0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6
relative objectivity. With regard to the more ethical aspects of this en-
deavor, he also touches upon the various complexities of “informed
consent” and its ever-renegotiated production through a dialectic of
mutual and self-deception and revelation on the part of, and between,
fieldworker and hosts.
In “Clothing the Body in Otherness,” Janferie Stone shows how
the choice of a field site may evolve from a series of chance encoun-
ters that in hindsight seem to form a pattern. She suggests that while
we think that we actively catch the moments when the familiar opens
into the exotic and explore it until the exotic becomes familiar, we
are more often than not caught or perhaps even chosen by our sub-
ject worlds. To demonstrate this is the case Stone describes her inter-
action for more than a decade with a Kaqíchikel Maya weaver from
highland Guatemala. Given that this weaver wears traje (traditional
dress) even when she comes to California to teach her art, Stone ex-
plores the Kaqíchikel Maya presentation of oneself as an indígena and
the use of the tales of the “ancients” to explain one’s personal power
and ability to traverse distance and hardship. Stone focuses on the re-
lationship of one of the most quotidian of practices in Maya society,
the act of dressing, with Maya representations of women who have
undressed beyond their human flesh, becoming nawales, their “animal
others.” She ties such tales of transformations to the spiritual devel-
opment of individuals within their life cycles and to the sociopolitical
histories of the Maya peoples during la violencia of the Guatemalan
Civil War and genocide.
Duncan Earle writes from the perspective of a consultant to an in-
ternationalngo working with Quiche’ Mayas in Guatemala. He de-
scribes how they took him deep into their world, more than he ever
dreamed possible. His is an account of the transformation of an ap-
plied anthropologist who goes to the field thinking he knows how to
fix at least some of the problems of the world. When deeply settled in
the field, however, he came to the realization that he himself was in
need of fixing first, to better take on the task he originally envisioned,
and second, to come of age as an anthropologist. Quiche’ Maya di-
viners, recognizing the esoteric signs of destiny, insist on teaching
him the ancient shamanic teachings of the “count of the days” (the
Keeping Violence and Conflict in View
