Anthropologist In The Field Pitfalls, Confrontations, Fortuities, Rewards (An Accounting)

This book is classic Niels Mulder, anthropological iconoclast who, now retired, looks back at “an anthropological life” over many years working in Southeast Asia . . . These are not the experiences we write about in our po-faced monographs or journal articles where we aim at tight scholarly articles written in an often undeserved tone of authorial omniscience. These are the backstage experiences all of us encounter as we work ourselves into other cultures and attempt to come to a finely grained understanding of worlds which are often vastly different from our own. Mulder has written the book few of us would dare to write—the one that chronicles not just his successes, but his fears and his failures—he is a braver man than the majority of his colleagues.
—Graham Fordham

This new book consists of two parts. Most of it is autobiographical: it narrates how Niels, a Dutchman, “discovered” Southeast Asia and the discipline of anthropology, and why he chose a subject-centered research method to study urban elites. This part of the book is like watching a shadow puppet play from behind the screen. We are fascinated by how the puppeteer maneuvers. The remaining two chapters of the book discuss his other favorite theme: why the highly educated Philippine elite, in comparison to their Thai and Indonesian counterparts, has thus far failed to create a state whose moral authority is respected by its citizenry and whose foreign policy commands respect. The last is timely, because vis-à-vis both China and the US, successive Philippine governments seem diffident. Using interviews, participant observation, and his own reflections on Philippine history, Niels observes that Philippine leaders seem too comfortable in their cozy circle of familiars and do not rise to the challenge of creating narratives worthy of an independent nation. Is this meddling? As a Filipino worried about the lack of direction among our leaders, I take this as a salutary observation.
—Fernando N. Zialcita, PhD