Encounters with fierce dogs and itchy bedbugs: Why my first field work failed

Abstract

This essay, which is the fifth in the series " Recollections, Reflections, and Revelations: Personal Experiences in Ethnobiology" , is a personal reminiscence by the researcher on his first field experience in Turkey in the late 1970s, which was a failure from an ethnobiological point of view but a success for a social scientist pursuing Turkic studies. The author later returned to ethnobiology during subsequent fieldwork on the Faroes. © 2014 Svanberg; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.