Transcript Day 3 I Ethnographyx

Mon, Aug. 29
Day 3: Ethnography
Write your warm
up response here
Mon, Aug. 29
PREDICT WHAT PROBLEMS WOULD COME UP
WHILE DOING ANTHROPOLOGICAL FIELDWORK .
OBJECTIVES
• I will define the main components of
ethnography, and analyze its effect on
anthropology.
• Ted Talk: “Danger of a Single Story” (25 min)
• What is ethnography?? (30 min)
• Video and Discuss (20 min)
• Journal Prompt (5 min)
WHAT WE DO IN
ANTHROPOLOGY…
What is a story?
What can stories do?
Ted Talk: “The Danger of a Single Story”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9Ihs241zeg
What is the danger of a single story?
How will this affect us this year?
WHAT IS
ETHNOGRAPHY?
How do
Anthropologists
study the world?
ETHNOGRAPHY
Ethnos (Greek) = to describe a people
Grapho = to write
~ Ethnography aims to describe (through writing) the nature
of the people who are studied
 Might be called a ‘field study’ or ‘case report.’
 It’s a description of a culture
 based on participant observation and field work.

Field Work: living among a group of people for the purpose of learning about
their culture.
QUANTITATIVE V. QUALITATIVE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8UFS5PE_Mw
SOCIAL Research Methods May Be Divided into two broad
schools:
 Quantitative research approaches social phenomena through numerical tabulations and
statistical comparisons made possible by systematic surveys, observations, or analysis of
records. Data is used to test hypotheses and create valid and reliable, general claims.
 Qualitative research uses rich descriptions of cultural situations obtained from
interviewing, participant observation, and collection of oral and textual materials.
 Ethnographies are usually reports from qualitative research.
COLLECTION OF DATA
Ethnographers use a broad variety of techniques in
collecting data, including:
•Interviewing
•Observation
•note-taking
•audio and visual recording
•discussing recordings with members of group being studied
•keeping journals
•life histories
•Questionnaires
•material culture
•genealogies
COLLECTION OF DATA
• The nature of the data and the techniques used to collect it
depend on the goals of the research.
• The body of data collected during fieldwork is often
substantial, and is used selectively in analysis and in writing up
the results of the fieldwork.
• What are possible ethical concerns of an
anthropologist getting to decide what to include and
what to leave out in their final ethnographic report?
ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION
•The analysis of anthropological data consists of
discovering consistencies and other recurrent patterns in
the data.
•Anthropologists recognize that description and analysis
are never free of theoretical and personal biases and
always involve selection and interpretation.
PARTICIPANT OBSERVATION
Direct, first-hand observation of daily participation.
Living among the people being studied
Usually for a year or more so you become “natural”
observing, questioning, and taking part in important events
of the group while also keeping a detailed record of your
observations and interviews.
Learn language to stop translation issues
 Gender, age, and race affect the research
Obtrusive Effect – you thrust yourself into the culture, changing what is
taking place.
EXAMPLES OF ETHNOGRAPHIES
We Eat the Mines and the Mines Eat Us (1979) – June Nash’s description of
Bolivian tin miners and the ways in which transnational economic processes
affect their lives.
Tuhami: Portrait of a Moroccan (1980) – Vincent Crapanzano’s
ethnographic biography describes his encounter with ‘an illiterate
Moroccan tile maker who believes himself married to a camel-footed shedemon.’
The Channeling Zone: American Spirituality in an Anxious Age (1997) –
Michael Brown presents a fascinating look at the lives and experiences of
New Age ‘channellers’ and their place in contemporary American spiritual
life.
Medusa’s Hair (1981) – Gananath Obeyesekere brings insight from
psychoanalysis to bear on ‘personal symbols and religious experience’
among ecstatic priests and priestesses in Sri Lanka.
Geisha (1983) – Liza Dalby trained as a geisha in Kyoto and provides a
fascinating look at the ‘willow world.’
Javanese Shadow Plays, Javanese Selves (1987) – Ward Keeler lived with
a Javanese puppeteer for several years and wrote this fascinating
account of an ancient art form, is practitioners, and its place in modern
culture
DOING ANTHROPOLOGY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BhCruPBvSjQ
Benefits to Anthro
Problems to overcome
How does an anthropologist's ethnographic fieldwork
experience differ from a tourist's experience traveling
in a foreign land among "exotic" peoples?
CAN ETHNOGRAPHY BE USED
OUTSIDE OF ANTRHO?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nV0jY5VgymI (12 min)
Discuss with a partner first…
Watch this video to see how
someone in the Computer Field can
use ethnography
READ ARTICLE
“Christmas in the Kalihari”
On a sheet of paper:
1. What does this story teach us about fieldwork?
2. What are the challenges of doing fieldwork?
3. What is the goal of fieldwork in general?