Paper short abstract:

This paper to consider some ideas about national and perhaps local differences in relations between anthropologists and the people with whom we do our research. The focus will be particularly on Japan, the two Oxford departments in the UK, North America, and possibly China.

Paper long abstract:

The title reflects the position of the author as a professional anthropologist working in a city where her department is a "B" team, sometimes forgotten altogether by the much more famous one that has been regarded as part of the "central" hegemony in the anthropological world. The main argument of the paper, however, will be about her chief research location of Japan, which she will suggest can be used as a model for good relations between insiders and outsiders, both anthropologists and informants, versus the "poor" relations observed in North America, especially from the perspective of the Native Americans/ First Nations who have formed the focus of much anthropological study there. The new twist - for this is an area on which she has already published - is a perhaps surprisingly positive situation she observed when thinking historically about the position of Oxford in the world of different anthropologies, and reflecting on her own training amongst the "A" team there.