Ethnography: Critics and Applications

COURSE CONTENT

Week

Topic

Study Materials

1

Introduction

2

Imagining Research

Rutherford, Danilyn. 2022. “What Is Anthropology?” SAPIENS (blog). March 23, 2022. https://www.sapiens.org/language/what-is-anthropology/ .

Elliott, Denielle A., and Cara Culhane. 2017. “Imagining: an introduction” in A Different Kind of Ethnography: Imaginative Practices and Creative Methodologies. North York, Ontario, Canada: University of Toronto press. (pp. 1-21)

3

Research Questions

Boellstorff, Tom, Bonnie Nardi, Celia Pearce, and T. L. Taylor. 2012. “Research Desing and Preparation” in Ethnography and Virtual Worlds: A Handbook of Method. Princeton University Press. (52-64)

Sunstein, Bonnie S., and Elizabeth Chiseri-Strater. 2012. “Posing Questions: Ethnographic vs. Journalistic.” In Fieldworking: Reading and Writing Research. 4th ed. 14-21, Boston, MA New York, NY: Bedford/St. Martin’s.

4

The Field

Gupta, Akhil, and James Ferguson, eds. 1997. “Discipline and Practice” in Anthropological Locations: Boundaries and Grounds of a Field Science. Berkeley: University of California Press. (pp. 1-47 – focus on the part between 1-18)

LeCompte, Margaret Diane, and Jean J. Schensul. 2010. “Choosing and Designing an Ethnographic Research Project.” In Designing & Conducting Ethnographic Research: An Introduction, 2nd ed, 129–72. The Ethnographer’s Toolkit 1. Lanham, Md: AltaMira Press. (skim)

5

Fieldwork Identity

Robben, Antonius C. G. M., and Jeffrey A. Sluka, eds. 2007. “Part II: Introduction” in Ethnographic Fieldwork: An Anthropological Reader. Blackwell Anthologies in Social & Cultural Anthropology 9. Malden, MA: Blackwell Pub. (pp. 59-63)

Renato Rosaldo. 2014. “Grief and a Headhunter’s Rage” in The Day of Shelly’s Death: The Poetry and Ethnography of Grief. Durham: Duke University Press.

6

Interviews

Bernard, H. Russell. 2018. “Interviewing I” in Research Methods in Anthropology: Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches. Sixth edition. Lanham Boulder New York London: Rowman & Littlefield. (pp. 165-194)

Simpson, Audra. 2014. “Ethnographic Refusal: Anthropological Need” in Mohawk Interruptus: Political Life Across the Borders of Settler States. Duke University Press. (pp. 95-114 – focus on 106-114)

7

Ethics

Anthropological Ethics (American Anthropological Association): https://americananthro.org/about/anthropological-ethics/

The Ethics Centre, dir. 2020. What Is the Difference between Ethics, Morality and the Law? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xki2fRA0bY8.

King, Cecil. 2007. “Here come the anthros.” In Ethnographic Fieldwork: An Anthropological Reader, edited by Antonius C. G. M. Robben and Jeffrey A. Sluka, 191-193. Malden, MA: Blackwell.

Deloria Jr, Vine. 2007. “Custer Died for Your Sins.” In Ethnographic Fieldwork: An Anthropological Reader, edited by Antonius C. G. M. Robben and Jeffrey A. Sluka, 183–190. Malden, MA: Blackwell.

8

Situatedness

Berry, Maya J., Claudia Chávez Argüelles, Shanya Cordis, Sarah Ihmoud, and Elizabeth Velásquez Estrada. 2017. “Toward a Fugitive Anthropology: Gender, Race, and Violence in the Field.” Cultural Anthropology 32 (4): 537–65.

Sunstein, Bonnie S., and Elizabeth Chiseri-Strater. 2012. “Researching Place: The Spatial Gaze.” In Fieldworking: Reading and Writing Research. 4th ed. 165-179, Boston, MA New York, NY: Bedford/St. Martin’s.

9

Interviewing

Browner, C.H., and Mabel Preloran. 2006. “Entering the Field: Recruiting Latinos for Ethnographic Research.” In The SAGE Handbook of Fieldwork, by Dick Hobbs and Richard Wright, 93–106. SAGE Publications Ltd.

Mitchell, Charlayne F., Ersula J. Ore, Amber Wutich, Cindi SturtzSreetharan, Alexandra Brewis, and Olga I. Davis. 2022. “Sister-Girl Talk: A Community-Based Method for Group Interviewing and Analysis.” Field Methods 34 (2): 181–88.

10

Participant Observation

Geertz, Clifford. 1973. “Thick Description: Toward an Interpretive Theory of Culture.” In The Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Essays, 3–30. New York: Basic Books.

Taylor, T. L., Tom Boellstorff, Bonnie Nardi, and Celia Pearce. 2012. “Chapter 5. Participant Observation in Virtual Worlds.” In Chapter 5. Participant Observation in Virtual Worlds, 65–91. Princeton University Press. (skim)

11

Revisiting Data

Taylor, T. L., Tom Boellstorff, Bonnie Nardi, and Celia Pearce. 2012. “Chapter 6. Interviews and Virtual Worlds Research.” In Chapter 6. Interviews and Virtual Worlds Research, 92–112. Princeton University Press.

12

Data and Resource Management

Bernard, H. Russell. 2018. “Field Notes and Database Management.” In Research Methods in Anthropology: Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches. Sixth edition. 308-322. Lanham Boulder New York London: Rowman & Littlefield.

13

Anthropology and the Voice

Narayan, Kirin. 2012. “Cultivating Your Own Voice.” In Alive in the Writing: Crafting Ethnography in the Company of Chekhov. 85-88. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Fernando, Mayanthi L. 2014. “Ethnography and the Politics of Silence.” Cultural Dynamics 26 (2): 235–44.

14

Revisiting, reworking, rewriting

https://www.sapiens.org/language/how-to-write-anthropology-essay/

LeCompte, Margaret D., and Jean Schensul. 2010. “Data Analysis: How Ethnographers Make Sense of Their Data.” In Designing and Conducting Ethnographic Research: An Introduction, 195–225. AltaMira Press.