The tradition of intensive fieldwork by a single anthropologist in one area has been challenged by new emphasis on studying historical patterns, wider regions, and global networks. Some anthropologists have started their careers from the new vantage point, amidst a chorus of claims for innovative methodologies. Others have lived through these changes of perspective and are able to reflect on them, while re-evaluating the place of fieldwork within the broader aims of general anthropology. This book explores these transformations of world view and approach as they have been experienced by anthropological colleagues, a number of whom began their work very much in the earlier tradition. They cover experiences of field research in Africa, Papua New Guinea, South America, Central and South Asia, Europe, the Middle East, Indonesia, Japan and China. Constant through the chapters is a distinctively qualitative empirical approach, once associated with the village but now being developed in relation to large-scale or dispersed communities.

"... breaks important ground ... the book brings together experienced veterans of the field encounter for a thoughtful discussion of the nature of anthropological research."  · Journal of Anthropological Research

“This book offers a unique insight into the influence of one of the discipline’s most important theorists. James and Allen are thoughtful editors…their respect produces the best form of criticism in fourteen essays by British, and other European anthropologists … This is intriguing and stimulating reading … Mauss’s work receives careful attention in this book which is helpful, incisive, and broadly significant to anthropology."  · JRAI

Paul Dresch has been working both on Yemeni history and the ethnography of the Arab Gulf. He taught at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, before being appointed Lecturer in the Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of Oxford.