Problem: What did Karen McCarthy Brown do that went above and beyond the normal participant observation practiced by most cultural anthropologists (described in Mama Lola)?
- She went through the initiation process to become a Vodou priestess herself
- She paid for a lawyer to help Mama Lola get permanent residency in the United States
- She married a Haitian man (Mama Lola's cousin) to gain ever deeper insights into Vodou
- She quit her job at the university and moved to Brooklyn so that she could better understand how difficult it was to survive day to day on so little money