James C. Scott Quotes

Anthropological fieldwork is so much like writing a novel. You don't know what the hell is going on.

The way to do fieldwork is never to come up for air until it is all over.

If I do a film, I go to the place where it is based on, interact with people, and then, I believe, you pick up things without you even noticing.

I would like to do things like I did in Tanzania, going somewhere and exploring a theme and investigating as well as performing for those people.

The manner of the country makes the usage of life there, and the land will not be lived in except in its own fashion.

I do want to learn the way to do it over here. I'm not really looking to just go about my way and do it in the Japanese way that I've been doing. Basically, I'll try to get some advice, learn the way it's done here and go about it.

Oh, it's essential. I mean, you have to - if I'm writing about the Middle East, I have to go there, and if possible, stay long enough to get a real feeling for what's going on.

I really love travelling to places where I get to learn something new about a new group of people or a new place. Learn some history, contemplate some business ideas, and sort of get off the beaten track a little bit.

Most anthropologists are doing straightforward ethnography, and should.

For research, I like to go to the location of the places in the novels. The first thing that I do is involve my senses: I notice the smells; I open the trash cans and look at what people have thrown away.

The job of an anthropologist is to make the familiar strange and to make the strange familiar,

I like to live like a local. When you are somewhere, you have to try to take the culture of that place and try to adapt.

I consider myself something of a self-taught anthropologist.

Depended on the soldier. To relax, most of them put on headphones or played video games. Later in the war some of the younger officers began to read a lot of anthropology because they realized that the basic problem was that they were trying to fight a war in a culture they didn't understand. They might have read someone like Margaret Mead.

I do a lot of reading, a lot of studying. I ask questions, I'll go out, travel these countries, I'll watch how their people live, and I learn.

To understand history,' Chacko said, 'we have to go inside and listen to what they're saying. And look at the books and the pictures on the wall. And smell the smells.

I can show you where to dig, and what to dig for, but the digging you must do for yourself.

Learn, compare, collect the facts!

Learn from everyone. Follow no one. Watch for patterns. Work like hell.

I don't want to tell people what to think. I'm the least qualified person in the world for that. If I'd go around pretending to be the expert on everything, I'd become Dan Brown, and I don't understand that. We all do our research if we're good writers, and we all work hard to get it right, but that doesn't mean we're experts in the field. The best we can do is challenge people to learn the facts themselves.

There was a time when I wanted to get out of the Western world. I went down to Grenada and looked at a place, and I realised that if I lived in a Grenadian manner I'd be nothing but a blah. I'm going to need constant bodyguarding, guns and money to join the community there. Otherwise you just got a bunch of fat, old white people dying together, overeating, drinking. Not very attractive.

You must read, you must persevere, you must sit up nights, you must inquire, and exert the utmost power of your mind. If one way does not lead to the desired meaning, take another; if obstacles arise, then still another; until, if your strength holds out, you will find that clear which at first looked dark.

Anthropology studies different cultures; mainly primitive, but it doesn't think its own culture is primitive, unfortunately. There is no field that you can study today that isn't trapped in the culture in some way. It's hard to escape your culture.

When I first got the job, I was told nothing about my character. She's an anthropologist and she's tough, she's a female Indiana Jones. That's what I went into [Lost] knowing.

When you are at Rome, do as you see.