“We were south of the Serengeti, in a village that struck me as the heart of beautiful, remote Africa.”
-Rodger Yeager, field researcher, Musoma, Tanzania, 1964
Welcome to the Norman Miller Archive, a free-to-use collection of print materials from Eastern Africa, and film and photo materials from Afghanistan, Bolivia, China, Kenya, and Taiwan. Norman Miller is one of the first American field workers who spent long periods of time in remote regions of Kenya and Tanzania, beginning in the British colonial era.
Over five decades, Miller did academic work in African local government, worked as a journalist on political and economic issues, produced ethnographic films, and later oversaw research efforts on global health, traditional medicine, witchcraft-related violence, wildlife management and the emergence of HIV/AIDS. He is currently a professor emeritus at the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth College, having taught as a social scientist on issues of global health part-time since 1980.
Miller’s scholarly papers are housed at Michigan State University. The Smithsonian Institution holds his original films, film negatives, and photos. A detailed guide to both physical collections is available here and has been published in limited edition. →
This website, described below, is drawn from the larger physical archives at MSU and the Smithsonian. It includes field notes, unfinished databases and unpublished works from Miller’s personal collection.
This website is designed for three audiences in addition to general users:
- Researchers: The physical archives and the website contain field notes, databases, and publications useful to the disciplines of Anthropology, African Studies, Political Science, Comparative Religion, Environmental Studies, International Health, Women’s Studies, and Film Studies, particularly in Kenya and Tanzania.
- Educators: The archive and the website provide teaching materials in the form of usable databases, case studies, photo and film components, teaching guides, bibliographies, and primary field notes and documents.
- Practitioners: East African non-governmental organizations (NGOs), police academies, institutes of public administration, missionary schools, traditional healing associations, and local level humanitarian organizations will find case studies, photo materials, films, and primary field reports useful.
Finder’s Guide: Subject Matter and Data Formats
The table shows the material available on this website in five major subject areas arranged in five collection formats. For example, the Government and Politics material includes three databases, 400 documents in a digital warehouse, several of Miller’s relevant publications and articles, a photo gallery for teachers about local governments and politics, and further resources that include bibliographies and teaching guides. Active links in the table below will take you to the specific material. The four main databases are:
- Database One (D1): East African field notes (550+ pages, 1964-1966).
- Database Two (D2): Tanzania Rural Leadership Survey (n=431 participants).
- Database Three (D3): Witchcraft in the Press (521 press reports, 1960-2010).
- Database Four (D4): MacDonald-Miller Witchcraft Correspondence (600 pages, 1980-2015).
This is an ongoing project; more material will be added in the future.
| HOME PAGE | LOCAL POLITICS AND GOVERNMENT | WITCHCRAFT AND HUMAN RIGHTS | GLOBAL HEALTH AND TRADITIONAL MEDICINE | WILDLIFE AND CONSERVATION | GLOBAL CULTURES IN TRANSITION | ABOUT THE ARCHIVE |
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| DATABASES | ||||||
| DIGITAL DATA WAREHOUSE | ||||||
| AUTHOR'S PUBLICATIONS |
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| PHOTOS & FILM | ||||||
| FURTHER RESOURCES |