ABSTRACT
Effective sociocultural anthropology is based on prolonged immersion in a society other than the scholar’s own. Learning the language, participating in daily life and special events, learning the codes of social interaction, studying specialized areas of life, all become part of the knowledge that the anthropologist acquires. P. Stanley Yoder describes how his multiple-year acquaintance with the healers among the Cokwe of the southern savanna of Congo, Angola, and Zambia, the same region where he served in the MCC-Teachers Abroad Program, became the training ground for his later work in applied medical anthropology. The fieldwork skills acquired among the Cokwe were refocused on health survey inquiries and health intervention campaigns conducted by agencies and national ministries. Qualitative health research became a career focus for Yoder first with the Annenberg School of Communications and then with Macro International. Throughout, his Mennonite sensibilities of regard for others and empathy with those being questioned provided the template for qualitative research in public health and implementation projects across the globe.
