ethnography & fieldwork presentation--aaron, yuri · ethnography & fieldwork aaron krinsky,...
TRANSCRIPT
Ethnography & FieldworkAaron Krinsky, Yuri Pavlov
Feb 14, 2018
EDU 603 Introduction to Qualitative Research
SUSAN THOMAS’S FEEDBACK (16 April 2018):
Strengths: You both did a great job of creating a very interactive class facilitation by integrating questions
throughout as you connected to the lesson's content. I also appreciated how you brought what seemed like
some outside material to help contextualize the readings.
Ways to Improve: I think the only issue was that there could have been a deeper reading of the arguments
of the different texts to then connect into a discussion. This seemed to be missing a bit--or at least better
timing of the facilitation could have attended to this some more.
Good job to both of you!
Grade: A-
John Watson: ... I believe that my eyes are as good as yours.
Sherlock Holmes: You see, but you do not observe.
(Scandal in Bohemia, 1891)
Warm-up
Choose what you feel best answers the question
What phenomenon may explain why the Ilongot tribe in the Philippines used to involve in a communal act of beheading a person?
(a) Yearly ritual
(b) Grief
(c) Power relationship
What phenomenon may explain why the Balinese people used to involve in cockfighting tournaments?
(a) Moneymaking
(b) Violence fascination
(c) Prestige and status
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Content / Discussion
What is ethnography?
What is culture?
“Ethnographic designs are qualitative research procedures for describing,
analyzing, and interpreting a culture-sharing group’s shared patterns of behavior,
beliefs, and language that develop over time” (Creswell, 2012, p. 462).
“[E]thnographies study human groups, seeking to understand how they
collectively form and maintain a culture” (Marshall & Rossman, 2016, p. 17).
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• Clyde Kluckhohn (1944): 11 definitions of culture (Geertz, 1973, p. 311)
• Clifford Geertz (1973): human public webs of meanings that they create
• LeCompte et al. (1993): “everything having to do with human behavior and
belief” (Creswell, 2012, p. 462).
• Rossman & Rallis (2012): culture “describes the ways things are and
prescribes the ways people should act” (Marshall & Rossman, 2016, p. 17).
Content / Discussion (contd.)
What are some genres of ethnography?
What types of qualitative data can a researcher collect for an ethnography?
• Classical ethnography
• Performance ethnography
• Critical ethnography
• Autoethnogrpahy
• Internet/Virtual ethnography (Marshall & Rossman, 2016, p. 17)
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• Observations (participant/non-participant): fieldnotes, pictures
• Interviews
• Extant documents
• Audiovisual materials and physical objects
Content / Discussion (contd.)
How do we know what roles we need to fill if we’re in an unfamiliar environment?
What is a researcher’s role in ethnography?
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Content / Discussion (contd.)
What is fieldwork?• Method that distinguishes anthropology (see Imperative 1 in Gupta & Ferguson)
• “Fieldwork in ethnography means that the researcher gathers data in the
setting where the participants are located and where their shared patterns can
be studied” (Creswell, 2012, p. 470).
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What is a field in ethnography?• Actual setting (though not necessarily a specific far-away exotic location)
• WHY NOT?
• “Shifting location”:
• a social and political location (devalued historically)
• a place of “unequal power relationships”
• “a form of motivated and stylized dislocation” (Gupta & Ferguson, 1997, p. 37)
• Archetypal associations of the field: (1) Field vs. Home, (2) Fieldwork-based
knowledge, (3) Fieldworker as an anthropological subject
Content / Discussion (contd.)
What is locality and neighborhoods?• Neighborhoods—situated communities comprised of local subjects.
Neighborhoods are contexts, neighborhoods produce contexts.
• Locality:
• dimension/value of a neighborhood
• phenomenological quality (expresses in agency, sociality, reproducibility)
• “general property of social life”
• “a structure of feeling that is produced by particular forms of intentional
activity and that yields particular sorts of material effects”
• “ideology of situated community” (Appadurai, 1996)6
What is thick description? Why “thick”?
• Activity/process in ethnography: observe + pay close attention to details +
make sense of them + interpret meanings + go beyond the surface level
• Thick = richness, depth, insightfulness, requires interpretation
Activity 1
What steps have to be taken into account to conduct fieldwork?
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In groups of three–four students, discuss the following:
What common steps did all groups identify?
Activity 2
How would you evaluate an ethnographic study as a research consumer?
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In groups of three–four students, discuss the following:
Which of these precautions will you be particularly mindful when doing your
own ethnography?
Wrap-up
Choose what you feel best answers the question
What phenomenon may explain why the Ilongot tribe in the Philippines used to involve in a communal act of beheading a person?
(a) Yearly ritual
(b) Grief
(c) Power relationship
What phenomenon may explain why the Balinese people used to involve in cockfighting tournaments?
(a) Moneymaking
(b) Violence fascination
(c) Prestige and status
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Rosaldo, R. (1993). Introduction: Grief and a
headhunter’s rage. In Culture and truth: The
remaking of social analysis. Boston, MA:
Beacon Press.
Geertz, Clifford. (1973). Deep play: Notes on
the Balinese cockfight. In The interpretation of
cultures. New York, NY: Basic Books. Pp.
412–452.
References
• Appadurai, A. (1996). The production of locality. In Modernity at large. Cultural Dimensions of Globalization.
• Bogdan, R. & Biklen, S. (2007). Qualitative research for education (5th ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson.
• Creswell, J. W. (2012). Educational research: Planning, conducting, and evaluating quantitative and qualitative research (4th ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson.
• Geertz, C. (1973). Thick description: Toward an interpretive theory of culture. In The interpretation of cultures. New York, NY: Basic Books. Pp. 310–323.
• Geertz, C. (1973). Deep play: Notes on the Balinese cockfight. In The interpretation of cultures. New York, NY: Basic Books. Pp. 412–452.
• Gupta, A., & Ferguson, J. (1997). Discipline and practice: The field as site, method, and location in anthropology. In Anthropological locations.
• Marshall, C., & Rossman, G. B. (2016). Designing qualitative research (6th ed.). Los Angeles, CA: SAGE Publications.
• Rosaldo, R. (1993). Introduction: Grief and a headhunter’s rage. In Culture and truth: The remaking of social analysis. Boston, MA: Beacon Press.
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