Secrets From The Field: An Ethnographer's Notes From North Western Pakistan

by Benedicte Grima

The personal accounts contained here, reveal the untold experiences and relationships of an ethnographer with the people she lived and worked among for over 10 years in northwestern Pakistan among Afghan refugees and tribal Pakistani Pashtuns. They are the everyday occurrences and personal experiences of a woman living alone, or with her infant daughter, secrets and blunders withheld from academic books. Friends and colleagues have asked what it was like to be a foreign woman alone in an isolated and strict tribal Muslim culture. They ask even more so now, piqued by curiosity about the culture that is said to be protecting Osama bin Laden. These stories herein answer many of those queries and reveal information complementary to other political and scientific books.

176 pages, Paperback

First published November 22, 2004

Reviews

[Wes F · Rating 4 out of 5]

Insightful perspective into the lives of Pashtun peoples living along the NW Frontier between Pakistan & Afghanistan (with players from both sides of the border being featured). Here's the bottom-line summary from a quote near the end of the book: "Once again it screamed out: 'Live by the rules of what your society demands, or lose your society.' Rejection is a heavy price to pay in Afghan society." (p. 150)

[Mehreen · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good insight to the tribal areas of Pakistan. Stories that I could not shake off. Excellent records of the journey.

[Mariam · Rating 4 out of 5]

🔖 B+

A short, tight book that features some compelling stories and insights, and was fun to annotate, but lacks the fluidity of writing and structural soundness of, say, The Pathan Unarmed. However, this is only meant to be a field work memoir, so I will read Grima's ethnography before I make any judgements about her skill.

I was pursuing my quest to find Amineh Ahmed's ethnography of Yusufzai women "Sorrow and Joy..." when I saw this memoir mentioned in a review, and realised I owned it. I was gifted it seven or eight years ago as part of an award that also included an economic dictionary and a tab, which I was far more interested in. I'm glad I didn't give it away, because work on the Pukhtuns is hard to come by even online.