In this book ten anthropologistsdisclose the political and physical dangers inherent in field research. Focusing on former socialist states, the vividly depict the upheavals of everyday life in eastern Europe, revealinghow their informants and the communities in which they live undergo political and economic dislocations, plummeting living tandars, emerging gender inequalities, and ethnic and nationalist violence. Reports from Armenia, Bulgaria, eastern Germany, Kyrgyzstan, Macedonia, Russia, Serbia, and Uzbekistan show how fieldworkers struggle to reconcile previous experiences with postsocialist stereotypes about Soviet culture, the West, and the effects of the penetratin of capitalism into noncapitalist societies.