ABSTRACT
Many anthropologists with fieldwork experience will recall the uncertainty with which they actually, or mentally, answered the question put to them by people whom they were ‘in the field’ to study: ‘Who are you?’. The uncertainty is composed of a number of factors: What should I say? (i.e. what would it be politic to say?) What can I say? (i.e. what could I say that would be intelligible? Is there an answer which is at once comprehensive and faithful? Do I even know who I am?). We cope with this aggravated sense of self-consciousness by resorting to all sorts of more or less honourable devices. But the problem should be seen as one of self-instruction as well as of strategy. It ought also (but seldom does) put us on our guard when we reciprocate with the same question. So anxious are we for information that we often fail to see just how perplexing the question can be. Evans-Pritchard famously recalled his Nuerosis in regarding the unforthcoming Nuer as bloody-minded, rather than as stumped (1940:12-13). I was impressed by the disinclination of Whalsay islanders to offer introductions when we first met. I supposed that, since they all know each other and knew of my existence it did not occur to them that I would not know who they were. After all, on their own territory how could anyone not know? When I would enquire of a friend about the identity of a third party to whom I had just spoken, the answer would usually be given in terms of genealogical referents. Genealogy is rarely a neutral account in Whalsay, if anywhere, but is perhaps the most neutral, least complicated answer available. In public discourse in Whalsay, who a person is depends upon who is being asked and by whom.
