The anthropologist as a primatologist. Mental journeys of a fieldworker

A Well-Travelled Discipline Experiencing destinations far from home is a dream that feeds the tourism industry. Those who explore foreign scenery, customs, food, nature, wildlife as professionals are called anthropologists. According to Greek etymology, the diversity of humans (anthropos) is the subject of their words and wisdom (logos). But anthropologists do not travel. They conduct ‘fieldwork’, a term that rings of wilderness. A German equivalent of the term has a truly poetic tinge to it: ‘Freilandforschung’, meaning ‘research in free land’. For long and intensive periods, far from home and family, these researchers are thoroughly immersed in ‘the other’, taking shelter with natives, learning their tongue, sharing food and rituals, partaking in strange ways of life and death while filling stacks of notebooks. Solid fieldwork is a core research method of anthropology. Once returned, these voyagers become objects of fascination themselves, exuding their strange experiences in lectures and monographs. Fieldwork marks anthropologists of good standing and mythical proportions can be attained if the quest was difficult. For example, ‘Argonauts of the Western Pacific’ (1922): who could have dreamed up a better title for that first major field study, which turned Bronislaw Malinowski (1884–1942) into an icon? Fieldwork can be gripping because of inherent surprises and unpredictability. The popularity of fictional anthropologists such as ‘Indiana Jones’ reflects this. Many would want to go on treasure hunts and tell heroic stories of survival. Admittedly, my portrayal of the anthropologist as a fieldworker is outdated. Often, anthropologists do not work in the field and those who do might be a far cry from the cliché of the lone explorer roughing it amongst natives. Contemporary research is less likely