After the Ancestors: An Anthropologist's Story

Description

Set on an isolated Indonesian island, this is the gripping true story of a fieldworker's experience of living in a tribal society during a period of crisis. Featuring a cast of unforgettable characters, After the Ancestors follows a bitter feud between rivals as it escalates into murder, intrigue and revenge. A vivid account of life within a radically different world, it also portrays a unique culture undergoing the transition from tribalism to modernity. A century of alien rule has left the island, once famous for its warrior ethos, with a hybrid culture. As the possibilities for heroic action recede, men raised to be orators and over-reachers rather than church elders and peasants find themselves occupying a stage too small for their personalities. 'Where can we turn', asks one tribesman, 'we who come after the ancestors?' A revenge tragedy for modern times, After the Ancestors will be enjoyed by anthropologists and general readers alike.

Andrew Beatty teaches in the Department of Anthropology at Brunel University.

'This is a marvellous book. Written in a narrative style far too rare in anthropology, it is a fascinating, enlightening and engaging story which deserves a wide readership.' Thomas Hylland Eriksen, University of Oslo 'A beautifully told tale by a sharp-eyed anthropologist.' Jeremy MacClancy, author of Anthropology in the Public Arena (2013) 'There is an epic tone to the story told in After the Ancestors, with its vast cast, its slow unfolding, and its deep tensions, and an almost Shakespearean quality ...' Tim Hannigan, Review of Asian Books 'This is a good story about real people, well told ...' Joy Hendry, Times Higher Education 'After the Ancestors belongs with works such as Tristes Tropiques, Clastres' Chronicle of the Guayaki Indians, Turnbull's day-and-night diptych of Forest People and Mountain People, and Descola's Spears of Twilight, though only Descola's approaches Andrew Beatty's new book for sheer depth of ethnographic detail ... I hope this book will be read by a general audience. It is built on ethnographic work of quite phenomenal quality, and it largely succeeds in its efforts to move its readers and make us care about our protagonists ... Maybe all ethnographers should at some point think about how they would write their fieldwork as a story, with emotive hooks and narrative arcs and, however messy, a beginning and an end. Not because all ethnography should be this way, but because it might help us crystallize what is 'human' in the big literary sense - emotionally compelling - about our work.' Anthropology of this Century (aotcpress.com)