Ethnographic Research

1
Ethnographic Research

• Its History, Methods, and Theories

2
Methods in Cultural Anthropology

• Fieldwork the descriptive term for the
  collection of raw data at the site of study.
• Participant Observation research technique where
  the research immerse themselves in the day-to-day
  activities of the people who they are attempting
  to understand.
• Ethnography A detailed description of a
  particular culture primarily based on fieldwork.
• Ethnology The study and analysis of different
  cultures from a comparative point of view.

3
Ethnographic Fieldwork

• Extended on-location research to gather detailed
  and in-depth information on a societys customary
  ideas, values, and practices through
  participation in its collective social life.

• Ecologist James Kremer and anthropologist Stephen
  Lansing who have researched the traditional
  rituals and network of water temples linked to
  the irrigation management of rice fields on the
  island of Bali in Indonesia are explaining a
  computer simulation of this system to the high
  priest of the supreme water temple, as other
  temple priests look on.

4
Anthropological Fieldwork
Interviewing in Puok village, Cambodia (Aafke
Sanders).
Avery Dickins de Giron doing fieldwork in the
Chisec region of Guatemala.
Fieldwork in Caio, Guinea Bissau (West Africa)
among the Manjako (Tracci Gabel).
Fieldwork among reindeer nomads in winter
(Florian Stammler).
5
Participant Observation

• A research method in which one learns about a
  groups beliefs and behaviors through social
  participation and personal observation within the
  community, as well as interviews and discussion
  with individual members of the group over an
  extended stay in the community.

Phil Bartle does participant observations with
the Akan People of West Africa.
6
Participant Observation
Participant observation is the process in which a
research establishes a multi-sided, long-term
relationship with individuals and groups in their
natural setting.

• Combats ethnocentric ideas.
• Uncovers how and why practices are
  used and change.
• Is not just hanging around with another
  group.

Participant observation in a Tibetan Buddhist
monastery.
7
Doing Ethnography
Ethnography is the instrument of data collection
through active participation.

• Four roles for collecting and analyzing field
  notes
• Complete participant fully engaged often covert
  (hidden) so that intentions are not made
  explicit.
• Participant Observer overt (pen) role
  intentions are known to the group.
• Observer as participant more formal observation
  one-visit interviews less time in the field.
• Complete Observer passively records behavior at
  a distance.

8
Key Consultant

• A member of the society being studied, who
  provides information that helps researchers
  understand the meaning of what they observe.
• Early anthropologists referred to such
  individuals as informants.

Veronica Strang with informant (key consultant)
in north Queensland, Australia.

• Informed Consent Formal recorded agreement to
  participate in research.

9
Interviewing

• Informal interview
• An unstructured, open-ended conversation in
  everyday life.
• Formal interview
• A structured question/answer session carefully
  notated as it occurs and based on prepared
  questions.

From the project Ethnicity and inter-ethnic
interaction among the Guji Gedeo peoples of
Southern Ethiopia.
10
Accurately Describing a Culture

• To accurately describe a culture an
  anthropologist needs to seek out and consider
  three kinds of data
• The peoples own understanding of their culture
  and the general rules they share.
• The extent to which people believe they are
  observing those rules.
• The behavior that can be directly observed.

11
Quantitative Data

• Statistical or measurable information, such as
  demographic composition, the types and quantities
  of crops grown, or the ratio of spouses born and
  raised within or outside the community.

12
Qualitative Data

• Nonstatistical information such as personal life
  stories and customary beliefs and practices.

Mind Maps and Causal Models Using Graphical
Representations of Field Research Data (Millen,
et al., 1997)
13
Ethnology

• The systematic comparison of similar cultures.
• Example comparison of what the cultures of
  societies that have economies based on hunting
  gathering rather than agriculture.
• The ethnology would be a synthesis of the work of
  many ethnographers.

Studying the Bushman of the Kalahari.
14
Ethnohistory

• A study of cultures of the recent past through
  oral histories, accounts of explorers,
  missionaries, and traders, and through analysis
  of records such as land titles, birth and death
  records, and other archival materials.

15
Urgent Anthropology

• Ethnographic research that documents endangered
  cultures.
• Also known as salvage ethnography.

16
Advocacy Anthropology

• Anthropologist David Maybury-Lewis interviews
  Xavante Indians in the Brazilian savannah where
  he has made numerous fieldwork visits since the
  1950s.
• Maybury-Lewis is founder of the indigenous
  advocacy organization Cultural Survival, based in
  Cambridge, Massachusetts.

17
Challenges of Anthropology

• Among the numerous mental challenges
  anthropologists commonly face are
• Culture shock
• Loneliness
• Feeling like an ignorant outsider
• Being socially awkward in a new cultural setting.

18
Physical Challenges of Fieldwork

• Physical challenges typically include
• Adjusting to unfamiliar food, climate, and
  hygiene conditions
• Needing to be constantly alert because anything
  that is happening or being said may be
  significant to ones research.
• Ethnographers must spend considerable time
  interviewing, making copious notes, and analyzing
  data.

19
Acculturation

• Acculturation is the exchange of cultural
  features that results when groups come into
  continuous firsthand contact the original
  cultural patterns of either or both groups may be
  altered, but the groups remain distinct. (Kottak
  2007)

20
Human Relations Area Files (HRAF) - Comparative
Method

• A vast collection of cross-indexed ethnographic
  and archaeological data catalogued by cultural
  characteristics and geographic locations.
• Archived in about 300 libraries (on microfiche
  and/or online).

21
Anthropologys Theoretical Perspectives

• Idealist perspective
• A theoretical approach stressing the primacy of
  superstructure (worldview) in cultural research
  and analysis.
• Materialist perspective
• A theoretical approach stressing the primacy of
  infrastructure (material conditions) in cultural
  research and analysis.

22
Question

• The study and analysis of different cultures from
  a comparative point of view is called
• Ethnography
• Urgent Anthropology
• Ethnology
• Applied Anthropology

23
Answer C

• The study and analysis of different cultures from
  a comparative point of view is called ethnology.

24
Franz Boas
Franz Boas (July 9, 1858 December 21, 1942) was
a German-American anthropologist who has been
called the "Father of American Anthropology".
Like many such pioneers, he trained in other
disciplines he received his doctorate in
physics, and did post-doctoral work in geography.
He is famed for applying the scientific method to
the study of human cultures and societies.
25
Franz Boas
In 1883 Boas went to Baffin Island to conduct
geographic research on the impact of the physical
environment on native Inuit migrations.
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In January, 1887, he was offered a job as
assistant editor of the journal Science, in New
York.
In 1892 Boas joined a number of other Clark
faculty in resigning, to protest Hall's
infringement on academic freedom.
Boas was then appointed chief assistant in
anthropology at the 1893 World's Columbian
Exposition in Chicago.
Boas was appointed lecturer in physical
anthropology at Columbia University in 1896, and
promoted to professor of anthropology in 1899.
Boas's program at Columbia became the first Ph.D.
program in anthropology in America.
26
Franz Boas
Boas identified two basic questions for
anthropologists "Why are the tribes and nations
of the world different, and how have the present
differences developed?"
We do not discuss the anatomical,
physiological, and mental characteristics of man
considered as an individual but we are
interested in the diversity of these traits in
groups of men found in different geographical
areas and in different social classes. It is our
task to inquire into the causes that have brought
about the observed differentiation, and to
investigate the sequence of events that have led
to the establishment of the multifarious forms of
human life. In other words, we are interested in
the anatomical and mental characteristics of men
living under the same biological, geographical,
and social environment, and as determined by
their past.
27
Franz Boas
At both Columbia and the AAA, Boas encouraged the
"four field" concept of anthropology he
personally contributed to physical anthropology,
linguistics, archaeology, as well as cultural
anthropology.
"Franz Boas posing for figure in US Natural
History Museum exhibit entitled "Hamats'a coming
out of secret room" 1895 or before. Courtesy of
National Antropology Archives. (Kwakiutl culture)
28
Potlatch
The potlatch is a festival or ceremony practiced
among Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest
Coast. At these gatherings a family or hereditary
leader hosts guests in their family's house and
hold a feast for their guests. The main purpose
of the potlatch is the re-distribution and
reciprocity of wealth.
Celebration of births, rites of passages,
weddings, funerals, namings, and honoring of the
deceased are some of the many forms the potlatch
occurs under. Although protocol differs among the
Indigenous nations, the potlatch will usually
involve a feast, with music, dance, theatricality
and spiritual ceremonies. The most sacred
ceremonies are usually observed in the winter.
29
Boas Potlatch

• Chief Owaxalagalis of the Kwagu'l describes the
  potlatch in his famous speech to anthropologist
  Franz Boas,
• "We will dance when our laws command us to dance,
  and we will feast when our hearts desire to
  feast. Do we ask the white man, 'Do as the Indian
  does?' It is a strict law that bids us dance. It
  is a strict law that bids us distribute our
  property among our friends and neighbors. It is a
  good law. Let the white man observe his law we
  shall observe ours. And now, if you come to
  forbid us dance, be gone. If not, you will be
  welcome to us.
• Potlatching was made illegal in Canada in 1885
  and the United States in the late nineteenth
  century, largely at the urging of missionaries
  and government agents who considered it "a worse
  than useless custom"citation needed that was
  seen as wasteful, unproductive which was not part
  of "civilized" values.