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Statuesquely iconic of the method and air of anthropology’s historic
posture of inquiry is the observing, well-mannered, and fundamental-
ly removed character of the ethnographer. Peering out from the tower
of our temporary presence in places nobody else goes, we seek some
balance of engagement and autonomy that is fitting of this raucous
science, and this posture always has an aroma of what they call, in
the land of Star Trek, “the Prime Directive”: an ethic, nay esthetic, of
non-engagement, of the space traveler under strict orders to not undo
the locals with something beyond their evolutionary stage of develo-
pment, a kind of intergalactic Herbert Spencer meets Boasian cultu-
ral relativism. Yes Data, when among the natives, don’t do anything
to stand out. We would hate to disarticulate the cosmic sociocultural
equilibrium and piss off Starfleet Command.
Ancient Changes
Yet, many times this half-life of removal is undone. The unexpect-
ed, the out-of-control, the crisis, throws the proprieties and distanc-
es aside, and we must plunge down the rabbit hole. We do not nec-
essarily, however, reveal in print such radical ‘‘border crossings’’ as
they like to call them in the recent craze, and they can take on the sta-
tus of the taboo, the secret sin not to be reported to the Federation
of Planets. Yet these transgressions challenge the posture we are nor-
mally asked to assume, and, in that tear, both notions of our profes-
sion and of self boggle and stumble, that usually reliable self that is
Participation as Transformation
13. Dog Days
duncan earle
