The Reading Warehouse

A fascinating collection of ten papers on fieldwork in Africa-defined as a long stay in a single community-mostly from younger scholars who have conducted research within the past decade. Whereas the methods for using different kinds of sources for African history has been well studied in recent years, the input of field experience itself has been neglected, although it shapes the resulting historical writing in critical ways and often has a profound personal impact on the researcher.

The accounts presented here cover a surprising range of issues, from practical questions of daily life (where to live, what to cook) to methodological concerns about what is true, and true for whom? The individual stories are both entertaining and instructive. One researcher had a newly laid roof stolen in the middle of the night, while another was shadowed by the security police. One woman was initiated into a secret society, while yet another faced a trial after having been accused of witchcraft.

In her introduction, Carolyn Adenaike summarizes the particular challenges faced by recent history researchers in Africa. The epilogue by Jan Vansina-in many ways the pioneer of oral history methods-places the evolution of research practices in the broad context of European commercial expansion.