~~DECKJS~~ ====== Emic and etic descriptions ====== ===== Emic and etic descriptions ===== Ryan Schram ANTH 1001: Introduction to anthropology Wednesday, March 18, 2020 (Week 4) Available at http://anthro.rschram.org/1001/2020/2.1.2 ==== Required readings ==== Thomas Hylland Eriksen “Fieldwork and Ethnography,” in //Small Places, Large Issues: An Introduction to Social and Cultural Anthropology// (London: Pluto Press, 2015), 32–51. ===== The story of “fieldwork”: Malinowski in the Trobriands ===== * [[: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: Mari * 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 //yaheyahe// (or, //yaʻwayaʻwala//)? * Family and/or household: //susu// (but this concept also refers to a matrilineage). ===== 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 [[:emic and etic|emic and etic]] descriptions. * Phonetic transcription is a spelling of a word as it sounds * ˈhyʋæː ˈpæi̯ʋæː * Phonemic transcription is a spelling of a word using the basic sounds of a specific language * hyvää päivää For [[:Mel Spiro|Mel Spiro]], anthropology makes what is "familiar strange" and what is "strange familiar" by moving from a particular cultural worldview to a "third set of concepts --- that, anthropological concepts" which try to be neutral (Spiro 1990, 49). This third position is the etic perspective. ===== Analytic and synthetic perspectives ===== **etic** is to **emic** as **analysis** is to **synthesis**
oral historical narrative describing a lineage’s founding, migration, and descent tetela
mortuary feasting bwabwale
the stylized expressions of deference and circumspection by certain* relatives toward the matrilineal kin of a deceased person veʻahihi (respect)
horticulture [[:enao|enao]]
\* Specifically the affines and the patrifilial relatives, etic terms for kinds of kinship which I won’t explain today. ## Survey: Is there a difference between ethnography and journalism? This question is inspired by a question asked by a student in this class on Monday. It really doesn't have an easy answer. What you do think? (This is a survey question. Go to Quizzes on Canvas, scroll down to Surveys, and answer yes or no---either counts.) The password for today's lecture question is **difference** (not "different" :P) ===== Ethnographic writing: You are there ===== Ethnographic descriptions generally take the form of narrative so that the reader can imagine themselves as part of what is described * There is a setting, especially a sense of a larger social system, the people who participate in it, and their relationships * Details about the events are connected to a larger sequence of events, like the annual cycle of activity * An important part of the “context” that ethnographic writing conveys is a connection between the actual events and people’s subjective thoughts, feelings, and reactions. * This is why a strong sense of rapport is needed, because ultimately the ethnographer is using fellow participants as fellow eyewitnesses. Their views on the events are just as important as the events themselves. ## References Eriksen, Thomas Hylland. 2015. “Fieldwork and Ethnography.” In //Small Places, Large Issues: An Introduction to Social and Cultural Anthropology//, 32–51. London: Pluto Press. Gomberg-Muñoz, Ruth. 2010. “Willing to Work: Agency and Vulnerability in an Undocumented Immigrant Network.” //American Anthropologist// 112 (2):295–307. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1548-1433.2010.01227.x. ———. 2011. //Labor and Legality: An Ethnography of a Mexican Immigrant Network//. Oxford: Oxford University Press. http://books.google.com?id=9tb0SAAACAAJ. Layard, John W. 1942. //Stone Men of Malekula//. London: Chatto and Windus. http://books.google.com?id=Z6etvQEACAAJ. 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://archive.org/details/argonautsofthewe032976mbp. Rivers, W. H. R. 1914. //The History of Melanesian Society//. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ===== A guide to the unit ===== {{page>1001guide}}