The Return to Laughter, by Elenore Smith Bowen

Problem: The misunderstanding between anthropologists and people trying to understand their lifestyle is often the most moving moment in field surveys. Discuss one or two of Bowen's mistakes and discuss what they have told her about Tiv and herself. The return to laughter is a fictitious explanation of Elenore Smith Bowen on her Tiv culture experience in Africa. It explains her struggle to learn and understand local culture and beliefs, and juxtaposes her own confrontation, ethics and beliefs.

In cultural anthropology, ethnographic magazines have several kinds. From the 1950s to the early 1960s, anthropologists began writing "ethnic repentance" ethnographic magazines, deliberately revealing the essence of ethnographic research. Noteworthy examples are the gentle fictional return of Tristess Tropics by Levi-Strauss (1955), Kenneth Reed's High Valley, Savage and Innocent of David Mayberry-Lewis, and Eleanor Smith Bowen (Laura Bohannan) Laughter. The later "recursive" ethnographic magazine improved the way to translate cultural differences by expressing the impact on ethnographic journalists. Notable examples include deep play: Clifford Giats's Balinese cockfight note, Paul Rabinot's Morocco fieldwork, Jean-Paul Dumont's Headman and I, and Vincent Kravanzano's Tuhami

In a revolutionary paper in the field of family therapy, Bowen (1972) is writing about his efforts to differentiate from the family that owns his business. Bowen is the only brother who has quit his job at home or does not return. He succeeded in the career of a psychiatrist, but I noticed that he is inevitably attracted to the family conflicts over his business role and not having grown into individuals. If self-division is too much, it does not match human development. We are social species, families are our basic economic and cultural units. It is a molecule. Just as molecules are composed of atoms, families are composed of individuals, but the structure and nature of the relationship connecting them, and the dynamics working between them make themselves.