Abstract
A respectable anthropologist, British Museum's curator, Nigel Barley is yet distinguishable by two aspects from his eminent colleagues. First he chose for his thesis to study "Old English material in published and manuscript form" (11), involving the disapproval of many ‘purists' of the discipline. When he decided then to go on the fieldwork, he chose to make a report of his experiences in books in which the tone is far from the academic clumsiness of most monographs. "The Innocent Anthropologist" fluctuate between the travel story and the methodological manual : how to "do anthropology" (51), that's what he tackles in a funny tone, often with self-derision, and with many concrete anecdotes about the every day life of a anthropologist on fieldwork. About that, "the innocent anthropologist" is especially interesting because it's the narration of Nigel Barley's first fieldwork. His narration is chronological, about the reason why and the preparations for his departure (chap 1 and 2), about his difficulties of beginning as fieldworker among the Dowayos in North Cameroon (chap 3 to 5),a bout progress, idle periods and other problems (chap 6 to 12), and at last about the shock of return (chap 13).
