Fieldwork In Anthropology

Improved Essays
Ethnographic fieldwork in anthropology is seen as the most important source of new knowledge about society and culture.
There is no simple recipe for fieldwork.
The overall main aim of fieldwork is to develop as intimate an understanding as possible of the society or culture being studied.
Traditionally the aim of fieldwork was to account for the workings of a particular society but not to explain how it emerged. Anthropologists such as Kroeber and Evans-Pritchard have since stressed the importance of knowing the history of a society and its contribution to the presence.
The connection of different societies is crucial to the understanding and can only be investigated historically (Wolf, 1982), for example it is impossible to fully understand the industrial revolution in the UK without first knowing about the slave trade in America.
…show more content…
Past anthropologists tended to pay too much attention to the elite of a community, such as Chiefs or teachers, who they were unwittingly attracted to because they are more similar to themselves. This can be problematic as seen in Gerald Berreman’s (1962) study of North India where he used an interpreter who was inadequate because of his position in the ‘caste hierarchy,’ and the people would not open up as much compared if someone who had no place in the hierarchy, such as Berreman himself, was conducting the research.
Anthropologists of the 1920-50’s fieldwork was aimed at a ‘comprehensive overview’ of the way of life of a society, the main criticism of this was that they were not immersing themselves into the field, not staying in an area long enough to be considered ‘natural’ by the natives (Eriksen, 1995, p. 27) and be able to see the world as the locals see it. It’s the idea that the point of fieldwork is to stay in the field long enough to see ‘from the natives point of

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    This week we discussed ethnology and historical contexts. we looked at emic versus etic approaches to studying cultures. Emic the inside perspective as opposed to etic the outside perspective. We learned about participant observation data collection. We also learned about real versus ideal behavior when interpreting culture.…

    • 716 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Speck was one of the first anthropologists studying eastern and southern American Indians to play an active role in processes of cultural change among his research subjects. Speck’s advocacy anthropology, also sometimes called participant intervention, marked a sharp departure from traditional anthropology, which insisted on maintaining professional distance. Allan Holmberg describes participant intervention as the process in which the investigator’s very presence influences the process he is studying. More specifically, participant intervention requires that the investigator assist the community in developing itself while at the same time studying the process of development as it takes place.…

    • 723 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    While reading both of my articles a short fictional story “The Ethnographer” by Jorge Luis Brogues came to my mind. In the story an indecisive college student with nothing singular is motivated by one of his advisors to conduct participant observation with a tribe to decode the secrets of their medicine man. On his return the university promised him to publish his work. He fully emerges on the lifestyle of the tribe and after two years the secret was reveal. On his return he refuses to publish his findings, because he believes the frivolity of the scientific techniques are not worth of the beautiful secret.…

    • 1284 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Each element of ethnographic fieldwork has room to move and change and is specific to that anthropologist and that study. Ethnographic fieldwork is unique in the fact that neutrality of the author isn’t always necessary in the presentation of an anthropologist’s findings but is present in the context of their findings. Incorporating emotions and personal accounts do not necessarily weaken your argument or question the validity of your studies, but instead enhances it. The glory of anthropological methodology is in the diversity it offers in its…

    • 1187 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Reading Task Chapter 2: Sociological Research Methods The second chapter of The Real World by Ferris and Stein distinguishes between the different research methods sociologists use and outline their advantages and disadvantages. Although the methods are also outlined in great detail, I feel that the thought of the benefits but especially downsides of the methods is of crucial importance in that chapter. Sociology, although sometimes looked upon more as a humanity than a science (which I personally feel is unjustified), is an academic field that uses the scientific method in order to gather and interpret data. Even though people tend to feel reduced and dehumanized by being labeled as ‘data points’ the study of societies is in many ways similar…

    • 786 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Decent Essays

    Nt1330 Unit 1 Assignment

    • 412 Words
    • 2 Pages

    1-a. Share the learning outcome(s) you either wrote or revised using the steps outlined in the module. One of the course objectives I used to use for Music Cultures World was “Students will be able to identify and discuss the differences and similarities among musical performances from a variety of cultural contexts.” After taking the ACUE 1A module, I decided to revise the course outcome as follows: 1) Students will be able to illustrate the connection between music and dance in African music by producing a 5-minute flash mob. 2) Students will be able to demonstrate the application of a number notation system by creating a 5-minute gamelan performance.…

    • 412 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    “Ethnography literally means 'a portrait of people.' An ethnography is a written description of a particular culture - the customs, beliefs, and behaviour - based on information collected through fieldwork.” - Marvin Harris and Orna Johnson (2000) Introduction An ethnography is a form of research that brings insight to specific issues that would be hard to understand as an outsider looking into a certain culture.…

    • 1188 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    They are those that live with people of different cultures, learning about their shared values and beliefs, their social structure, daily activities, language, norms and expectations, religion, art, relationships and even magic. We also learn about the ethnographic data and cross – cultural comparison ethical aspects that an anthropologist must consider when doing fieldwork. There are many different ways which an anthropologist can collect data. They can be a participant or nonparticipating. They can conduct interviews or collect materials such as artifacts, letters, books or reports.…

    • 1579 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In “Dingo Makes Us Human: Life and land in an Australian aboriginal culture by Deborah Bird Rose was about the enslavement and the survival of the aboriginal tribes in the Victoria River Valley during and following European colonization. The author structures the ethnography to relies the personal experience of the aboriginal to inform the reader about the social injustice, ecological knowledge, colonizing, religion belief, and sacred geography. The ethnography has an introduction that tell the reader the history of what happening to the aboriginal during the European colonization. It has a methodology to describe her research and what she was investigating such as on page 41 “My primary purpose is to bring clarity to set of issues which I…

    • 990 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    As such, I would personally recommend this book to other anthropologists thinking about or preparing for fieldwork themselves, because having knowledge of what to expect when conducting fieldwork is important. Furthermore, because Eating Soup without a Spoon reads more like a personal memoir than an academic book, it has the potential to connect with the reader on a more emotional level. Cohen’s description of the personal, as well as work-related issues he faced in Santa Ana, and his willingness to admit his own failures and missteps, is helpful in truly informing and resonating with the reader. It was enlightening to me, as someone who has not read much about an anthropologist’s personal experience out in the field, and has never much considered the personal, life issues an anthropologist may face when conducting fieldwork, whether or not they are in a culture that is familiar to their own. My only real regret with this book was that I wish Cohen had included more of his research findings from the fieldwork he conducted in Santa Ana.…

    • 723 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Ethnographers contemplate human societies and social orders by living among the general population they consider, by overwhelming themselves inside the subject gathering in a procedure called participant perception. Although meeting and ethnography are frequently lumped together as "qualitative techniques," by comparing investigations of "culture in real life" considering verbal records with ethnographic examination (Shamuskhan, 2013). It has been demonstrated that the last routinely attempts to clarify the state of mind conduct issue" was consistently overlooked it. Since significance and activity are overall arranged and setting subordinate, we fight that self-reports of mentalities and practices are of restricted esteem in clarifying what…

    • 309 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    When discussing human nature, anthropologists don’t One popular controversy within the anthropological community is based on the Yanomami indians. The Yanomami, or Yanomamo, are the largest “relatively isolated tribe” in South America; located in large, mountainous areas of northern Brazil and southern Venezuela in the Amazon jungle. Their current population stands at about thirty-five thousand, all of which are concentrated in several different parts of the South American jungle. Many anthropologists have taken an interest in this tribe, such as Napoleon Chagnon, and have attempted to study each aspect of their lives. In his book, Darkness in El Dorado, investigative journalist Patrick Tierney accuses Napoleon Chagnon and James Neel, along with several other anthropologists, of numerous cases of misconduct in their work with the Yanomami peoples.…

    • 767 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Ethnology is the study of culture of nations. Ethnology will also study the culture of a nation can only be studied, but also the culture of many peoples, comparing the cultures of more social features can also be generalized across the entire humanity. Ethnology is a study of culture that can be called the wisdom of the life in nations. Even if ethnography is targeting at ethnic study, anthropologist have to comparative study and identify the characteristics of different culture. Also, ethnology has to study with historical research as well as comparative study.…

    • 1448 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    Evolution Of Anthropology

    • 1833 Words
    • 7 Pages

    The study of Anthropology has proven to be flexible in the way in which cultures are studied. From when the study first began to the 20th century, many different ways of viewing culture have been documented, and many of those ways have been refuted. Our analyses of different anthropologists starts with Tylor a 19th century evolutionary anthropologist and ends with Malinowski a 20th century functional anthropologist. What falls between them are Boas and his student Kroeber. All four of them have different methodologies and different views of how a society advances towards civilization.…

    • 1833 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    This examines the changes and causes of changes that have occurred in human cultures over time. It also seeks patterns and explanations of patterns to explain everything from how and when people first came to inhabit the Americas (Schuyler, Robert L., 1988). Unlike history, which relies primarily upon written records and documents to interpret great lives and events, archaeology allows us to investigate far back into the time before written languages existed and to glimpse the lives of everyday people through analysis of the things they made and left behind (Schuyler, Robert L., 1988). Archaeology is the only field of study that covers all time periods and all geographic regions inhabited by humans. It has helped us understand big topics like ancient Egyptian religion, the origins of agriculture in the Near East, colonial life in Jamestown, Virginia, the lives of enslaved Africans in North America, and early Mediterranean trade routes (Schuyler, Robert L., 1988).…

    • 1499 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays