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My Friend Amsatou Barry
Author(s) -
Rohatynskyj Marta
Publication year - 2001
Publication title -
anthropology and humanism
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.153
H-Index - 17
eISSN - 1548-1409
pISSN - 1559-9167
DOI - 10.1525/ahu.2001.26.1.59
Subject(s) - evocation , friendship , narrative , context (archaeology) , gender studies , sociology , racism , race (biology) , identity (music) , psychology , social psychology , anthropology , history , aesthetics , art , literature , archaeology
This is a narrative account of my relationship with a Fulbe woman in Burkina Faso who at first acted as my anthropological informant and then became my friend. I consider a number of related issues: the responsibility that anthropologists feel for their informants in such settings, our overlapping and diverging identities, racism and sexism in the context of a multiethnic community, and the basis of our friendship. The narrative shows how class and race determined the outcome of our common experience of pregnancy and the nature of the support and comfort we were able to give each other. It is a memorial to a friend and an evocation of universal sisterhood.