Ethnographic Research Methods

Oct. 1, 2007

Fieldwork Assignment #1

Exercise imagination pre-fieldMake repeated visitsUse all your senses to take in the placeWrite a report of the research processWrite an essay on one key dimension of

this place

Fernandez and Herzfeld: In Search of Meaningful Methods1. Exercise reflexivity i.e. rigorous appraisal of

one’s own analytical concepts2. Method must be purposive without being

deterministic3. Meanings are unstable; they change

through use4. Analyze symbols in their context; look for

how symbols are USED There are differences in meaning within the

same community

Meanings shift through use; need to pay attention to the fluidity of meaning (social

poetics vs cultural poetics)

Goal of fieldwork is the “grounded inspection of lived experience…rather than an exercise in abstract classification far removed from the social contexts in which we gather our data”

Rubel and Rosman: Techniques to reduce potential for “Loss in translation”

Taking fieldnotes in anthropologist’s language; removes significant features of the culture being studied; Malinowski’s strategy was to jot notes in local language

Glossing - using footnotes to illuminate cultural differences when close approximations cannot be found

Using local terms in the ethnography (Rabinow)

Foreignizing Translation

Benjamin: basic error in translation occurs when translator preserves the state in which his own language happens to be, instead of allowing his language to be powerfully affected by the foreign tongue. He must expand and deepen his language by means of the foreign tongue”

A translation must continue the life of the original

Issues that remain:

Values of local culture may differ or be in conflict with the values of the anthropologist and his audience

Ethical concerns involved in translating a culture for the consumption of

another; violation of trust

Readings for this Week

PassaroBestorCatonDesjarlais

“You Can’t Take the Subway to the Field”

World as viewed by anthropology still broken up into areas and sites

Grant agencies expect us to study “coherent peoples” and “necessary others”

Some of her colleagues assumed that as an American she was too close to her research; no one asked her whether she was close enough to her subjects

Questions Passaro raises

What is a legitimate topic What is a legitimate “site” What is a site anyway How do you set the “parameters” of your

chosen site Passaro didn’t want to focus on one

homeless shelter Wanted to set boundaries empirically (in

fieldwork) rather than conceptually in advance

Methods

Chose sites that enabled “positionalites at varying points along a Participant -Observation Continuum” Volunteered at a shelter Joined Mtgs and Demonstrations Wrote articles for City Limits Interviewed panhandlers Researched material in library

Her Advice:

Devise units and strategies of analysis that promote “seeing” and understanding

unstable, hybridized, non-holistic experiences Be open-ended in your inquiry and set aside

your politics Discovered that homelessness is overwhelmingly

a ‘man’s problem’ because welfare system does not support men, especially childless men

Bestor, “Inquisitive Observation”

Choose a network, not a neighborhood’’ Opportunities for true participation are limited Observation too passive a term: Prefer

Inquisitive Observation Parachuting - dropping into the midst of

things from multiple entry points Eventually found himself in a highly

interconnected web of social interactions Found a bunch of sites he could “hang out” in

Bestor’s Suggestions:

Find good social sponsors to serve as intermediaries, to vouch for you, to introduce you to people

Pay attention to labels, signage, ads, posters, lay-out of buildings in space

Never hesitate to ask “trivial questions” Make the most of casual conversations and

informal interactions to deepen the network Work on establishing a research persona

Point of View

Reminds us any research project takes a particular set of actors as occupying center stage; these actors’ positionality frames the point of view of the research;

Bestor’s choice of actor was “intermediate wholesalers in Tsukiji fish

market in Tokyo”Each ethnography is written with a

particular point of view (more later)

Caton

Ethno-memoir that chronicles Caton’s shifting relationship with his fieldsite over twenty years

Central theme of book:How events affect the lives and works of people

we study and our own lives Wrote ethnography out of concern that

Americans like simple narratives which make them susceptible to specious rhetoric

Hopes book will deeper understanding and affinity for people in this distant land of Yemen

Gives us a sense for settling in: adopts local dress and chews khat with men in the Sanctuary

Discusses thwarted attempts in establishing contacts

Describes the danger he experienced and fears of being seen as a spy

Raises issue of negotiating distrust in the field and his own ambivalence toward informants

Desjarlais, Shelter Blues

Research was part of nationwide comparative study assessing the effects of two housing models on welfare and well-being of homeless

Desjarlais’s task: develop an ethnographic understanding of social worlds from which shelter residents came

Methods

Engaged in “sidelong participation” in Station Street shelter for 15 months

Hung out with residents Entered into conversations which became

cornerstones of research Formed lasting informal ties with people; more

important for Desjarlais than collecting data through surveys

Analyzed power dynamics of shelter: power made itself known through spatial and temporal arrangements

Fine-grained Ethnographic Detail

Note Desjarlais’ description of the Lobby Gym

Both descriptions involve an extraordinary level of detail and attention to the organization of space and time

He then builds his analysis to discuss the power relations inherent in the organization of space and time

* Can you apply his technique in Assignment One?

Spaces affected how people in the shelter walked, spoke, thought, felt

Spaces had moods and physiologies as much as people did

Claims features of the building had a “contagious effect” on the people who live in them

Surfaces and the tactility of the space played a strong role in activities and imaginings of users of the space

The Sublime

Desjarlais’ analysis of the sublime applies to fieldwork in an unfamiliar place: we encounter “an excess of signifiers (symbols) that we fail to comprehend because we cannot match them with a signified” (62)

There is “sensory overload” An object or force hints at a meaning, but that

meaning always seems out of reach

More on Point of View

Recall Rabinow: What anthropologists collect is an external reality that the informant creates and gives to the anthropologist.

This external reality is a shared symbolic world that emerges through interpersonal

interaction this point of view is neither your informants’

point of view nor exclusively your own but one that you and they created together through dialogue

Techniques of Writing

Different ways of inserting the self into the text: Desjarlais Moorhouse