1001:2020:2.1.1
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- | ====== Anthropologists are professional strangers—The method of “fieldwork” | + | ====== Anthropologists are professional strangers—The method of “fieldwork” ====== |
- | ===== Anthropologists are professional strangers—The method of “fieldwork” | + | ===== Anthropologists are professional strangers—The method of “fieldwork” ===== |
Ryan Schram | Ryan Schram | ||
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Thomas Hylland Eriksen “Fieldwork and Ethnography, | Thomas Hylland Eriksen “Fieldwork and Ethnography, | ||
- | ===== References | + | ===== My arrival in Auhelawa |
- | Eriksen, Thomas Hylland. “Fieldwork and Ethnography.” In //Small Places, Large Issues: An Introduction to Social and Cultural Anthropology//, | + | I arrived in the middle of the night. I was taken along a path in total darkness. I was shown into an empty room of a house lit only with a kerosene lantern…. |
+ | ===== Culture and “culture” ===== | ||
+ | In the early days of my fieldwork, I spoke in English with people and found that most adults were fluent. This doesn’t mean that we always understood each other. For instance, for my research on “culture, | ||
+ | |||
+ | * interview the newly-trained kindergarten teachers in village schools | ||
+ | * collect the oral histories of people’s matrilineages, | ||
+ | * conduct surveys on people’s food production and income | ||
+ | |||
+ | ===== Observation and participation ===== | ||
+ | |||
+ | I was interested in things that people take for granted | ||
+ | |||
+ | * Participant-observation | ||
+ | * Rapport | ||
+ | |||
+ | Sometimes, it felt like everything I did was a mistake! | ||
+ | |||
+ | * “Where are you going?” | ||
+ | |||
+ | ===== Gardens and funerals ===== | ||
+ | |||
+ | Based on my previous study of this region, I knew I wanted to learn about two things. | ||
+ | |||
+ | * Mortuary feasting, that is, the ceremonies associated with death, mourning, burial. | ||
+ | * Gardening, especially yam gardening. | ||
+ | |||
+ | One seemed like it would require genuine rapport with my hosts, but the other seemed like it would be pretty easy. | ||
+ | |||
+ | Things did not work out quite how I expected them to work. | ||
+ | |||
+ | ===== The story of “fieldwork”: | ||
+ | |||
+ | * W. H. R. Rivers and expeditionary methods (e.g. Rivers 1914) | ||
+ | * Survey questionnaires and diffusionist hypotheses | ||
+ | * Salvage ethnography | ||
+ | * Bronislaw Malinowski and the Cambridge expedition of 1914 (Malinowski [1922] 1932, especially pages 1-25) | ||
+ | * Immersion in one place | ||
+ | * First-hand observation of actual happenings | ||
+ | * Imponderabilia of everyday life and typical pattern of behavior | ||
+ | * Key words, technical terms, verbatim quotations | ||
+ | |||
+ | ===== Another story of fieldwork: Layard on Atchin ===== | ||
+ | |||
+ | * Rivers and John W. Layard on Atchin (Tsan) island in the New Hebrides islands (today in Malakula, Vanuatu) (Layard 1942) | ||
+ | * Abandoned by Rivers, who got frustrated | ||
+ | * Left alone to make friends | ||
+ | * Adopted by another outsider: Maki | ||
+ | * Participated in a big collective project: The revival of the Maki | ||
+ | |||
+ | ===== Yet another story of fieldwork: Gomberg-Muñoz and The Lions ===== | ||
+ | |||
+ | * Ruth Gomberg-Muñoz wanted to understand the ways in which undocumented immigrants from Mexico made a living in Chicago (Gomberg-Muñoz 2011) | ||
+ | * Met with her fellow workers separately and in social occasions outside of work | ||
+ | * Worked in a restaurant, as a waitress, not a busboy | ||
+ | * At work, she used “head notes” and expanded on them after hours | ||
+ | * Work in the restaurant is “The Busboy Show” (Gomberg-Muñoz 2010) | ||
+ | * Her informants (that is, research subjects), their restaurant, and the collective name for them are all pseudonyms | ||
+ | |||
+ | ===== Survey questions ===== | ||
+ | |||
+ | I did ultimately conduct a household survey about people’s gardens, food, and income. | ||
+ | |||
+ | I thought my questions were quite simple. I wanted to ask | ||
+ | |||
+ | * Who were members of the household? | ||
+ | * What kinds of food did people grow? | ||
+ | * What did they do to earn money? | ||
+ | |||
+ | Even what I thought was basic was actually more complex | ||
+ | |||
+ | * Garden: //oya//, or // | ||
+ | * Family and/or household: //susu// (but this concept also refers to a matrilineage). | ||
+ | |||
+ | ===== Survey: How long should fieldwork last? ===== | ||
+ | |||
+ | For the lecture question today, go to Canvas and answer a survey question asking for your opinion (scrolling down if needed). Any answer counts for this question. | ||
+ | |||
+ | How long should a fieldworker be immersed in the field? | ||
+ | |||
+ | The password will be announced in class. | ||
+ | |||
+ | ===== Learning how to ask ===== | ||
+ | |||
+ | I had to learn to listen before asking. | ||
+ | |||
+ | But if I only listened, then a lot of what I needed to know would remain unstated, so I had to ask. | ||
+ | |||
+ | * Example: //tetela// (lineage history) | ||
+ | |||
+ | Fieldwork methods are all based on an ongoing conversation between the outsider and the insider. | ||
+ | |||
+ | ===== Writing ethnography ===== | ||
+ | |||
+ | Ethnography is a a form of writing that cultural anthropologists use to help people understand a way of life as a cultural system. | ||
+ | |||
+ | An ethnography is (usually) a book written by someone who has conducted participant-observation fieldwork | ||
+ | |||
+ | Ethnographic writing must always balance etic and emic descriptions. | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | ## References | ||
+ | |||
+ | Eriksen, Thomas Hylland. 2015. “Fieldwork and Ethnography.” In //Small Places, Large Issues: An Introduction to Social and Cultural Anthropology//, | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | Gomberg-Muñoz, | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | ———. 2011. //Labor and Legality: An Ethnography of a Mexican Immigrant Network//. Oxford: Oxford University Press. http:// | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | Layard, John W. 1942. //Stone Men of Malekula//. London: Chatto and Windus. http:// | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | Malinowski, Bronislaw. (1922) 1932. //Argonauts of the Western Pacific: An Account of Native Enterprise and Adventure in the Archipelagoes of Melanesian New Guinea//. London: George Routledge and Sons, Ltd. http:// | ||
+ | |||
+ | |||
+ | Rivers, W. H. R. 1914. //The History of Melanesian Society//. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. | ||
===== A guide to the unit ===== | ===== A guide to the unit ===== |
1001/2020/2.1.1.txt · Last modified: 2020/03/12 22:36 by Ryan Schram (admin)