The Racing Tribe

It is generally assumed that anthropologists do their research in remote and uncomfortable parts of the world - places with monsoons, mud huts, and malaria. In this volume, social anthropologist Kate Fox has taken on an altogether more enjoyable assignment, the study of the arcane world of British horseracing. For Fox, field research meant wandering around racetracks in a pink hat and high heels (standard tribal costume) rather than braving killer insects and primitive sanitation. Instead of an amorphous racing crowd, the author finds and discusses a complete subculture with its own distinctive customs, rituals, language and etiquette.