sights on, is the pathway to mindfulness. Naturally, we are likely to bring
to bear on our observations a background of theory and comparison
derived from our professional training. However, we should try to hold
the specifics of any theories we have encountered in the background and
keep what we are actually observing or participating infirmly in the fore-
ground. This procedure will enable us to follow whatever clues suggest
themselves to us. The importance of this relates to minutiae of observa-
tion, translation, or interpretation that can have an immediate effect on
analysis. Whether it is in the sphere of understanding the cosmological
ideas of the Duna people or the detailed specifications of kin group
affiliation among the Melpa people in Papua New Guinea, it is seemingly
small details that contain large clues to turning around major modes of
interpretation, and it is in interrogating such details that the nuances
emerge. If, by contrast, there were to be an immediate theoretical straight-
jacket placed on the data, such insights could not emerge. Theory would
then preempt the arena, and in doing so would defeat itself. Quite often,
when one has been explaining the intricacies of a piece offieldwork to an
interlocutor, the listener will ask:“That is all very interesting, but how do
you theorize it all?”A quest for theory is entirely appropriate, but too
often the question reveals that the questioner has not been listening.
Instead, they want to know about a particular theoretical positionbefore
hearing thefindings so that everything canfit under the theory. Our
approach is the opposite: let the theory emerge out of the account, bearing
in mind the potentialities in the data. This is also a part of what we call
mindful anthropology. A mindful approach enables us to consider materi-
als creatively, to look for the unexpected, tofind a different way of
considering the problems. The challenge for a mindful anthropology is
how to infuse into graduate training programs this kind of creative spirit,
in the face of the fact that increasing‘professionalization’(as it is called)
moves everything in the opposite direction. Graduates become products,
rather than producers of new ideas. Training is, of course, very important,
but the most significant training only happens infield situations them-
selves. How much of the coursework that students are required to take
turns out to be relevant for their further development? This, of course, is a
question that cannot have a simple answer. Background knowledge is
important, and this is what coursework is supposed to give. The question
of relevance continues, however, into further realms, for example, that of
the awarding of grants forfieldwork. In one case we know, two anon-
ymous external evaluators out of three said a student’s project was
10 FOR A MINDFUL ANTHROPOLOGY 93