Travels with Tooy: History, Memory, and the African American Imagination (review)

In the introduction to the inaugural volume of Collaborative Anthropologies Lassiter writes that "our still-emergent collaborative practices continue to offer formidable challenges to the conventional power differentials between 'researcher' and 'subjects,' and thus are becoming increasingly central to reconceptualizing conventional anthropological theory and practice" (Collaborative Anthropologies 1:viii). The story told in Travels With Tooy: History, Memory, and the African American Imagination provides a glimpse into the reconceptualization processes of Richard Price, an anthropologist who has studied the history and culture of the Saramakan people for more than thirty-five years. In some ways Price's story is simply a continuation of his study of Saramakan history and culture. In other—more important—ways this story chronicles Price's departure from traditional anthropological practices as he "does" anthropology differently by studying an individual—Tooy—to understand more about Saramakan culture. And in so doing, Price illustrates some of the challenges of working with others in collaborative research contexts.

At the heart of the story is a relationship, that of Price, the researcher, and Tooy, the subject, whom Price refers to as his "best friend" (viii). The relationship between Price and Tooy is particularly complex, especially as it offers an opportunity to explore the deeper nuances of life history and the challenges of doing collaborative anthropology.

Tooy is a Saramakan man living in French Guiana; a man who "runs a household in which spiritual and rhetorical gifts abound" (vii). In Tooy's case his rhetorical gifts are oral; he can neither read nor write. Tooy's nonliteracy sits at the center of the most compelling story in the text; a story about sex and a prison sentence that serves as a case study of power differentials and the challenges associated with collaborative practices. Here I offer an overview to help readers understand the story in the context of this journal, but Tooy's story is a complex one and deserves careful reading. This particular story began in 2002 when Price returned to Guyane to complete research for another text. In a visit to Tooy, Price learned of Tooy's legal troubles. Having received numerous legal correspondences, most unopened because Tooy could not read, Tooy had assumed he was being sued for support for a child he had reportedly fathered some twenty years earlier. Reviewing Tooy's correspondences, Price quickly realized that Tooy's assumptions were incorrect. Instead, Tooy had been charged with committing rape some twenty years before. The then forty-eight-year-old Tooy had been host to a family with three teenage daughters and a young son. Seeking Tooy's help with curing numerous illnesses of one of their daughters, the family moved in with Tooy for several months. During that time Tooy had a sexual relationship with one of their daughters, thirteen-year-old Annette. Her parents did not object to this relationship, and when they returned to their own home a few months later, they even left their children with Tooy. Soon he was having sex with all three teenage daughters. Tooy and Annette stayed together for five years, and though her sisters moved to live with another family, they frequently visited Tooy and Annette. Just before Tooy and Annette separated, sister Brigette stayed with them for several days. Three years later Tooy was visited by Brigette, her mother, and a three-year-old child Brigette claimed Tooy had fathered.

Price assumed the responsibility of meeting with Tooy's court-appointed lawyer and a lawyer hired by a friend (and former client) of Tooy, of educating both lawyers concerning Saramakan culture and Tooy's native language, and of organizing Tooy's defense. Price hoped to convince the court to provide Tooy with an interpreter who spoke the same language as Tooy and to educate the court on how sexual relations with young girls were an accepted practice in Tooy's culture. Both lawyers agreed that Price's participation might result in a...