Alexander McCall Smith is a writer of humorous novels, most famously for his Precious Ramotswe and her No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency. He began the 44 Scotland Street series as a serial novel, in the Charles Dickens sense, with several short stories appearing in The Scotsman newspaper, and now publishes them as separate books. One of my favorite characters in the 44 Scotland Street series is Domenica Macdonald, a rather silly anthropologist, who in the latest book conducts a hilarious stretch of fieldwork among modern day pirates. In this quotation from Love Over Scotland, Domenica explains why she's going to risk life and limb among pirates rather than someplace less risky.
Very few anthropologists opt for the soft life when it comes to their field work. In fact, I know only two--one went to the Vatican to study the domestic economy of a male-dominated society, and the other went to Monaco to study sense of place and permanence amongst tax exiles. Both of these were rather condescended to by their peers later on--they were treated as if they had not really earned their spurs, so to speak, as anthropologists. There were sniffy remarks about doing one's research in a meadow rather than a field--that sort of thing. Not really funny, but very barbed.
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