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Dancing Skeletons: Life and Death in West Africa | 
| Author: Katherine Dettwyler
Publisher: Waveland Press
Category: Book
List Price: $15.95
Buy Used: $8.49
You Save: $7.46 (47%)
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Rating:  16 reviews
Sales Rank: 6015
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 172
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.6
Dimensions (in): 8.7 x 5.9 x 0.4
ISBN: 088133748X
Dewey Decimal Number: 306.461
EAN: 9780881337488
ASIN: 088133748X
Publication Date: July 1993
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
1995 Margaret Mead Award winner! This personal account by a biocultural anthropologist illuminates important, not-soon-forgotten messages involving the more sobering aspects of conducting fieldwork among malnourished children in West Africa. With nutritional anthropology at its core, Dancing Skeletons presents informal, engaging and oftentimes dramatic stories from the field that relate the author's experiences conducting research on infant feeding and health in Mali. Through fascinating vignettes and honest, vivid descriptions, Dettwyler explores such diverse topics as ethnocentrism, culture shock, population control, breastfeeding, child care, the meaning of disability and child death in different cultures, female circumcision, women's roles in patrilineal societies, the dangers of fieldwork, and the realities involved in researching emotionally draining topics. Readers will alternately laugh and cry as they meet the author's friends and informants, follow her through a series of encounters with both peri-urban and rural Bambara culture, and struggle with her as she attempts to reconcile her very different roles as objective ethnographer, subjective friend, and mother in the field.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 11 more reviews...
 Required Read for Class December 16, 2008
I had to read this ethnography for my anthropology class at Ball State. We had already read other ethnographies, and, since I am not an anthropology major, I found them difficult to get through. They were quite dry. What a nice change this book provided! I could hardly put it down! I think that the author accomplished something great with this study. By writing it in this way, she makes it accessible to those who aren't necessarily anthropologists or students majoring in the discipline. I believe that books like this can help to put a face on the problem of malnutrition in Africa. It held my interest and I learned a lot. More ethnographies should be written like this one.
 Cultural Anthropology September 9, 2007
I read this book for a cultural anthopology class. It was a very easy read which I enjoyed. As far as cultural anthropology, I found this book very interesting. It is amazing hoe different the culture and the health of the people are. She did talk about herse;f a lot but it would be difficult just to focus on your subjects when you are so far from home.
 Depressing view of the future May 26, 2006
5 out of 21 found this review helpful
The other reviews give you the flavor of this book so I will bring up a few items they and the author ignore. First, it is a vivid illustration of the more general problem in the world of what constitutes "help". If what one does causes more misery in the long run then it is clearly not helpful and this is what nearly all of the "aid" to the third world does. Anything that prolongs lifespans, increases child survival or increases standard of living is eventually disastrous as prosperity is ultimately bought at the expense of the future. The whole world is going down the drain but Africa is the worst case and likely by mid-century, and certainly by it's end, there will be starvation, disease, social violence and war on a staggering scale and as a permanent state. The world has only one problem--too many people--and only one solution--decrease the population at any cost. Of course it's not politically correct to say anything about it and certainly not to do anything really effective and Dettwyler is in a delicate position. These people seem to average a dozen pregnancies and above all they need birth control.
Regarding her personal choices she tells how her young daughter almost died of malaria and it clearly was quite insane of her to take a young child with her for several years of constant exposure to this and other diseases when she knew that people died of it constantly in spite of medication. The last point that I could not forget was the fact that she produced three children of her own. If she does not know the dire situation the world is in due to overpopulation she ought to go back to school. Like virtually all parents, she is not a responsible member of society.
A Drop of Water in the Wide Ocean January 7, 2006
4 out of 6 found this review helpful
This is a good insight into the malnutritional anthropology study of the women and children in Mali. At the very end, her work left me with the feeling that her work is just a drop of water in the wide ocean of the malnutrition dilemma worldwide. So much is needed to be done, yet the man power and the funding for this cause are very much lacking.
I read this book for my Human Diet class at UCB, and it took me a day to finish it. It is an easy read. The author however went overboard about her feelings and her financial situations, which weren't what I was expecting in an ethnographic work. She got a bit personal about her life too.
It is nothing new that Western countries' diplomats posted to the third world nations do live much well-off compared to the people in the countries that they are posted to. It just seems plain ironic to me in terms of the disparity of wealth among nations across the globe. It is just disheartening, but there is nothing we can do about it. We just hope that the situation improves as we progress => to alleviate poverty, hunger and disease.
Excellent introduction to African life September 14, 2002
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
I am not an anthropologist but a tourist who has visited Africa and is interested in learning more about African people. I found Katherine Dettwyler's book an excellent introduction to how real people live and deal with their lives in Africa. Dettwyler tells us how mothers and children interact, the way families view their children, what day-to-day life in rural Africa is really like. I found it fascinating especially because Dettwyler talks honestly about her reactions to what she found. This book shouldn't be restricted to anthropoogy students.
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