Inspired by the work of Covarrubias, Chapman and her colleagues published Anthropos, a journal combining art with articles on anthropology and politics.

Chapman conducted her first ethnographic fieldwork as a student among Mayan communities in Chiapas, Mexico—first, among the Tzeltales under Sol Tax, and later among the Tzoziles under Alfonso Villa Rojas.

After being awarded funds by the Fulbright Foundation and the Research Institute for the Study of Man (RISM), Chapman began her fieldwork in 1955 among the Tolupan in Montaña de la Flor, Honduras.

Through him, Chapman was able to make a study of Tolupan oral tradition and social organization, as well as to elaborate detailed genealogies of the community.

In addition, in 1985-86 she published a two-volume study of Lenca rituals and tradition titled Los Hijos del Copal y la Candela.

[2] In 1961, Chapman became a member of the French Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, working under Claude Lévi-Strauss until 1969, and eventually retiring from the center in 1987.

Although not an archaeologist by training, Chapman accepted for the opportunity to meet Lola Kiepja and Ángela Loij, some of the last few living Selk'nam (Ona) of Tierra del Fuego.

She also wrote La Isla de los Estados en la prehistoria: Primeros datos arqueológicos (1987, Buenos Aires), El Fin de Un Mundo: Los Selk'nam de Tierra del Fuego' (1990, Buenos Aires), and three chapters listed in Cap Horn 1882-1883: Rencontre avec les Indiens Yahgan (1995, Paris), which contains many photographs taken by members of the French expedition to Cape Horn (1882-83) that are among the best of the Yahgans; ten of the Alakaluf in 1881 of the eleven who were kidnapped and taken to Paris and other European cities; and six of the last Yahgans she took in 1964 and 1987.