In classical anthropology, subjects of study are seen as vulnerable while their observers are instructed to remain detached and objective. Yet with the emergence during the last decade of a group of anthropologists with recognizable connections to the cultures in which they work, the lines between participant and observer, insider and outsider are no longer so easily drawn. In The Vulnerable Observer, the award-winning anthropologist Ruth Behar offers a new theory and practice for this humanistic anthropology. No longer looking over others' shoulders, she becomes one of the subjects of study as she reflects upon the observer as well as the observed. Eloquently interweaving ethnography and memoir, Ruth Behar reflects on fieldwork in Spain, Cuba, and the United States through her personal stories of loss as a young Cuban Jewish immigrant. Beginning with a poignant essay exploring the refuge she found in her fieldwork as her grandfather died, she proposes an anthropology that is lived and written in a personal voice in the hope that it will lead us toward greater depth of understanding and feeling for those about whom we write

Traveling Heavy is a deeply moving, unconventional memoir by the master storyteller and cultural anthropologist Ruth Behar. Through evocative stories, she portrays her life as an immigrant child and later, as an adult woman who loves to travel but is terrified of boarding a plane. With an open heart, she writes about her Yiddish-Sephardic-Cuban-American family, as well as the strangers who show her kindness as she makes her way through the world. Compassionate, curious, and unafraid to reveal her failings, Behar embraces the unexpected insights and adventures of travel, whether those be learning that she longed to become a mother after being accused of giving the evil eye to a baby in rural Mexico, or going on a zany pilgrimage to the Behar World Summit in the Spanish town of Béjar. Behar calls herself an anthropologist who specializes in homesickness. Repeatedly returning to her homeland of Cuba, unwilling to utter her last goodbye, she is obsessed by the question of why we leave home to find home. For those of us who travel heavy with our own baggage, Behar is an indispensable guide, full of grace and hope, in the perpetual search for connection that defines our humanity.