Fieldwork and Ethnography

Fieldwork

living with people for an extended time to gather data using a variety of field techniques for collecting that data

fieldwork & field techniques developed in the study of smaller scale societies with greater cultural uniformity compared to large-scale industrial societies the concept of holism

Before Fieldwork

schooling & traininglanguage acquisition (at school & in the field)research proposalvisa, government bureaucracies & permissions to do fieldworkchanging nature of the rules of fieldwork

Field Equipment

Medicine, money, and… as field equipment

Entering the Field

expats (missionaries, other anthros, international development people)

tourists

going “native” types

exceptional locals

culture shockrefuge from the “natives”

Whose natives?

Field Techniques: The Ethnographic Method

participant-observation - defining characteristic of cultural anthropology & its methods of research

first-hand observation of daily behavior; immersed in daily lifeno other human science does this

what people say & what they do

(Kottak), "The common humanity of the student and the studied, the

ethnographer and the researched community, makes participant

observation inevitable."

(Malinowski), “…, in this type of work, it is good for the ethnographer sometimes to put aside camera, note book and pencil, and to join in himself in what is going on."

Surveys & Interviews

2 techniques of asking questions & eliciting responses

quantitative vs. qualitative methodsenumerated/statisticaldescriptive/ interpretive

Surveys

structured closed-ended questionnaires

genealogical method/genealogies

statistical analysis

objectivitywho administers

Interviews

structured open-ended

unstructured

spontaneous & planned

Ethnographic vs. Survey Research

study whole functioning community vs. a sample

develop rapport

totality of an informant's life-context

context & thick description

adds depth to survey data (i.e. kinship genealogies)

Life History

recollections of lifetime experiences

identify important life turns for a culture

indicates the diversity of experience within what appears to be a society of cultural uniformity

problem with remembering in the present

Notions of narrative and history

Informants

Informants

what is a "well informed informant"?compared to who?

the relationships between ethnographer & informantrelations of power

trust, friendship, economic contract, learning, adopted as family member, prestige for both

Anthropology in pairs and such…

TYPES OF KNOWLEDGE

Emic – local knowledge: how people think, perceive, categorize the world; what has meaning in their world-the natives point of view

Etic -- shift focus from the native's point of view to that of the anthropologist

Reflexivity

Type of knowledge – intersubjectiveA self consciousness about the impact on the data produced in the context of doing fieldwork and writing culturehow the anthropologist effects the thoughts, actions of informantshow the ethnocentrism of the anthro colors the interpretation and final representation of others thinking & actions

Paul Rabinow on Reflexive Knowledge

Field data are constructs of the process by which we acquire them -- intersubjective

The problem is a “hermeneutical one” hermeneutic – interpretation ... “as the

comprehension of self by the detour of the comprehension of the other”

Fieldwork is dialectic DIALECTIC BECAUSE NEITHER THE SUBJECT

NOR THE OBJECT REMAIN STATIC

Ali & Rabinow“highlighting, identification, and analysis also disturbed Ali’s usual patterns of experience.

forced to reflect on his own activities and objectify them [as an informant].

began to develop an art of presenting his world to me

But the more we engaged in such activity, the more he experienced aspects of his own life in new ways.”

Reflexive Knowledge and Doing Anthropology as

Negotiated Realitya mutually constructed ground of experience and understandingan acknowledgement of the dialogue between the anthropologist and the informant in the experience of fieldwork

Negotiated Realityanthropologists are historically situated through the questions we ask and the manner we seek to understand and experience the worldanthropologists receive from our informants their interpretations that are also mediated by culture and historythe data is doubly mediated first by presence of the anthropologist Then by a second order self-reflection of our

informants

fieldwork is an experience in humanitya kind of social relationshiprisky business

Anthropology and the Ethics of Fieldwork

Anthropological researchers, teachers and practitioners are members of many different communities, each with its own moral rules or codes of ethicsIn both proposing and carrying out research, anthropological researchers must be open about the purpose(s), potential impacts, and source(s) of support for research projects with funders, colleagues, persons studied or providing information, and with relevant parties affected by the research.

Ethics and Informant Relationships

Anthropological researchers have primary ethical obligations to the people, species, and materials they study and to the people with whom they workavoid harm or wrong respect the well-beingconsult actively with the affected

individuals or group(s)

Fieldwork and Informed Consent

Anthropological researchers should obtain in advance the informed consent of persons being studied, providing information, owning or controlling access to material being studied, or otherwise identified as having interests which might be impacted by the research

Ethics Beyond the Field

Responsibility to scholarship and science

Responsibility to the public

Responsibility to students and trainees

www.aaanet.org