The Ethnographer

Synopsis

John Palmer arrived in a Wichí community, located in Argentina, thirty years ago as an anthropologist – today he has married a Wichí woman with whom he has five sons in the last 5 years, who babble English, Wichí, and Spanish words. As the legal advisor of the Lapacho Mocho community, and as a part of the family, he works to obtain Qatu’s freedom, a member of the Wichí community who has been in jail for 5 years waiting for an oral hearing on a charge of abusing his wife’s daughter. The film gains depth and impact from its more intimate domestic interludes involving John’s wife Tojweya their young children – including a baby only weeks old. So while Palmer has achieved considerable eminence in his field, winning the Royal Anthropological Institute’s Lucy Mair Medal in 2009, his immersion into Wichí culture, history and customs has become much more than a matter of academic ethnography.