The Ethnographic Experiment

<ul> <li> Concentrates on the neglected work by two such important early 20<sup>th</sup>-century scholars as Rivers and Hocart in Solomon Islands and elsewhere in Island Melanesia.</li> <li> Examines a little-known research effort that was to provide major foundations for the development of cross-cultural method and anthropology as a modern discipline based on participant observation</li> <li> Gives a unique examination of the relationships between early anthropology and the politics of colonialism and empire.</li></ul><p> A rare example of leading present-day scholars in anthropology and related disciplines re-visiting the fieldwork localities of early 20<sup>th</sup>-century anthropology; all the book's contributors have themselves carried out major fieldwork in the locations where Hocart and Rivers worked.</p>