Many anthropologists return to their original fieldwork sites a number of times during their careers, but this experience has seldom been subjected to analytic and theoretical scrutiny. The contributors to Returns to the Field have all undertaken multitemporal fieldwork repeated visits to the same place over periods ranging from 20 to 40 years among minority groups in Africa, Latin America, Asia, and Melanesia. Over the years of contact, these anthropologists have witnessed dramatic changes, but also the perseverance of the people they have worked with. In vivid and personal essays, the authors examine the ramifications of this type of fieldwork practice the kind of knowledge it produces, what methodological tools are appropriate, and how relationships with people in the field site change over time."

David H. Holmberg here examines the social forms, ritual practices, and history of a western Tamang community of Himalayan Nepal. Exploring the central question of ritual complexity, Order in Paradox demonstrates how a religious system that contains Buddhist, shamanic, and sacrificial practices may be understood as a whole. Holmberg begins by recounting the history of the Tamang and reexamining the meaning of caste, tribe, and ethnicity in greater Nepal. Holmberg reveals how cultural patterns thought to be uniquely Tamang reflect this people's development of an "involuted" "tribal" form of Buddhist religious expression-an evolution he interprets as a result in part of the unification of the Nepalese state. Holmberg then offers descriptions of the culture, mythic imagination, and ritual field of the Tamang. Exploring both structural and historical dimensions of Tamang rituals, Holmberg shows how they form a system linked to a cultural logic of exchange upon which Tamang society is built. He also sheds light on the relationship between gender and ritual, considering in detail the close association between femaleness and the shamanic in Tamang culture.

Many anthropologists return to their original fieldwork sites a number oftimes during their careers, but this experience has seldom been subjected toanalytic and theoretical scrutiny. The contributors to Returns to the Field have allundertaken multitemporal fieldwork -- repeated visits to the same place -- overperiods ranging from 20 to 40 years among minority groups in Africa, Latin America, Asia, and Melanesia. Over the years of contact, these anthropologists have witnesseddramatic changes, but also the perseverance of the people they have worked with. Invivid and personal essays, the authors examine the ramifications of this type offieldwork practice -- the kind of knowledge it produces, what methodological toolsare appropriate, and how relationships with people in the field site change overtime.