METHODS AND THEORY IN CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY

METHODS

- Traditionally, field experience was a Requirement to become a cultural anthropologist

- Ethnography emerged as a research strategy in societies with

- greater cultural uniformity

- less social differentiation than modern industrial nations

- Tried to understand the whole culture

Ethnographic techniques

1. Observation and Participant Observation

- Ethnographers pay attention to and record the details of daily life

- Keep personal diary

- Strive to establish rapport

- Ethnographer cannot be totally impartial and detached

2. Conversation, Interviewing and Interviewing Schedules

- Ethnographic survey (sample_

- Ranges in degree of structure

- Open-ended interviews on specific topics

- Formal Interviews

- Interview Schedule: form used to structure a formal, but personal, interview

- Questionnaire: form used by sociologists to obtain comparable information from

respondents

3. The Genealogical Method

- Using diagrams and symbols to record kin connections

- Prominent building block in nonindustrial societies

- In many nonindustrial societies, kin links are basic to social life

4. Key Culturel Consultants

- Expert on a particular aspect of local life

- Every community has people who can provide most complete or useful information about

particular aspects of life

5. Life Histories

- A personal portrait of someone's life in a culture

- Reveals how specific people perceive, react to, and contribute to changed that affect their

lives

6. Problem-Oriented Ethnography

- Most Ethnographers enter the field with a specific problem to investigate

- Researchers gather information on factors such as population density, environmental quality, climate, physical

geography, diet, and land use

7. Longitudinal Research

- Long-term study of a community, region, society, culture, or other unit, usually based on repeat visits

- Gather a group of children from the field, ask them question then wait about 10 years to ask them more

8. Team Research

- Team research is often used in longitudinal research

- Multigenerational research becomes possible

Expansion in Analytic Scale

- Tradition ethnographic research focused on a single community or culture

- Isolated and unique in time and space

- Ethnography is increasingly multitudes and multi-sited

- Studies focus on people in motion--on or near borders, nomads, migrants, homeless and displaced

peoples, immigrants, and refugees

Survey Research

- Sampling, collecting impersonal data, and statistical analysis

- Sample: smaller study group chosen to represent a larger population

- Random Sample: all members of the population have an equal statistical change of being chosen for

inclusion

- Variables: attributes that differ from one person or case to the next

Combination of Ethnography and Survey Research

- Provide new perspectives on life in complex societies

- Complex Societies: large, populous societies with social stratification and central governments

Ethical Issues

- Anthropologists must be sensitive to cultural differences and aware of procedures and standards in the host

country

- Include host country colleagues in planning

- Establish collaborative relationships with hosts

- Include host country colleagues in dissemination of research results

- Ensure something is 'given back' to the host country

The Code of Ethics

- Code of Ethics of the American Anthropological Association (AAA)

- Guide for anthropologists to help fulfill their obligations

- Is in place to prevent harm to their scholarly field, their research subjects, and the environment

- Institutional Review Board

- Informed Consent: agreement to take part in research-after having been informed about its nature,

procedures and possible impacts

- This is just like psychology class In high school

Anthropologists and Terrorism

- AAA deems study of the roots of terrorism and violence of "paramount importance"

- Ethical issues may arise

Anthropologists and Pentagon's Human Terrain System - very dangerous for the Anthropologist

- Near impossible for Anthropologists to identify themselves in a war zone

- They are asked to negotiate relations among several groups

- Difficult for local people to give informed consent

- Identification with the U.S military could compromise anthropologists elsewhere

THEORIES

Unilinear Evolutionism - all cultures have one path

- With the spread of Darwinism biological evolution model, scholars started looking into the evolution of human culture

- Architect of evolutionism

- E.B Tylor (gave definition of culture) & L.H. Morgan

- Culture passes through different stages

- General path: from savagery to barbarism to civilization (Morgan)

- Path specific for religion: animism, polytheism, monotheism and science (Tylor)

- Shared Idea: Survival-practices that survive from earlier evolutionary phases

E.B. Tylor: primitive Culture

- Studied evolution and origin of religion

- 3 stages:

- AnimismL worship of the soul

- Polytheism: worship of many Gods

- Monotheism: Worship of 1 God or divinity

L.H. Morgan: Ancient Society

- Studied society in 3 stages

- 3 stages:

- Savagery: human beings dependent on nature solely, fire

- Barbarism: time when agricultural practices began, still backward

- Civilization: developed societies, producers, writing developed

- They applied the concept to the entire society and al institutions

- emphasized that there is a single line of evolution

- All societies will grow at different pace but will follow the same sequence

Thus, UNI LINEAR EVOLUTIONISM

Historical Particularism - all cultures have separate paths

Franz Boas

- Diverse historical paths can lead to the same cultural result

- Evolution has occurred and is occurring

- Ubiquitous

- Comparison of cultures is inherently flawed

- Importance of field work

- CULTURAL RELATIVISM

- Each culture has a unique trajectory

Functionalism

- Also called functional approach

- British School

- Focuses on the present function of cultural traits and practices in society

- Needs Functionalism (Malinowski)

- Structural Functionalism (Radcliffe-Brown and Evans-Pritchard)

- History unknowable. Unlike Boaz

- Sought functions of cultural elements

Functionalism states that:

1. Culture is a system

2. Each system consists of parts

3. Parts have functions

4. Change in one part brings change to another - gears in a clock

- Concept of function is based on the analogy of organs in a society

Malinowski and Functionalism - people have needs to survive

Needs (major 7)

- Nutrition

- reproduction

- Bodily comforts

- Safety

- Relaxation

- Movement

- Growth

Structural Functionalism - there are structures in a society for everyone to function

- Approach by Alfred Radcliffe-Brown

- Did not use "need"

- Cultural practices function to maintain the social system

- Biological needs replaced by "necessary condition of existence"

- A functional society needs a structure - government, roles for citizens, etc ...

- Structure and function are inseparable

- Thus, STRUCTURAL FUNCTIONAL APPROACH

Configurationalism

-Focused on culture as integrated and patterned

• Not how they got that way

• Margaret Mead

• Found patterns in cultures including Samoa, Bali and Papua New Guinea

• interested in how societies varied in patterns of enculturation

• R. Benedict

• “made over into consistent patterns in accordance with unconscious cannons of choice that develop within a culture,” (Benedict, 1961, p.34)