On Being a Good Neighbor, or Things I Learned in the Field

This article explores the possibility of anthropology as Bildung, or self-cultivation. As an educational mode, Bildung is focused on the moral education of students, encouraging them to broaden themselves in their encounters with others. I will discuss this process in terms of a lesson I learned from the highland Maya about being a good neighbor and will demonstrate how neighborliness can offer students a possibility for their own self-cultivation.