Title: In Sorcery's Shadow: A Memoir of Apprenticeship among the Songhay of Niger
Author: Paul Stoller & Cheryl Olkes
Publisher: University of Chicago
Year: 1989
Country: Niger
252 pages
This memoir/ethnography was better than I anticipated. Stoller, an anthropologist-in-training, returns to Niger (where he was previously in the Peace Corps) to conduct field work. He winds up being mentored by a series of sorcerers. What I particularly enjoyed was his own coming of age as an anthropoloist as he struggled to identify his own anthropological style, ethics, and ways of being with a community as well as observing it. While this wasn't Stoller's only focus, it was the one that most resonates for me in relation to questions of how to bridge cultures professionally and ethically.
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