Fieldwork and Ethnography

1. Fieldwork and Ethnography

4. 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

5. Before Fieldwork • schooling & training • language acquisition (at school & in the field) • research proposal • visa, government bureaucracies & permissions to do fieldwork • changing nature of the rules of fieldwork

6. Field Equipment

9. Medicine, money, and… as field equipment

10. Entering the Field • expats (missionaries, other anthros, international development people) • tourists • going “native” types • exceptional locals • culture shock • refuge from the “natives”

11. Whose natives?

12. 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 life • no other human science does this • what people say & what they do

13. (Kottak), "The common humanity of the student and the studied, the ethnographer and the researched community, makes participant observation inevitable."

14. (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."

15. Surveys & Interviews • 2 techniques of asking questions & eliciting responses • quantitative vs. qualitative methods • enumerated/statistical • descriptive/ interpretive

16. Surveys • structured closed-ended questionnaires • genealogical method/genealogies • statistical analysis • objectivity • who administers

17. Interviews • structured open-ended • unstructured • spontaneous & planned

18. 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)

19. 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

20. Informants

21. Informants • what is a "well informed informant"? • compared to who? • the relationships between ethnographer & informant • relations of power • trust, friendship, economic contract, learning, adopted as family member, prestige for both

22. Anthropology in pairs and such…

24. 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

27. Reflexivity • Type of knowledge – intersubjective • A self consciousness about the impact on the data produced in the context of doing fieldwork and writing culture • how the anthropologist effects the thoughts, actions of informants • how the ethnocentrism of the anthro colors the interpretation and final representation of others thinking & actions

28. 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

29. 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.”

30. Reflexive Knowledge and Doing Anthropology as Negotiated Reality • a mutually constructed ground of experience and understanding • an acknowledgement of the dialogue between the anthropologist and the informant in the experience of fieldwork

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

32. fieldwork is an experience in humanity a kind of social relationship risky business

33. 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 ethics • In 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.

34. 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 work • avoid harm or wrong • respect the well-being • consult actively with the affected individuals or group(s)

35. 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

36. Ethics Beyond the Field • Responsibility to scholarship and science • Responsibility to the public • Responsibility to students and trainees • www.aaanet.org