2011 rey ty-ferraro-conducting research

Conducting Research

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OutlineI. Stages of ResearchII. Data-Gathering TechniquesIII.FieldworkIV.Recent TrendsV. Ethics of Research

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Stages of Research

5. Interpreting the Data

4. Analyzing the Data

3. Collecting the Data

2. Formulating a Research Design

1. Selecting a Research Problem

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Data-Gathering Techniques

1. Participant

Observation

2.Interviewing

Structured & Unstructured

Interview

3.Additional Techniques

Census Taking, Mapping, Document Analysis, Collecting

Genealogies, Photography

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Pains & Gains of Fieldwork

2.Bi-

culturalism

1. Cultural Shock

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Recent Trends in Research1.

Reflexive

Methods

2. Statistic

al Cross-

Cultural Compar

isons

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Reflexive Methods• “Since the 1970s, however, the

postmodernists… have ushered in a new type of ethnography that has become known as reflexive or narrative ethnography” (Ferraro, 2006, p. 114).

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Reflexive Methods• “Being less concerned with scientific

objectivity, narrative ethnographers are interested in co-producing ethnographic knowledge by focusing on the interaction between themselves and their informants” (Ferraro, 2006, p. 114).

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Reflexive Methods• “In fact, many ethnographers

today use the term research collaborator rather than informant” (Ferraro, 2006, p. 114).

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Reflexive Methods• “These narrative

ethnographers are no longer interested in producing descriptive accounts of another culture written with scientific detachment” (Ferraro, 2006, p. 114). © 2011 Rey Ty

Reflexive Methods• “Rather, their ethnographies are

conscious reflections on how their own personalities and cultural influences combine with personal encounters with their informants to produce cultural data” (Ferraro, 2006, p. 114).

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Reflexive Methods• “The narrative or reflexive

approach to ethnography involves a dialogue between informant and ethnographer” (Ferraro, 2006, p. 114).

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Reflexive Methods• “Such a postmodern approach…

is needed because the traditional ethnographer can no longer presume to be able to obtain an objective description of other cultures” (Ferraro, 2006, p. 114).

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Reflexive Methods• “we should avoid drawing

absolute lines between subjective and objective ethnographic methods.” (Ferraro, 2006, p. 114).

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Reflexive Methods• “Instead, ethnography of the twenty-

first century is moving toward a ‘methodological pluralism,’ whereby all forms of information and all methods are considered legitimate, provided they help us produce a richer and more accurate description of ethnographic reality” (Ferraro, 2006, p. 114).

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Statistical Cross-Cultural Comparisons

• “Because of the many first-hand ethnographic field studies conducted by the students of Boas and Malinowski, by 1945 sufficient data existed to begin testing hypotheses and building theory inductively” (Ferraro, 2006, p. 115).

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• “The emergence of statistical, cross-cultural comparative studies was made possible in the 1940s by George Peter Murdock and his colleagues at Yale University, who developed a coded data retrieval system known as the Human Relations Area Files (HRAF)” (Ferraro, 2006, p. 115).

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• “The largest anthropological dta bank in the world, HRAF has vast amounts of information about more than 300 different cultures organized into more than 700 different cultural subject headings” (Ferraro, 2006, p. 115).

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• “The use of the simple coding system enables the cross-cultural researcher to access large quantities of data within minutes for the purpose of testing hypotheses and drawing statistical correlations” (Ferraro, 2006, p. 115).

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• “The creation of HRAF has opened up the possibility for making statistical comparisons among large numbers of cultures” (Ferraro, 2006, p. 115).

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• “…a host of studies using HRAF data have appeared in the literature, including…” (Ferraro, 2006, p. 115).

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• “… studies on the adoption of agriculture (Pryor 1986), sexual division of labor (White et al. 1981), female political participation (Ross 1986), reproduction rituals (Paige and Paige 1981), and magico-religious practitioners (Winkelman 1987)” (Ferraro, 2006, p. 115).

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• “potential methodological pitfalls” (Ferraro, 2006, p. 115):• “Much of the data contained in

HRAF varies considerably in quality” (Ferraro, 2006, p. 115).

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• “potential methodological pitfalls” (Ferraro, 2006, p. 115):• “The coverage is uneven, with a

greater amount of material coming from non-Western cultures” (Ferraro, 2006, p. 115).

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• “potential methodological pitfalls” (Ferraro, 2006, p. 115):

• “Because the data describe a wide range of types of social system (such as tribes, clans, nations, and ethnic groups), one can question whether the units of analysis are comparable” (Ferraro, 2006, p. 115).

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• “There is a problem determining the independence of individual cases, for if a cultural institution that is found in ten different societies, should they all be considered independent units?” (Ferraro, 2006, p. 115).

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• “There is a problem of functional unity: If, as the functionalists remind us, all parts of a culture are to some degree interconnected, how legitimate is it to pull a cultural trait from its original context and compare it to other cultural traits that have been similarly ripped from their contexts?” (Ferraro, 2006, p. 115).

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Reference•Ferraro, G. (2006). Cultural anthropology: An applied perspective. Belmont, CA: Thomson Higher Education.

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Technology

2011 rey ty-ferraro-conducting research