ABSTRACT
The chapter demonstrates the anthropologically informed nature of study results. The evidence base for anthropologically informed research is not anecdotal. The nutritionist was not versed in the anthropological genre of descriptive writing, which can go on for pages and pages before any generalization gets made. Local practices are described as just that, with no take-home lessons or messages appended. The chapter mentions that a few relevant and representative stories might be told in the context of a well-framed report or presentation to aid the target audience in making meaning from the findings. Psychologist Stephen Denning explains that storytelling is natural and easy and entertaining and energizing. Stories are inherently non-adversarial and non-hierarchical. Denning also suggests that typical, quantitative presentations do, storytelling makes audience members participants in the action. They get "inside the story, projecting them into the situation, living the predicament of the protagonist, feeling what he or she was feeling, experiencing the same hopes and fears".
