhere. This book gathers a significant sample of his often-cited,
but widely dispersed publications on fieldwork and analytic methods
applied to a wide range of topics. The writings are as startlingly impressive
now as when first published. Driven by a desire to record, represent,
and preserve how the Hanunóo and Ifugao worked, talked, thought,
and played, Conklin presents the details of agricultural and botanical
knowledge, spatial orientation, kinship, verbal play, poetry, and music.
His findings subtly address contemporary debates and brilliantly display
the respect, rigor, and responsibility with which ethnographers should
study cultural phenomena.
Reviewers' Comments: "It has long been
established opinion that (Conklin) is one of the very best fieldworkers
in the business...he does it the way it ought to be done....His Philippine
research...is for his peers, and would be peers, as daunting as it is
exemplary. " - Clifford Geertz
"[For
ethnographic theory and method] Conklin managed to anticipate just about
every issue that has emerged in the last thirty years."- Myrdene
Anderson