All That Was Not Her

Critical Global Health: Evidence, Efficacy, Ethnography

by Todd Meyers

While studying caregiving and chronic illness in families living in situations of economic and social insecurity in Baltimore, anthropologist Todd Meyers met a woman named Beverly. In All That Was Not Her Meyers presents an intimate ethnographic portrait of Beverly, stitching together small moments they shared scattered over months and years and, following her death, into the present. He meditates on the possibilities of writing about someone who is gone—what should be represented, what experiences resist rendering, what ethical challenges exist when studying the lives of others. Meyers considers how chronic illness is bound up in the racialized and socioeconomic conditions of Beverly’s life and explores the stakes of the anthropologist’s engagement with one subject. Even as Meyers struggles to give Beverly the final word, he finds himself unmade alongside her. All That Was Not Her captures the complexity of personal relationships in the field and the difficulty of their ending.

Genres: Nonfiction

232 pages, Hardcover

Published February 22, 2022

Reviews

[Jason Danely · Rating 5 out of 5]

Breathtakingly beautiful work. While ethnographers have been experimenting with creative formats and styles for a while, I've never read one that is so perfectly executed as this one. It not only gives ample room for the words and images to 'breathe', but it expands that space into an entire atmosphere, a world, that is both unraveling and weaving together. I've used this in class (on writing ethnography) and the students loved it. Powerful, vulnerable, heart-breaking work.

[Patricia · Rating 3 out of 5]

I felt so uneasy the entire time reading this book. Hard to grapple with - which I think is maybe part of the move it is trying to make? Was hoping for more clarity after discussing in class, but feel just as at a loss.

[Thomas J S S · Rating 5 out of 5]

Devastating, inspiring. Highly recommend.

[elia · Rating 5 out of 5]

even hopelessness is theoreotically productive, thus not entirely hopeless. that is cruel.