To Love The Stranger: The Making of an Anthropologist

Those who choose the vocation of anthropology can benefit greatly by embracing their own particular circumstances. Such was the impetus for anthropologist Lola Romanucci-Ross to tread where many may dare not: down the "rabbit hole" of her own upbringing and ancestral programming. To Love The Stranger: The Making of an Anthropologist offers her take on the anthropological process by studying the stranger closest to home: herself. Illuminating and at times lighthearted, this consideration of how an anthropologist looks at a culture is equal parts memoir and think piece, offering insights, adventure, and a wealth of revelations certain to entertain and engage anyone enthralled by the human condition, whether as an expert or as an avid layman. Because anthropology is a science in which man studies man, the investigator assumes great importance. Here, Romanucci-Ross draws from her own background that spans several cultures to gently suggest how one can assess the accuracy and the reliability of the investigator's conclusions.Starting with her first meeting with her maternal grandmother in Italy, while studying in Paris, the author gathers new information on her ancestry, and the circumstances that brought her parents together. Born in Hershey, Pennsylvania, she charts her early difficulties assimilating into American culture, while holding onto vestiges of her cultural origins. All the while, To Love The Stranger: The Making of an Anthropologist regales the reader with the fascinating details of the anthropological process in the United States and several exotic cultures