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Return to Nisa Marjorie Shostak

Return to Nisa By Marjorie Shostak

Return to Nisa by Marjorie Shostak


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Summary

An account of Marjorie Shostak's return to Botswana and her reunion with Nisa and the !Kung people. The core of this study is the relationship between the anthropologist and the ageing Nisa, a reflection of the complexities, disappointments and curiosity inherent in fieldwork.

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Return to Nisa Summary

Return to Nisa by Marjorie Shostak

The story of two women - one a hunter-gatherer in Botswana, the other an ailing American anthropologist - this book returns the reader to territory that Marjorie Shostak wrote of so poignantly in the now classic Nisa: The Life and Words of a !Kung Woman. Here, however, the ground has perceptibly shifted. First published in 1981, Nisa served as a stirring introduction to anthropology's most basic question: Can there be true understanding between people of profoundly different cultures? Diagnozed with breast cancer, and troubled by a sense of work yet unfinished, Shostak returned to Botswana in 1989. This book tells simply and directly of her rediscovery of the !Kung people she had come to know years before - the aging, blunt, demanding Nisa, her stalwart husband Bo, understanding Kxoma, fragile Hwantla, and Royal, translator and guide. In Shostak's words, we clearly see !Kung life, the dry grasslands, the healing dances, the threatening military presence. And we see Shostak herself, passionately curious, reporting the discomforts and confusion of fieldwork along with its fascination. By turns amused and frustrated, she describes the disappointments - and chastening lessons - that inevitably follow when anthropologists (like her younger self) romanticize the !Kung. Throughout, we observe a woman of threatened health but enormous vitality as she pursues the promise she once discovered in the !Kung people and, above all, in Nisa. At the core of the book is the remarkable relationship between these two women from different worlds. They are often caught off guard by the limits of their mutual understanding. Still, their determination to reach out to each other lingers in the reader's mind long after the story ends - providing an eloquent response to questions that Nisa so memorably posed.

Additional information

CIN0674003233G
9780674003231
0674003233
Return to Nisa by Marjorie Shostak
Used - Good
Hardback
Harvard University Press
20001114
262
N/A
Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.
This is a used book - there is no escaping the fact it has been read by someone else and it will show signs of wear and previous use. Overall we expect it to be in good condition, but if you are not entirely satisfied please get in touch with us

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