To Run After Them: The Social and Cultural Bases of Cooperation in a Navajo Community
Louise Lamphere provides a penetrating analysis of the role of family and kinship in performing everyday cooperative activities in a modern Navajo community. Her work offers an important new view of Navajo social life. “To Run After Them” refers to the Navajo concept of cooperation expressed in the phrase “I’ll help them” or literally “I’ll run after them.” Utilizing extensive field research in a contemporary community on the Eastern Navajo Reservation, Lamphere thoroughly examines the economic and ritual activities that are concrete manifestations of cooperation among kinsmen. She presents a model of Navajo cultural and social organization based on native concepts of cooperation, kinship, and residence. Lamphere uses the “developmental cycle” to interpret variation in domestic group composition and authority patterns. She also employs network analysis to describe patterns of cooperation beyond the domestic group level. To Run After Them furnishes a valuable understanding of Navajo social organization. It also is a significant contribution to studies of small total ethnic communities that are part of larger complex societies.
Louise Lamphere 