Anthropology week 2 Lecture 1 Notes

Doing Anthropology

• Anthropological Fieldwork

  • Firsthand observation and direct immersion into the culture or people a researcher is trying to understand.

  • Important names and concepts:

    • Malinowski

    • The field

    • Ethnography

    • Thick description

• Fieldwork Advantages

  • Allows insights not possible with short visits, surveys, or brief interviews.

  • Emic Perspective: Yields understanding of culture and behaviors that people themselves might not be aware of.

  • Etic Perspective:

    • See “Thinking Like an Anthropologist: Fieldwork in an American Mall” (Photo: AP Photo/Brian Kersey)

• Participant Observation

  • "Disciplined hanging out."

  • Establishing rapport as a "professional stranger" requires discipline and acceptance of local customs, however peculiar, unfamiliar, or uncomfortable.

• Native's Point of View

  • Insider's or emic perspective.

  • Seeing things in terms of the local context.

  • Malinowski referred to this perspective as "the native’s point of view" and asserted that it was at the heart of the ethnographic method.

• Anthropologist's Data

  • Fieldnotes: Any information that the anthropologist writes down or transcribes during fieldwork.

  • Interviews: Systematic conversation with an interlocutor to collect field research data, ranging from a highly structured set of questions to the most open-ended conversation.

  • Key Interlocutors: A person who aids the anthropologist in their research. Often someone well-connected in the community or someone with specific knowledge on the topic the researcher is interested in.

  • Intersubjectivity: Knowledge about other people emerges out of intersubjective relationships and perceptions individuals have with each other. It emerges through interactions with others, who provide insights and viewpoints.

  • Quantitative vs. Qualitative Data

Ethics & Responsibilities

• Ethics involves principles, morals, values, honesty, honor, right choices, fairness, conscience, and responsibility.

• Ethics in Anthropology

  • Not just obeying guidelines but goes to the heart of the discipline.

  • Premises on which its practitioners operate, its epistemology, theory, and praxis.

  • What is anthropology for? Who is it for?

• American Anthropological Association (AAA) Code of Ethics (2012)

  • Core Principles:

    • Do not harm.

    • Be open and honest regarding your work (transparency).

    • Obtain informed consent and necessary permissions.

    • Weigh competing ethical obligations due to collaborators and affected parties.

    • Make your results accessible.

    • Protect and preserve your records.

    • Maintain respectful and ethical professional relationships.

• History of the Ethical Code

  • First code in 1971 in response to the Vietnam War.

  • First set of issues raised within the AAA:

    • Social scientists as spies, intelligence-related research.

    • Secret or clandestine research.

    • Responsibility to “people studied”?

    • Responsibility to sponsors of research?

• Ethical Concerns Guiding Anthropologists

  • Do no harm.

  • Obtain informed consent.

  • Ensure anonymity.

  • Make results accessible.

• Thinking Critically About Ethics

  • What does “do not harm” mean?

  • What does obtain “informed consent” mean?

  • What does “remain transparent” mean?

  • What does “no interference” mean?

How Anthropologists Write Ethnography

• Polyvocality

  • Include multiple voices in their writing.

  • Whose voices am I representing?

• Reflexivity

  • Self-analysis.

  • What is my position in this community?

• Ethnographic Authority

  • Establish credibility.

  • What experience do I have to write about this?

Undoing Anthropology?

• Anthropology's Ties to Colonialism

  • Anthropology is ineluctably tied to histories of colonialism and dispossession.

  • Anthropology as writing about “the Other”.

  • Anthropology as speaking for and about Indigenous groups and minorities, with material and devastating impacts

• Thinking Critically About Anthro's Past

  • Old, white men?

  • Boas: Accused of salvage anthropology; criticized for work with Indigenous communities

  • Can we teach anthropology’s history differently?

• Decolonizing the Discipline?

  • Reflexive turn in 1970s.

  • What does it mean to truly decolonize?

  • What does it look like?

• Reassessing the Discipline

  • Reassess what the discipline can and should look like.

    • Who is valued as a scholar, what work gets recognized, who gets funding?

  • Reassess the colonial nature of our own anthropological practice.

    • Who do we cite? Whose voices do we recognize?

  • Diversify anthropology departments.

    • Who gets hired?

  • Teach anthropology differently.

    • Whose scholarship do we mark as important?

    • Can we teach anthropology differently?