Karla Poewe, My Apprenticeship: An Intellectual Journey, Calgary: Vogelstein Press (2018).
By Mike Jones
When
we think of academic subjects such as anthropology we may remember some of the
textbooks we had to read in university. We may also remember late night efforts
to sort through the information they contained trying to understand what we
were being taught. What we often forgot to do was give some thought to the
people who gathered, sorted and typed out this information. What were their stories? What did they
experience while studying and gathering data about the people around them?
In
writing My Apprenticeship Karla Poewe
tells her story of living in Zambia and studying the residents of several rural
villages. She describes the preparation leading into her journey and proceeds
to take us through the encounters and experiences she had along the way. While
we journey with her we read some of her diary and letters to family and
colleagues. We can also read observations made at different times in her
ensuing life and career.
My Apprenticeship
is lived history that takes us beneath and beyond the page of a textbook. It
takes us beyond the classroom and plunks us down on a hot, dusty road in rural
Africa. The sentence that brings this all into focus for me is when Karla
writes, “The field is not the ordered universe of the academy.” (p.150) It’s often difficult to appreciate our random
and chaotic world while sitting in a classroom. Through Karla’s observations
and insights we catch a glimpse of the sheer effort people go through to help
us learn more about our world and even ourselves.
Karla
Poewe has a writing style that is interesting, accessible and informative. She
is both clear about what is happening around her and what she is thinking at
the time it is happening. My Apprenticeship
has an extremely wide potential audience. I would recommend it to students and instructors
in almost any academic subject. I know it would have been a helpful
contribution to the two internships I had to pass through on my way to
graduation as an ordained minister. I would commend it to anyone reading a book
or journal article and wondering about the person behind the page.
