Duncan Earlethe negotiator of differences, working out the details of the directive.
They examine our adequacy in navigating the culture we authorita-
tively represent by putting us to the test, so to speak. We are asked to
shift the focal axis of our presence in the field. Rather than participate
to better observe, taking the posture of the good-guy spy, we are ex-
pected to observe to better participate, leaving the notebook behind
for a time to cohere with locals in a radically new way. This stepping
out into deeper engagements, for me at least, speaks to a movement
breaking with the inherent asymmetries of origin, in a landscape deep-
ly scarred with what colonialism grinds into memory, so as to break
into a multidimensional reciprocity that goes further than the nor-
mal posture in illuminating the nature of the studied, the studier, and
the studying.
Thoughts MoveMy own career is punctuated by these liminalities, some brief, some
enduring, some operative even now. But only now am I authorizing
myself to reveal my apocryphilia. Maybe because the tenure packet
is in. Or because bolder people have cut the trail, like Tim Knab and
the Tedlocks, fellow travelers in the really magical lands of Mesoa-
merica. Or because, as my compadre Lucas would say, I am getting
to the point in life to where the whole village receives the mother–fa-
ther, where the cargo carries the totality, for Earth’s sake, the place
where everyone is kin. ¿Quién sabe?
Incoming CutThe first disturbance was a stumper. I was in Guatemala imagining
I was there to help, living with some local K iche by chance, or so
I thought. A gardener for one of the other expats, he takes me home
and asks the folks if he can keep me. I am fed up with the gringo com-
pound and the Save the Children mentality lurking about it, and some-
one shows up to take me away. My strategy is careful ethnographic
observation as a check on how well our development project is go-
ing, all the better it turns out because the guy is traditional, someone