ABSTRACT
It is midway through the project and the anthropologist is alone, writing up some notes about an incident earlier the same day. She has just shared the men’s midmorning coffee break in the farmhouse kitchen and now, in search of privacy, is lying in a field. It is hot, the middle of harvest time. Her privacy proves to be precarious. The farm workers are driving their machines back to the fields and Neil and Gary wave to her as they pass by. The view over the fields is of ripening corn and the anthropologist closes her eyes, picturing where the family members are and what they are doing. Gary will soon take over the combining from Ian, who was left on one of the fields so that the work wouldn’t stop during the coffee break. It is usually Gary, however, who does most of the combining as he is the most skilled. Neil will be driving the tractor which will carry away the corn to Peter, working in the dryer in one of the farm buildings. Each of these men’s tasks is interconnected and yet, over the years, has been distributed in such a way that, although they can all substitute for one another, the tasks match their separate interests and skills. Some distance away, on her own in the farmhouse, Bridget will be washing up the coffee cups and beginning to prepare the men’s midday meal. She is always on her own in the farmhouse, the only woman, apart from the female anthropologist who has recently been a source of company. There will be many days, however, when she sees no other women.
