Fieldwork as cab-driver: "An amazing other world"

(LINKS UPDATED 15.9.2022) It seems as if anthropologist Robert Leonard has written a fascinating book according the Des Moines Register. It's called Yellow Cab:

When anthropologist Robert Leonard took a second job as a cab driver out of economic necessity, he found an "amazing other world." He learned about capitalism from drug dealers and prostitutes and hope from carnival workers; he learned about broken families from businessmen and thankfulness from broken vagabonds.

The cab as an ideal place to conduct fieldwork? Leonard says:

"People, in general, are unappreciated. No one says, 'Tell me about yourself.' We don't ask each other that. But people want to talk about themselves. They don't want to be in a cab, so they talk, knowing they are not likely to see you again."

"You develop a sixth sense about people just by how they look at you. I'm an observer. I'm used to looking at things closely. I could sense danger by the way they approached the cab. But it really reinforced my positive view of humanity. I met a lot of the smartest people I've met in my life."

>> read the whole story in the Des Moines Register