Saamaka Dreaming

When Richard and Sally Price stepped out of the canoe to begin their fieldwork with the Saamaka Maroons of Suriname in 1966, they were met with a mixture of curiosity, suspicion, ambivalence, hostility, and fascination. With their gradual acceptance into the community they undertook the work that would shape their careers and influence the study of African American societies throughout the hemisphere for decades to come. In Saamaka Dreaming they look back on the experience, reflecting on a discipline and a society that are considerably different today. Drawing on thousands of pages of field notes, as well as recordings, file cards, photos, and sketches, the Prices retell and comment on the most intensive fieldwork of their careers, evoke the joys and hardships of building relationships and trust, and outline their personal adaptation to this unfamiliar universe. The book is at once a moving human story, a portrait of a remarkable society, and a thought-provoking revelation about the development of anthropology over the past half-century.

"Beautifully written, this book presents a satisfying commentary on the anthropological enterprise, to be enjoyed by a wide variety of readers. Essential. All public and academic levels/libraries."  , "A complex ethnographic narrative . . .  a dynamic story with a cast of Saamaka characters. . . . Though the book is published over fifty years after the initial research, it still shows a candor and eye for painstaking detail of moment to moment happenings in daily life.", "This inspiring book combines ethnography with a brilliantly written autobiographical account. . . .  The way in which Richard Price and Sally Price position themselves as the main protagonists of their interlocutions with Saamaka villagers, is precisely what makes the book so rich."  , "A retrospective on a life’s work, Saamaka Dreaming stands alone as an introduction to understanding social memory in the black diaspora via ethnographic practice. But it also shows us how that memory can shape political engagement in the present premised on what we might call the hopes—or dreams—of a better future that anthropologists can also help create.", "This is an inspiring narrative on Saamaka Maroons lifestyle changes through half a century, on changes from an anthropological perspective on these people, as well as the development of anthropology as a science and the impact that a researcher can make. It is not only a great source to learn about Saamaka culture but also a great narrative to read—it is literary anthropology at its best."

Richard Price taught for many years at Yale University and Johns Hopkins University and is Professor Emeritus at the College of William and Mary. His numerous prize-winning books include Travels with Tooy: History, Memory, and the African American Imagination and Rainforest Warriors: Human Rights on Trial. Sally Price has taught in the United States, France, and Brazil and is Professor Emerita at the College of William and Mary. Her studies of the place of “primitive art” in the imaginary of Western viewers include Primitive Art in Civilized Places and Paris Primitive: Jacques Chirac’s Museum on the Quai Branly. The Prices have coauthored many books, including Romare Bearden: The Caribbean Dimension.