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Fieldwork and Ethics
“文化”之惑:
专业“常识”与日常生活实践的鸿沟
1）人类学和社会学的文化观
-文化与人类生存适应（adaptation）
-文化的定义（儒化和社会学过程）
2) 日常话语里的“文化”问题
3）田野研究(fieldwork & ethnography)
-文化作为“数据”
人类学和社会学意义上的“文化”
 泰勒认为文化作为人类行为和思维系统，
有其自然规律，可以当成科学研究对象。
 泰 勒 定 义： “文化是复杂的一个整体，包
括知识，信仰，艺术，道义，法律，风俗，和
任何其他可供人学习掌握以成为社会一员的能
力和习惯” (Tylor 1858：1) 。
 文化可以是阳春白雪，也可以是下里巴人；文
化既 是普通百姓的日常行为，也是专家能人
的技术创造。在实践中，文化活动是一种规划，
技巧，设计，和策略。
 “文化学习”是个人如何通过熟悉一整套的规
矩和经验，获得从生物人转向社会人、经济人
和文化人所需要的能力和习惯。
Shakespeare in the Bush, Laura Bohannan,
Natural History, Aug/Sept. 1966
 It is claimed that great literature has cross-cultural
significance. L. Bohanan describes the difficulties
she encountered and the lessons she learned as she
attempted to relate the story of Hamlet to the Tiv
of West Africa in their own language.
 Assumptions about human motivations, morality,
and the nature of reality are embedded in a
cultural context and limit the possible
understanding of the story.
Key terms: ethnocentrism, cross-cultural
misunderstanding, cultural relativism
Questions
 What was L. Bohannan’s original beliefs about the
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universality of the classics?
Was L Bohannan successful in her attempt to convey the
“true” meaning of Shakespeare’s Hamlet to the Tiv?
What difficulties did she find in communicating the
dramatic themes?
How did the Tiv react to the marriage of Hamlet’s mother
to his uncle? How was this different from Hamlet’s own
emotional reaction?
Why do the Tiv believe that a chief should have more than
one wife?
Consider how the elders interpret various actions to fit Tiv
culture and in so doing redefine the central meaning of the
play. What are the most important parts of Hamlet that the
Tiv found necessary to reinterpret?
In what way does this story illustrate the concepts of naive
realism and ethnocentrism?
Body Ritual among the Nacirema, Horace
Miner, American Anthropologist, June 1956
 The rituals, beliefs and taboos of the
Nacirema provide us with a test case of the
objectivity of ethnographic description and
show us the extremes to which human
behavior can go.
 Mystical beliefs and ritual are hardly absent
from the modern world.
Key terms: ethnocentrism, culture, ritual
Questions:
 How do the Nacirema feel about the human body?
 Do you think that the charms and magical potions
used by the Nacirema really work?
 Can you list those aspects of life in which magic
plays a role?
 What is your opinion of the importance of body
ritual, and if you went to live among the Nacirema,
would you tell them of your opinion?
 Living among the Nacirema, you might find that
their behaviors sometimes may appear bizarre. Do
you think the Nacirema themselves feel this way?
 Do the examination and analysis of the rituals of
this tribe shed any new light on the meaning of
culture and help us reflect on our own way of life?
 WHO are the Nacirema?
Empirical research
 Based on, guided by, or employing
observation and experiment rather than
theory. From the Greek word emperikos
meaning experience, skilled.
Shorter Oxford English Dictionary
How does sociological imagination differ from common sense?
 Lower-class people are more likely to commit crimes
than upper-class people.
 It makes sense to choose a college major in the same
field as one’s intended career, because most graduates
are employed in the general field of their college major.
 The amount of money spent on a school’s facility has a
strong effect on the academic success of its pupils.
 A substantial proportion of the people on welfare could
work if they really wanted to.
 Husbands are more likely to kill their wives in family
fights than wives are to kill their husbands.
 Every society forbids sexual relations between parent
and child and between brother and sister.
 Physicians can correctly diagnose the medical problems
of most patients who bring complaints to them.
Common Sense
 Common sense views are not always so
relentless contradicted by sociological
research. Indeed, intuition and common
sense in sociology are a rich source
insights. But they can provide only
hunches. The hunch must be tested by the
methods of science.
 “ethnocentrism”
Examples?
Durkheimian Paradigm
(cultivation of sociological imagination)
The Rules of Sociological
Method (1893).
“What is a Social Fact?”
Social facts are “ways of
acting, thinking, and feeling,
external to the individual and
endowed with a power of
coercion, by which they
control him”
- objective realities that can
be observed in a manner
consistent with scientific
methods
Suicide: A Study in Sociology
(1897)
Suicide: A Study in Sociology (1897)
Social facts are discovered by statistical methods.
Suicides are more than individual acts, they are
the consequences of broad social trends.
*The suicide victim’s acts which seem to express
his personal temperament are really (caused) by
a social condition; high suicide rates reflect
weaknesses in the web of relationship among
members of a society, not the weakness of
character or personality in the individual.
EX1 : Harvard anthropologist Arthur Kleinman’s
study of suicide in rural China (2001)
Ex2: “In the West we ask of a suicide, “Why?” In
China the question is more commonly, “Who? Who
drove her to this? Who is responsible…
M. Wolf (1975: 112)
The Validity of “Soft Data:”
Ethnography and Fieldwork
田野研究
-观察、录写、整理和分析作为
数据的文化
DATA
社会学意义上
Information in raw or unorganized
的文化元素
form (such as alphabets,
Language 语言
numbers, or symbols) that refer
Ideas 看法
to, or represent, conditions,
Norms & values
ideas, or objects.
规范和价值观
数据：
Material Culture
 处在无组织和未处理状态或者
物质文化
形式中的信息（字母，数字，
符号）；指代或者表征：条件
，看法或者说是物品。
www.businessdictionary.com
What does it MEAN to be tanned?
Language
Ideas
Norms & values
Material Culture
Sociological Research Methods
 Ethnography
- Observational study / fieldwork
(“detached” & participant observation)
 Surveys
-standardized & open-ended
-sampling
 Experiments
参与式观察和田野体验
观察视角的转换和研究手段的历史变革：
1）扶手椅式的研究
2）阳台（露台）访谈
3）田野体验（参与观察与深访）
*马林诺斯基的革命性突破
BRONIALAW MALINOWSKI
(1884-1942)
 “participant observation”
- immersing oneself in the local community
(long-term residence)
- working through the native language
Argonauts of the Western Pacific (1922)
the goal of ethnographic fieldwork is to
“grasp the native point of view, his relation to
life, to realize his vision of his world” (1922:
25)
人类学研究视角、方法与田野实践
 参与观察法（Participant
Observation）：人类学者
在田野实践过程中，深入他
(她) 所研究的特定社区的
日常生活，最大程度地参与
所研究对象的社会活动，通
过细致入微的观察，来收集
与研究主题有关的专门性的
地方知识。
 马林诺斯基（Malinowski)
在实践体会到，只有掌握当
地语言，才能知晓与他朝夕
相处的人们是如何看待他们
所处的那个世界以及他们对
于生活意义的理解。
The validity of “soft data”
“participant observation”
- immersing oneself in
the local community
(long-term residence)
- working through the
native language
the goal of ethnographic
fieldwork is to
“grasp the native point of
view, his relation to life,
to realize his vision of
his world”
(Malinowski 1922: 25)
FIELDWORK
 Gain specialist knowledge by going to live in the
society of their choice
 Go for a year or more & try to live as far as possible
as the people they are interested
 Find out exactly what it is like to be a member of the
society in question
 Learn the language of the people concerned
(working with interpreters gives a wholly inadequate
view)
NOTE: Social closeness distinguishes sociologists /
anthropologists from other social scientists
The Social Closeness Between the Observer and the
Observed
 Your class (social and
economic status),
ethnicity/nationality,
gender, age and other
factors (religious
beliefs and
institutional
affiliations) all affect
how you will be
interpreted by the local
people.
Social closeness
 A meeting of cultural traditions in a wide context:
misunderstandings, understandings and surprises
are likely.
 Fieldwork as a risky business (interpretation &
translation): offending & miscommunication.
 “Rich points” for unexpected moments when
problems in cross-cultural understanding emerge.
 Opportunities for insight
Ethnography
 Strength
Usually generates richer
and more in-depth
information than other
methods
Provide a broader
understanding of
social processes
 Limitations
Can be used to study
only relatively small
groups or communities
Findings might apply
only to groups or
communities studied;
not easy to generalize
on the basis of a single
fieldwork study
Ethnographic Research: A Key to Strategy
(March 2009 Harvard Business Review)
 Ken Anderson
- Corporate ethnography isn’t just for innovation
anymore. It’s central to gaining a full understanding
of your customers and the business itself. The
ethnographic work at my company, Intel, and other
firms now informs functions such as strategy and longrange planning.
- Our goal is to see people’s behavior on their terms, not
ours. While this observational method may appear
inefficient, it enlightens us about the context in which
customers would use a new product and the meaning
that product might hold in their lives.
What is Ethnorgaphic Research ?
• Highly investigative
• Diagnostic view
• A free flowing discussion amongst
a small number of people
• Does not produce numbers
• To understand consumer attitudes
and motivations
• Aid development of Ideas &
Advertising
• It is more of an ‘Art’ than ‘Science’
Insight to refine and
optimize Ideas,
concepts and creative
How does ethnography enrich traditional
qualitative research ?
Study the fish
‘Classical’ qualitative
research
Hang out with the fish
Ethnographic ‘immersion’
Both approaches are valid, but they uncover
different things
Insights run deep
Insight comes from
understanding what’s
above and below the
surface
EX: qualitative market research
 A way to collect, analyze and interpret data that
involves OBSERVING what people do and
LISTENING to what they say.
 The research process is UNSTRUCTURED and
can generate a large amount of detailed info. in a
short space of time.
 But the info. must be interpreted, summarized and
synthesized by the researcher.
 A subjective and time-consuming task
- Dictionary of Business (page 301)
Social closeness
 A meeting of cultural traditions in a wide context:
misunderstandings, understandings and surprises
are likely.
 Fieldwork as a risky business (interpretation &
translation): offending & miscommunication.
 “Rich points” for unexpected moments when
problems in cross-cultural understanding emerge.
 Opportunities for insight
Participant OBSERVATION
 Does it mean becoming a full participant in
the activities of the people (“going native”)?
 Allowing the fieldworker to collective more
detailed data than does interview alone
 Firsthand observations allow us to see how
diverge from the culturally defined, idealized
model of behavior.
 EX: Malinowski’s study of incest on
Trobriand Island (sexual relations between a
man and his mother’s sister’s daughter).
参与式观察（田野研究的核心）
 费孝通： 为什么必须要到现实生活中去
调查呢？因为人类社会是复杂的、多样性
的；又是多变的、富于创造性的，它决不
是只有单一文化背景和有限知识和经验的
研究者能够想象和包容得了的。所以研究
者必须深入你所要了解的“他人”的生活
中去观察、研究。从某种意义上说，这种
实地调查的方法，也反映出研究者的一种
心态，就是你是不是真正要去理解、接受
“他人”的语言、传统，入乡随俗，适应
他们的生活方式，做到设身处地地用当地
人的眼光来看待周围的事物……
例:研究者（医生）和患者
对疾病的不同理解
（Kleinman 1989）
 Disease 一词代表的是研究者
或者医疗人员（etic 或
客体）对于病人（patient）所
患病症的称呼。
 Illness则表达了生病的人
（sick person)对自身（emic )
病痛体验的认识。
参考材料：《道德的重量》和
《疾痛的故事》
例：凯博文教授用于诱导启发病人构
建解释自身疾病模式的八个问题
1）你管这个问题(病)叫什么？
2) 你认为导致这一问题的原因是什么？
3) 是什么原因使你认为(你)开始发病了？
4) 你认为这个病的有哪些症状？
是如何发作的？
5) 病有多严重？是长期还是短期的病痛？
6) 你认为病者该得到什么治疗？你希望病者
从这一治疗中得到最重要的效果是什么？
7) 这一病痛引起的主要问题是什么？
8) 你对这个病的最大恐惧是什么？
例：Claire Sterk 对艾滋病
高危人群（性工作者）研究（2000）
*研究手段：
1）参与式观察（纽约和亚特兰大街头摸索
和确定考察场所和范围）；10年间对1859岁年龄段共180名受访者；重点对象是
染毒瘾的卖淫者；2）深度访谈和倾听个
人叙述（Life Stories）；3）问卷（协
助完成）
* 受访者与研究者之间的关系（信任度问
题）和交流
* “社会学的想象力”的发挥：个人层面
的生活经历与不可抗拒的社会性结构力
Preparing for Ethnographic Fieldwork
 Well grounded in the different theoretical
perspectives (熟读唐诗三首）and gain background
knowledge
 Research design: formulation of a strategy to
examine a particular topic and specifies the
appropriate methods for gathering the riches
possible data (Where’s the culture?).
 Taking into account the types of data to be collected
(how those data relate to existing social scientific
knowledge)
 Specify what types of methods will be used for
investigation.
Working in the field
 Site Selection
EX. Mead’s 9 month study
of adolescent women in
Samoa (1925)
Attempt to prove Boas’s
cultural determinist
(constructivist) agenda
ie. why Samoan
adolescents had more
tranquil transition from
childhood to adult hood
Arrangement made by
Franz Boas
Working in the field
 Developing a Role and Gaining Rapport
(without “关 系” you are sunk!)
Rapport: acceptance to the degree that a
working relationship is possible
Communication problems:
Trust on the part of the study population;
depending on the researcher presents
herself/himself (role assignment).
Suspicions?
Preparing for Ethnographic Fieldwork
Analysis of available data
- Archival data, including photos, films, missionary
reports, business and government surveys, musical
recordings, birth/death/marriage and tax records,
and landholding documents.
- Any data that helps place the communities to be
studied in a broad context.
- Historical material in archives help the
fieldworker evaluate the usefulness of the
observations and interviews he or she will
document.
- Archival data can enrich the info sources prior to
field research
Working in the field
 Gift Giving and Interpersonal Exchange
- Gifts should be culturally and ethnically
appropriate
- Learning the LOCAL rules of exchange is
important
Q: what constitutes an appropriate or an
inappropriate gift; how to deliver the gift
(timing, in private or public, wrapped or
unwrapped); and how to behave as a gift
giver and recipient, etc.
Microcultures and Fieldwork
 Your class (social and economic status),
ethnicity/nationality, gender, age and other
factors (religious beliefs and institutional
affiliations) all affect how you will be
interpreted by the local people.
EX: a fieldworker who is a young, unmarried
female studying child-rearing practices may
not be taken seriously because she is not
herself a mother.
Fieldwork Techniques
 “participant observation”
- inductive vs. deductive research (do we have to
form a hypothesis?)
- direct / naturalistic observation
- making accurate descriptions of the physical
locale and daily activities;
- person/place interaction (human meaning is at
stake) & People/people interaction
- time-allocation analysis (recording how much
time the people in the market spend in various
activities (gender division of labor, etc.)
- talk is behavior too
Fieldwork Techniques
 Tips : Get Rid of Your Assumptions
 Keep you mind OPEN to things other than you already
think
 The unexpected might be what’s REALLY important
 Be From the “Other Planet” (you are NOT the “native”)
– this means you are just trying to figure it out and
question things in a new
– it’s extremely important to have the “other planet”
stance esp. when what you are investigating is very
familiar
 (ex. There’s the fish don’t see the water problem… as
cultural beings we can’t see the “rules” and rituals
 “culture” is practiced and not everything is explicit
Fieldwork techniques
 Identifying key informants
 collaboration with key informants is an
integral part of qualitative research
 Interviews and Questionnaires
 unstructured interviews
 open-ended conversations with informants to
gain insight into the culture of the market;
collecting life stories, personal narratives, and
stories of everyday life before the forceful
closing of the market
Fieldwork techniques
 Tips:
Be open-ended, don’t close off responses. Let
the interviewee takes the lead in setting the
direction of the conversation. But you need
to discover what themes are important to the
interviewee. Remember you don’t know the
meaning (even as a “native”). You should
leave knowing how the person sees that
world – at least regarding that issue.
Fieldwork techniques
 structured questions limit the range of possible
responses
 Surveys and questionnaires
 Ideally, one should have enough familiarity with the
field-site to be able to design a formal questionnaire
or survey
Tips: Everything is Data
- the purposeful, the mistake, the planned, the
unplanned; the match of talk and behavior, the
mismatch; the happiness, the anger, the whatever
- an answer is data, so is lack of an answer
Get details in words and observations (rumors and
gossip are key source of data)
Fieldwork techniques

Recording Culture
 Field Notes (daily logs and “scratch notes”)
 Tape recording, photography and video-taping
Tips: Record it and think about it afterwards. Take it
in, you may not know what’s important until
later…later observation, comments, or thinking.
 Data Analysis
1) What is it? What really happens?
2) 2) What might it MEAN? What really matters?
文化作为数据
Scientific vs. Humanistic Orientations
Positivism
DEDUCTIVE research
Hypothesis testing,
gathering data,
assessing findings
Fieldwork should be
objective and unbiased
‘To see is to believe’
Seeking explanation
Creating universal laws
(or making truth claims?)
Interpretivism
INDUCTIVE research
AVOID hypothesis
formation
Understanding and
Interpreting the
SUBJECTIVE
meanings of cultures
People’s stories, talk, and
myth (field data)
Ethnography as a
WRITING process
作为“数据”的文化
根据泰勒对文化所作的第一个科学定义, 文化包
括人类在精神和物质领域的一切活动：文化可
以是阳春白雪，也可以是下里巴人；文化既是
普通百姓的日常行为，也是专家能人的技术创
造。在实践中，文化活动是一种规划、技巧、
设计和策略。
在格尔兹（Geertz）看来，文化，尤其是地方性
文化是一种供当地人阅读和研究者阐释的意义
丰富的“文本。” 人类学者可选取文化中任何
他们感兴趣的方面，通过“深描” 获取细节以
达到阐释文化意义的目的。而文化意义在任何
公开表达的符号形式如言语，仪式和习 俗当中
都可找到。
Mitchell Duneier, Mitchell. 1999. Sidewalk.
An eloquent study of
Greenwich Village street
vendors.
Winner of LA Time Book
Prize.
Ethics 伦理
What do sociologists / anthropologists tell them
about what they are researching and why?
What kinds of obligations do they have to them?
 The AAA Code of Ethics states that
anthropologists have ethical obligations to their
scholarly field, to the wider society and culture,
to the human species, other species, and the
environment.
 To work in a host country and community,
researchers must obtain the informed consent
from all affected parties.
 Academic reciprocity
It should not be forgotten that the
researcher’s primary ethical obligation is
to the people being studied !
1) Patrick Tierney (accuser) vs.
Napoleon Chagnon (accused and author of
The Fierce People)
2) Steven Mosher (expelled from the
Stanford University for violating the
ethical codes)
3) Mr. B’s study of neighborhood
organizations in urban China
(undisclosed)
Did Napoleon Chagnon harm the
Yanomami Indians of Vanezuela?
 Journalist Patrick
Tierney states that
Napoleon Chagnon
(author of The
Yanomamo) exaggerated
Yanamami
aggressiveness and
actually caused the
violence by giving
machetes to tribesmen.
Dangers in the Field
 Even anthropologists get “culture shock!
 Dangers from the physical environment can
be FATAL (ex. Death of Fei Xiaotong’s
wife in Yunnan and Michelle Rosaldo in the
highlands of the Philippines)
 Ethnical misconducts add to the dangers.
Scientific vs. Humanistic Orientations
Positivism
DEDUCTIVE research
Hypothesis testing,
gathering data,
assessing findings
Fieldwork should be
objective and unbiased
‘To see is to believe’
Seeking explanation
Creating universal laws
(or making truth claims?)
Interpretivism
INDUCTIVE research
AVOID hypothesis
formation
Understanding and
Interpreting the
SUBJECTIVE
meanings of cultures
People’s stories, talk, and
myth (field data)
Ethnography as a
WRITING process
Difficulties of Conducting Empirical Research
 Strong motivation to verify hypothesis at
the expense of overlooking negative
evidence.
 “The greatest impediment to scientific
innovation is usually a conceptual lock, not
a factual lock” (Gould 1989: 226)
 The impossibility of beginning with
objective and little culture-bound
hypothesis in anthropology/sociology
经验和教训
 预设前提（认识论的陷阱）
 与被研究者的互信和互动关系
 田野研究场所中不可控的因素
 话语、行为和“社会事实”的认定
 伦理问题