Fieldwork

Question 1

Fieldwork

Answer 1

• Offers new insights and potential for reflection on own culture
• Takes place in a place that is unfamiliar to ethnographer, but very familiar for informants
• Comes with responsibilities in terms of reciprocal relationships, and ethical considerations

Question 2

Fieldwork basics

Answer 2

• Holistic, systems-based analysis
• Attention to context and to the ‘everyday’
• Aimed at understanding behaviour in naturalistic settings
• Researcher is an ‘outsider’ trying to learn what it is to be an ‘insider’
• Useful for answering how and why questions

Question 3

Ethnography for the cultural anthropologist is akin to:

Answer 3

• archival research for the historian
• lab research for the biologist
• survey research for the sociologist

Question 4

Positivist approach

Answer 4

Single reality that can be detected through senses and that there is a single, appropriate scientific method for investigating that reality

Question 5

Reflexive approach

Answer 5

Critically thinking about one’s own experiences

Question 6

Search for knowledge

Answer 6

• Rather than being strictly objective or subjective, data and knowledge that is produced through ethnography is intersubjective
• Fieldwork involves a dialectic between fieldworker and informant
• Requires reflexivity

Question 7

Intersubjective

Answer 7

Meaning rooted in the symbolic systems of a culture and shared by participants of that culture

Question 8

Getting ready for the field

Answer 8

• Requires preparation (Personal, financial, language-related)
• Requires funding
• Requires permission

Question 9

Participant observation

Answer 9

• The defining method of the cultural anthropologist

- Requires taking careful, detailed fieldnotes of everything that happens around you

Question 10

Structured interviews

Answer 10

Predetermined questions and record answers; researcher leads and directs interview. Other kinds of interviewing: unstructured, informal, semi-structured

Question 11

Fieldnotes

Answer 11

• Written in-the-moment
• More details added at the end of the day, before they are forgotten
• Eventually typed up, so basic analysis can begin (patterns, things that stand out)
• Cleaned up before being included in ethnographic text

Question 12

Analysis of fieldnotes

Answer 12

• Involves reading, re-reading, searching for patterns in data, and also for data that don’t fit the pattern
• Starts as soon as you start research – ongoing throughout the study
• Findings can be discussed with informants, i.e., “Did I get it right?”
• Keep analyzing until you do not see any new patterns that fit with emerging theory

Question 13

Ethical issues with fieldwork

Answer 13

• Stand with and speak up or be silent?

- Requests for funds, fees, support-in-kind

Question 14

Personal issues with fieldwork

Answer 14

• Impact on informants

- Impact on fieldworker

Question 15

Multisited fieldwork

Answer 15

Researcher follows a process/an idea/a population to various sites or locations; topic not contained by normal boundaries (e.g. geography)

Question 16

Benefits of research away

Answer 16

• Total immersion
• New relationships
• Leaving the field by plane ticket
• Access could be easier

Question 17

Challenges of research away

Answer 17

• Culture shock
• Power differences
• Isolation
• Safety and risk
• Basic needs might be hard to meet

Question 18

Benefits of research at home

Answer 18

• Normal surroundings
• Social network
• Food, language, culture familiar
• Facility of understanding

Question 19

Challenges of research at home

Answer 19

• Hard to gain access
• Normal life + fieldwork
• Isolation
• Difficulty leaving