Ethnography and Fieldwork

How did Penny Harvey define ethnography? 

A particular form of analytic attention

What is the main aim of ethnography?

To understand how different people live in the world, and to engage with them on their own terms.

What qualities does ethnography emphasise?

Specificity, detail, relational learning, and openness to mistakes or ignorance.

What does ‘relations: learning from people’ imply in ethnography?

Knowledge emerges through relationships and interactions, not detached observation.

Why is ‘beginning from zero’ important in ethnography?

It reflects humanity- approaching the field without assumptions or preconceptions.

What kind of attention does ethnography require?

Deep, sustained, context-sensitive attention to everyday life. 

Why is ‘participant observation’ called an oxymoron? 

Because it combines participation and observation (involvement and detachment), which seems contradictory. 

What tension must an ethnographer balance in participants observation?

Empathy and engagement vs. objectivity and critical distance.

What two types of participant observation did Bernard (1994) distinguish?

The participating observer and the observing participant

What is the ‘creative tension’ of participant observation?

The paradox between involvement and detachment can produce powerful insights. 

Why is participant observation central to anthropology?

It enables understanding through lived experience, not just observation or interviews.

What does this method reveal about the anthropologist’s role?

The researcher is both a participant and a reflective analyst, constantly negotiating their position.

Who is often seen as the ‘father’ of modern ethnographic fieldwork?

Bronislaw Malinowski

Where and when did Malinowski conduct his main fieldwork?

Mailu (1914-15) and the Trobriand Islands (1915-16, 1917-18)

What were Malinowski’s key fieldwork principles?

• Long-term immersion 

• Living within the community 

• Learning the local language 

• Participating in daily life 

• Documenting all aspects of culture 

What did Malinowski describe as the ethnographer’s ‘duty’?

To depict all rules and regularities of tribal life; the anatomy and constitution of society.

What are Malinowski’s three levels of understanding culture?

1. What people say they do- the mental chart

2. What people actually do- the imponderabilia of everyday life

3. What people think- the corpus inscriptionum (beliefs, myths, values)

What practical challenges accompany fieldwork?

Personal relations, homesickness, hunger, loneliness, culture shock, and adaptation 

According to Bernard, what are the seven stages of participant observation?

1. Initial contact 

2. Shock 

3. Discovering the obvious 

4. The break (reflection)

5. Focusing 

6. Exhaustion and frantic activity 

7. Leaving

What emotions accompany the initial contact stage?

Excitement, euphoria, trepidation

What is the shock stage in fieldwork?

Experiencing anxiety and culture shock after initial enthusiasm fades

What does ‘discovering the obvious’ refer to?

Realising how what seemed trivial or ordinary to locals carries deep cultural significance.

What does the ‘break’ stage involve

Stepping back to gain perspective and reassess understanding

Who described the early stages of fieldwork as ‘terrifying’?

Jane Siskind (1973), Fieldwork among the Sharanhua

What are Siskind’s three stages of fieldwork experience?

1. Fieldwork expectations

2. Romance of fieldwork

3. Seeing oneself in the other, and the other in oneself

Why is rapport important in ethnography?

It builds trust and allows for deeper, more honest exchanges

How can an anthropologist build rapport?

By spending time, sharing personal background, showing empathy, and participating in daily life

What are ‘breakthrough moments’?

Moments when barriers drop and genuine trust/friendship forms with participants 

Why does rapport take time? 

Because mutual trust and familiarity develop gradually through everyday interactions. 

What is meant by ‘constructing the field’?

The way anthropologists define and organise their field sites; temporally and textually. 

What was the traditional ‘archetype’ of the field?

A distant, bounded, and different place, separate from the anthropologist’s own world

What was one critique of traditional field construction?

The anthropologist’s bodily presence in the field often disappears in the written text.

What are some ‘new directions’ in constructing the field?

• Fieldwork at home

• Multi-sited and transnational research

• Expanding networks

• Redefining relations between place, social ties, and culture 

What does Amit (2000) say about redefined ethnographic fields?

Anthropologists now explore multi-sited, transnational circulations of people, practices, and objects

Why has ‘the field’ become more fluid?

Because of increased global morality, and interconnectedness in contemporary life

What new research strategies does Marcus propose, and what do they involve/mean?

• Follow the people: 

  • Studying migration, diaspora, and mobility (tracing where people move and connect) 

• Follow the thing: 

  • Tracing objects through global circulations

• Follow the metaphor: 

  • Examining how symbols, ideas, and tropes circulate across contexts.

Are Marcus’ research modes entirely new?

Not completely[ they extend earlier anthropological methods like Malinowski’s attention to network and change. 

What questions arise in collaborative fieldwork?

• Who sets the research questions, agendas, and interpretations? 

• Who takes credit, and whose knowledge counts? 

Why is collaboration significant in modern ethnography?

It challenges hierarchies between researcher and participants, encouraging shared authorship and ethical reflexivity.