Village remains: Research legacy at the foothills of the southern French Alps

Abstract This essay reflects on the impact of fieldwork conducted for my dissertation in Southern France more than a half century ago. My life as an anthropologist was profoundly shaped by this initial Provençal village‐based study, yet I quickly moved into other fields of inquiry, writing, and institution‐building quite distinct from this first grounded research. Engaged with student movements against the Vietnam War, for racial justice, and constructing women's studies, I set aside my research in village France. Here, I reflect on the sociocultural and political context of U.S. anthropology then and now. At the time, research far from home felt ethically problematic, leaving me unaccountable to those among whom I was working. I opted to design work in the USA that I imagined would be more politically responsible to the social movements and academic projects to which I was committed. My research choices affected a life built in this discipline over many decades. They also shaped my recent return to the village, where our research findings, old photographs, and interviews were prized by younger generations of villagers. This unanticipated return has enabled me to rethink my life in the field, forging new connections with descendants of the villagers from that earlier research.