In the 1960s, as a graduate student at Oxford, Brody was influenced by
Muiris Ó Súilleabháin's book
Fiche Blian ag Fás (Twenty Years a-Growing), and worked as an anthropologist in Ireland. This led to his book
Inishkillane, Change And Decline in the West of Ireland. The field-work for this study took him to
Connemara and
West Cork, where he lived and worked with peasant farmers, fishermen and as a barman in a village bar. Contracted by
Raidió Teilifís Éireann he spent time on
Gola Island, off the coast of
County Donegal, research that led to his contribution to the book
Gola, The Life and Last Days of an Island Community, co-authored with F. H. A. Aalen. In 1969, he did his first Canadian work, supported by the Northern Science Research Group at what was then the Canadian
Department of Indian and Northern Affairs. This took him to the
skid row area of
Edmonton, Alberta in the
Canadian Prairies. His report on that work,
Indians on Skid Row, published in 1970, led to changes in government policy, especially in relation to
Native Friendship Centres – crucial in giving support to
Native people adrift in Canadian cities. In the 1970s, as a research officer with the Northern Science Research Group, he did extensive field work in the
Arctic, living with
Inuit in the communities of
Pond Inlet on
Baffin Island and
Sanikiluaq on the
Belcher Islands. He learned two dialects of
Inuktitut,
North Baffin and South Hudson Bay, and wrote ''The People's Land, Inuit and Whites in the Eastern Arctic''. This is a book that looks at how colonial relations, through the history of the
fur trade, church missions and the Canadian government, have shaped the social and psychological circumstances of the far north. The argument and descriptions focus very much on a particular time in a particular place, but resonate with parallel experiences among indigenous peoples around the world. In the course of his work with the Northern Science Research Group, Brody also developed an innovative program that aimed to give new levels of support for families who wanted to live on the land. Brody was also one of those who in the mid-1970s first urged within the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs the idea of the separation of the Canadian north into two indigenous jurisdictions, with that of the east becoming an Inuit political territory. This came into being with the creation of
Nunavut in 1999. In 1975, Brody resigned from his position in the
Canadian Civil Service. He was then based at the Scott Polar Research Institute at the
University of Cambridge, where he became an Honorary Associate. In 1976–1978 he worked on the Inuit Land Use and Occupancy Project, in the
Northwest Territories, where he was co-ordinator for the
land use mapping carried out in the North Baffin region. He also assembled an Arctic-wide account of Inuit perceptions of land occupancy, building a collage of Inuit voices from all the communities of the Northwest Territories. He later worked on a similar project with Inuit and settlers of
Labrador, which was published in
Our Footsteps Are Everywhere (1978). In 1977, Brody was a witness to the
Mackenzie Valley Pipeline Inquiry, giving evidence on the nature of northern development, alcohol abuse and
Inuit languages. He then became a member of Justice
Thomas R. Berger's staff, helping to prepare the two volume report that set out the remarkable conclusions of the inquiry. In the 1980s, working for the
Union of British Columbia Indian Chiefs, Brody lived and worked with the
Dunne-za and
Cree of northeast British Columbia – the project and experiences that led to his book
Maps And Dreams. This account of anthropological research and cultural mapping with a hunting community, and especially the laying of frontier development onto the ways Dunne-za and Cree see and understand their territories, became a classic of indigenous studies. Its use of alternating chapters, switching between first person narrative and social scientific writing has also given it a significant place in the history of the literature of anthropology. Brody worked with Justice Berger again in 1991–1992 as a member of the
World Bank's
Morse Commission, which had the job of assessing implications of the
Sardar Sarovar Dam, a vast hydro and irrigation project in western India. His role in public inquiries and assessment of the impact of large scale developments on indigenous communities continued when he became Chairman of the Snake River Independent Review. This was a mediation between the
Idaho Power Company and the
Nez Perce Tribe of
Idaho in relation to the building of the
hydro dams on the
Snake River in the 1950s. Since 1997, Brody has worked on projects in southern Africa. This began when he helped co-ordinate background research for the
‡Khomani San Land Claim in South Africa's southern
Kalahari. This work led to filming many aspects of the claim, including its aftermath. In 2008, accompanied by the Canadian cinematographer Kirk Tougas, he filmed the beneficiaries of the claim as they reflected upon how it had changed their lives in the nine years since the claim was accepted. Working with the UK NGO Open Channels, and funded by the UK charity
Comic Relief, Brody also led projects with and for San in
Namibia and
Botswana. The film work in South Africa led to the DVD
Tracks Across Sand – four and a half hours of film edited by long-term collaborator Haida Paul shot in the course of land claims research,
oral history and language research in the northern
Cape of South Africa. ==Writer==