ABSTRACT
Whyte’s (1981) classic study of ‘Doc and his boys’ in Street Corner Society is an exemplar of friendly field relationships in anthropological research. Indeed, Hammersley (1983) wrote that ‘Whyte’s original still puts most examples of this genre to shame’ (p. 4). Readers familiar with Whyte’s study know that his friendly field relationships in an Italian-American slum district in the North End of Boston were not so much appropriated but intuitive responses. Friendly field relationships, often quixotic, mercenary, or heart-wrenching, have been wellrehearsed in anthropological writings (Van Maanen, 1988). By one of those paradoxical symmetries that often exist in anthropology, it would seem that the majority of researchers are to paraphrase one of Tennyson’s (1870) lines ‘one equal temper of friendly hearts,’ with few conscientious exceptions (see Peshkin, 1986; Kennedy, 1954). This surprises me. I would have expected more contradictory and nonsynchronous relationships. The spark for my thinking about my role as a friendly cultural stranger originated with my reading of Powdermaker’s classic Stranger and Friend (1966). Reflecting on a lifetime of anthropological fieldwork, Powdermaker wrote that the heart of the participant observation method rests not in the dualism, but duality of involvement and detachment. Despite the significant corpus of literature dealing with the topic of involvement and detachment in
anthropological research, little self-conscious reflection exists on the part that emotion plays in friendly field relationships.
