Download Lederman 541 syllabus (2007)

ANT 541 Fall 2007
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PRINCETON UNIVERSITY
Department of Anthropology
Prof. Rena Lederman
Email: [email protected]
Phone: x85534
Office: 127 Aaron Burr
Hours: Mon 12-1:30 and
by appointment
DISCIPLINARY PRACTICES
This is a seminar/practicum intended primarily for graduate students in anthropology (others
are welcome). It explores the ethics and politics of field research, with attention to differences
between anthropology and its disciplinary neighbors, as well as shifting ideas about “the field”
and relations between researchers, their interlocutors and audiences. It also considers practical
matters like participant observation, interviewing, and note taking.
READINGS (available for purchase at the UStore):
H. R. Bernard (1994) Research Methods in Anthropology (2nd Ed.)
A. Gupta and J. Ferguson, eds. (1997) Anthropological Locations
R. Sanjek, ed. (1990) Fieldnotes: The Making of Anthropology
C. Briggs Learning How to Ask
And…other readings available on the 541 Blackboard website, which you can access as soon as
you are registered for the course.
FORMAT:
The first half of our three-hour seminar meeting will be devoted to a discussion of
the assigned readings. All participants should come prepared to help clarify the readings’
key arguments and to raise questions about their implications.
After a break, we will conduct a workshop-style practicum, discussing what
participants learned from out-of-class field exercises. The exercises are outlined in the
syllabus, below. Please always look ahead a week or two so as to anticipate these
assignments: they require planning and cannot be completed adequately on the fly. The
time-demands of this course will be heavy.
WRITTEN WORK (see the handout appended to this syllabus for details):
1. An initial proposal for your research project is due during class on Monday, October
8. It must be turned in on time, no matter how miserable you think it is. Early
feedback is crucial in this assignment. (You may turn in your proposal earlier, if
you like.)
2. A final research paper, focusing in some way on methodological issues, is due at 3
p.m. on “Deans Date”.
3. Additionally, several of our workshop meetings will involve written work (scratch
notes, fieldnotes), as well as assignments involving other media.
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TOPICS, READINGS, AND WORKSHOP ASSIGNMENTS
A scan of the tables of contents of books on “qualitative methods” will underline the
point that there’s only so much we can do in a one-semester course. Our in-class selectivity,
while reinforcing the key theme that “partiality” is an inevitable social fact, will be moderated,
partially, by your field projects. Please consult me about how best to use the project to
address your special interests.
This seminar presumes a basic familiarity with anthropological history and theory. If
you are unsure about your preparation, see me for background readings.
1. Introductory Meeting (9/17)
An introduction to the seminar’s format and expectations. Discussion of participants’ prior
field experience (if any) and ideas about the distinctive features of anthropology (among
other disciplines). How do you explain your chosen field to your parents and siblings? To
your doctor (dentist), that chemistry (art history) grad student you met the other day, or
other folks who ask?
Reading:
None (but see workshop, below).
Workshop I: Methodological gleanings. Pick an ethnography with which you are
already familiar (preferably one to which you had a strong reaction, positive or
negative). Look for examples of your author’s explicit statements about field
circumstances and tactics and think about where these details occur in the text.
Then consider what topics your author is methodologically silent or inexplicit
about. Come prepared to give one example of explicit commentary on sources,
techniques, or practical circumstances, and one example of an inferred research
practice (together with how you inferred it).
Additionally:
Please familiarize yourself with Princeton's IRP (Institutional
Review Panel for Human Subjects Research) webpage:
http://www.princeton.edu/~orpa1/irp.htm
On that page, under "Memos" please read the memo on Human Subjects Training,
and click on the link you’ll find there for the NIH ethics certification course. After
you assimilate the fact that you will be on the National Cancer Research center
website, please take the course for “Research Teams” (just as the Princeton memo
instructs). It will take about two hours to complete (which can be interrupted, as
you like). When you complete the course, you will earn a CERTIFICATE! Save a
copy (which you’ll need for any dissertation-related fieldwork that you do) and
print out a copy to bring to class (or to put in my box by the end of the day).
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2. A Comparative Perspective on Disciplinary Ethics (9/24)
Getting a fix on anthropology’s disciplinary presuppositions, anthropologically, might require
crossing some borders: it might entail critical comparisons between anthropology and
neighboring disciplines like sociology or social psychology. Comparing ethical controversies
in close-by fields is particularly revealing. Arguments over research proprieties often make
explicit the otherwise tacit conventions of disciplinary practice. Thinking, for example, about
the different location of “deception” in anthropology and sociology clarifies their divergent
premises concerning relationships with informants. (You might go on to think about how
definitions of “plagiarism” in anthropology and history bears on their respective concepts of
proper “sources”: I can recommend additional reading if you’re not already overwhelmed!)
Generally, disciplines are “partial” knowledges: this week and throughout the semester,
consider just what kinds of differences and partialities they enact, and in what ways the idea of
trans- or post-disciplinarity is utopian…
Reading:
1. C. Allen (1997) “Spies like us” (Lingua Franca 11/97)
2. E. Goode (2000) “Hey, what if contestants gave each other shocks?”
(NYTimes 8/27/00)
3. R. Penslar (1997) “The ethics of deception in research” (in Penslar, ed.
Research Ethics, pp. 147-55)
4. M. Wax (1977) “On fieldworkers and those exposed to fieldwork.” Human
Organization 36 (3): 321-328
5. C. Shea (2000) “Don’t talk to the humans” (Lingua franca 9/00)
6. Go to the American Anthropological Association Ethics page at:
http://www.aaanet.org/committees/ethics/ethics.htm
Firstly, read the AAA Code of Ethics (scroll down the Ethics page until
you find the relevant link). If you have lots of time on your hands, then
nose around among the links on this page: browse the extensive Handbook
on Ethical Issues in Anthropology. Under the link "Institutional Review
Boards and Anthropology", you'll even find an interview with your
instructor!
Workshop II: Scandal schoolings. The reading is particularly heavy this week, so
we won’t have additional workshop work (look ahead to Workshop III).
However, to complement our discussion of the readings, please think about any
specific ethical controversy in anthropology with which you might have prior
familiarity. What were the central issues? What do they reveal about
anthropological constructions of “good” or “proper” anthropology?
If you have a friend in other fields whose work concerns human
experience (like history, social psychology, sociology, or political science),
consider having a conversation with him/r about the issues raised in today’s
readings: ask for reactions, reflections, and/or advice about further reading on the
ethical dilemmas they consider significant in their own discipline.
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3. Anthropological Fieldwork I: Participant Observation (10/1)
In what sense is participant observation a “method”? What are its strengths and weaknesses?
How is it differently contextualized and deployed in anthropology and neighboring fields?
Consideration of participant observation will help us to appreciate what is at a stake in recent
critical discussions of “the field” (#7 and #8 below). To this end, consider how versions of
participant observation direct ones attention to the cultural (meaningful) ordering of human
experience and, particularly, to that which is taken for granted and not typically remarked
upon by cultural “insiders” (although “outsiders” may be struck by it).
Reading:
1. R. F. Ellen (1984) “Participant observation…” (selections by E. Tonkin and A.
P. Cohen from Ch 8 in R. F. Ellen ed. Ethnographic Research: A General
Guide To Conduct)
2. H. R. Bernard (1994) “Participant observation” (Ch 7 in his Research Methods
in Anthropology)
3. H. R. Bernard (1994) “Direct, reactive observation” (Ch 14 ditto)
4. H. R. Bernard (1994) “Unobtrusive observation” (Ch 15 ditto)
5. M. Angrosino and K. Mays de Perez (2000) “Rethinking observation” (Ch 25
in N. Denzin, Y. Lincoln, eds. Handbook of Qualitative Research, 2nd
Ed.)
(Optional: P. L. Sunderland (2000) “Glancing possibilities.” Anthropology
News (4/00): 5-6.
Additionally, refresh your memory of classic methodological statements: e.g.
B. Malinowski’s introduction to Argonauts of the Western Pacific
together with G. Stocking “The ethnographer’s magic” in his
Observers Observed. Draw on (or develop) your familiarity with the
extensive fieldwork experiences literature: e.g., M. Mead Blackberry
Winter, P. Golde, ed. Women in the Field (2nd Ed.), P. Rabinow
Reflections on Fieldwork in Morocco, D. Bradburd Being There.)
Workshop III: Participant Observation I. Prior to the workshop meeting, observe
one relatively unfamiliar social situation or event, on or off campus. (It might be
helpful to select a situation with which someone you know is familiar, with whom
you can talk about what you observe during or after the event.) Take “scratch
notes” (see Sanjek, ed. index) as you observe and talk with people during and
after the observation, and bring your notes to the workshop meeting.
During your observation, aim to learn about both formal conventions and
informal “rules of thumb”. Some situations may be relatively formal, with
relatively explicit conventions (e.g., a game or a religious service). Other
situations (e.g., dinner with friends, after practice locker room interactions) may
be comparatively informal in the sense of having apparently tacit (less explicit or
even unstatable) conventions. In all cases, however, there will be both explicit
and inexplicit elements giving the situation its culturally meaningful character as a
(good or bad, conventional or innovative) instance of something.
Come to class with your notes, and be prepared to discuss examples of
explicit and tacit conventions you’ve gleaned. Bearing in mind relevant social
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theory (e.g., P. Bourdieu, M. Douglas) think about the strengths and limitations of
the contrast suggested above between explicit and tacit conventions. This
workshop will give us opportunities to discuss positionality, memory, note-taking,
and related issues.
Reminder: Proposals for field projects are due
NO LATER THAN during class 10/8
4. Anthropological Fieldwork II: Interviewing (10/8)
What kind of social interaction/relationship is an interview? What kinds of knowledge does it
produce? What are its strengths and limitations: that is, under what circumstances (for what
purposes) is it necessary or preferable, and when is it inappropriate?
Reading:
1. C. Briggs Learning How To Ask
2. H. R. Bernard (1994) “Informants” (Ch 8 in his Research Methods in
Anthropology)
3. H. R. Bernard (1994) “Unstructured and semistructured interviewing” (Ch 10)
4. H. R. Bernard (1994) “Structured interviewing” (Ch 11)
5. A. Fontana, J. Frey (2000) “The interview: from structured questions to
negotiated text” (Ch 24 in N. Denzin, Y. Lincoln, eds. Handbook of
Qualitative Research)
6. D. Brenneis (1986) “Shared territory: audience, indirection and meaning” (Text
6(3): 339-47
(Optional: E. Gerber (1998) “Relevance through surveys.” Anthropological
News (12/98): 16-7)
Workshop IV: Interviewing I. Prior to class, interview a classmate (arranged in
class last week) about some aspect of life about which they are familiar (but you
are not). Take scratch notes and bring them to class. In class, we will discuss the
interview experience both from the perspective of the interviewer and the
interviewee: what seemed to work? What didn’t?
5. Anthropological Fieldwork III: Taking Note(s) (10/15)
We will consider the importance of writing in the field, as a record-keeping antagonist to the
obscure and shifty workings of personal memory (see, e.g., Lederman in Sanjek ed.), as itself a
discovery process, and as a marker or enactment of your researcher identity. We will also
consider some practical/philosophical issues at the border between positivist and antipositivist anthropology.
Reading:
1. R. Sanjek, ed. Fieldnotes: The Making of Anthropology
2. R. Emerson et al. (1995) “Fieldnotes in ethnographic research” and “In the
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field” (in R. Emerson et al. Writing Ethnographic Fieldnotes, pp. 1-38)
3. H. R. Bernard (1994) “Fieldnotes: How to take, code, and manage them” (Ch9)
(Optional: follow up Bernard’s discussion of coding traditions: from HRAF
through Nud.ist and other qualitative data management software.
Alternatively, the NY Times ran a series called “Writers on Writing”
which you might look at for their partially complementary, partially
contrastive, perspectives, compared to the ethnographic. See their
web archive: www.nytimes.com/arts and look for articles by E. L.
Doctorow, J. Kincaid and others; there are also two volumes of
columns available in paperback.)
Workshop V: Ethnographic Records I. Write up “scratch notes” from one of the
previous workshop assignments so that someone other than you will be able to
read and understand them. That is, type them (or otherwise make them legible),
adding remembered details, context, “and so on” (what?). Give your assigned
classmate (arranged last week) your completed report NO LATER THAN
Saturday (10/13). Everyone will be both a writer and a reader, so:
Writers: be prepared to discuss your rationale for elaborating your scratch notes
into proper (usable) fieldnotes. Think about what writing up your description
provoked you to think about (an analysis, further research on the topic, etc.).
Readers: be prepared to comment on what was and wasn’t clear, and what (if
anything: background info, further research, other media) might have improved
the account.
6. Anthropological Fieldwork IV: Otherwise Noted (10/22)
We will carry on last week’s discussion of note taking and data management in the field,
pursuing both pragmatic and critical issues (e.g., the description/interpretation distinction,
positionality, ethics, etc.). We will also broaden the focus to consider visual and other media:
consider whether/how they raise qualitatively different issues than consideration of note
taking does.
Reading:
1. K. Heider (1976) “Toward a definition: the nature of the category
‘ethnographic film’” (in his Ethnographic Film, pp. 3-15)
2. I. Hodder (2000) “The interpretation of documents and material culture” (Ch
26 in N. Denzin, Y. Lincoln, eds. Handbook of Qualitative Research)
3. D. Harper (2000) “Reimagining visual methods: Galileo to Neuromancer” (Ch
27 in N. Denzin, Y. Lincoln, eds. Handbook of Qualitative Research)
Workshop VI: Ethnographic records II. Bring to class one non-fieldnote item
relevant to your developing field project. Think about the virtues and disabilities
of different media vis-à-vis specific research goals.
Mid-semester break: no class 10/29
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7. Field Sightings I: One, Two, Many Fieldsites (11/5)
Where or what is “the field” and how do anthropologists get there? What sorts of
relationships are made possible by alternative answers to those questions? We will explore
some implications of the changing “place” of fieldwork (geographical and epistemological) in
anthropology: particularly, the recent redefinition of the field from “community”-centered
to “multi-sited” or transnational. What kind of change is this? Consider what’s heterodox
about Gupta and Ferguson’s heterodox traditions (which include Boas on diffusion and Mead
on acculturation).
Reading:
1. C. Arensberg (1954) “The community-study method” (Am. J. Sociology 60:
109-124)
2. E. Martin (1994) “Introduction: problems and methods” (in her Flexible
Bodies; see also her chapter in Gupta, Ferguson, eds. Anthropological
Locations)
3. G. Marcus (1998, orig. 1995) “Ethnography in/of the world system: the
emergence of multi-sited ethnography” (Ch 3 in his Ethnography Through
Thick and Thin)
4. G. Marcus (1998, orig. 1997) “Sticking with ethnography through thick and
thin” (Ch 10 in his Ethnography Through Thick and Thin)
5. A. Gupta, J. Ferguson (1997) “Discipline and practice: “the field” as site,
method, and location in anthropology” (Ch 1 in A. Gupta, J. Ferguson,
eds. Anthropological Locations, several other chapters of which are also
relevant to today’s theme)
Workshop VII: Class Projects. Come to class prepared to discuss some aspect of
your own fieldwork-in-progress. All topics are welcome. However (in line with
the readings) think in particular about the various locations of your work. Think
about the ways in which location is bound up with who controls the framing of
the research.
8. Field Sightings II: At Home Abroad and Other Hybrid Relations (11/12)
We will pursue last week’s discussion of “the field” – how it is located and bounded – and its
implications for the researcher’s identity. Here, we consider the “insider”/“outsider”
distinction and epistemological presuppositions about stranger effects and difference.
Compare and contrast “native” anthropology with the other marked sense of “repatriating”
anthropology: what are the various implications of doing anthropology “at home”? In
particular, given that it has always been done in Europe and the U.S. – one key referent of
“home” – we might qualify the question to ask about how repatriated fieldwork becomes
revalued (as “real” anthropology)?
Reading:
1. N. Sudarkasa (1986) “In a world of women.” (In P. Sanday, ed. Women in the
Field (2nd ed.)
2. K. Narayan (1993) “How native is the ‘native’ anthropologist?” (Am
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Anthropologist 95: 671-686)
3. J. Passaro (1997) “You can’t take the subway to the field!” (Ch 8 in A.
Gupta, J. Ferguson, eds. Anthropological Locations)
4. M. Lambek (1997) “Pinching the crocodile’s tongue: Affinity and the anxieties
of influence in fieldwork.” Anthropology and Humanism 22(1): 31-53
5. E. Tehindrazanarivelo (1997) “Fieldwork: the dance of power.” Anthropology
and Humanism 22(1): 54-60
Workshop VIII: Participant Observation II. Come prepared to discuss your
fieldwork-in-progress. Think in particular about problems involved in
establishing your identity, goals, and generally your relationship with your
interlocutors (recalling also our ethics discussions). Think about “observation”,
“participation”, “outsider/insider”, and other framings of your relation to the
research scene. What sorts of distinctions are relevant to your own field
experience? Feel free to bring in any illustrative field materials you have been
using or producing.
9. Incredible! Perspectives on I-Witnessing (11/19)
Anthropologists take for granted the primacy of face-to-face field encounters as a basis for
ethnographic credibility. Indeed, the charge that a researcher “never bothered to talk with
people” (or otherwise “wasn’t there”) is the ultimate anthropological put-down. But whereas
face-to-face engagement is constitutive of “first hand” or “primary” research for
anthropologists – and persuasive as such – it ain’t necessarily so for other kinds of researchers.
Read Kuklick (history) and Clifford (intellectual history?) carefully, listening for hints of
other bases for credibility. Read Beverley (literature, cultural studies) and Tierney (education)
for convergent, differently routed, interests in first-person narrative.
Reading:
1. H. Kuklick (1997) “After Ishmael: The fieldwork tradition and its future” (Ch
2 in A. Gupta, J. Ferguson, eds. Anthropological Locations)
2. J. Clifford (1997) “Spatial practices: fieldwork, travel,, and the disciplining of
anthropology” (Ch 10 in A. Gupta, J. Ferguson, eds. Anthropological
Locations)
3. L. Malkki (1997) “News and culture: transitory phenomena and the fieldwork
tradition” (Ch 3 in A. Gupta, J. Ferguson, eds. Anthropological
Locations)
4. W. Tierney (2000) “Undaunted courage: life history and the postmodern
challenge” (Ch 20 in N. Denzin, Y. Lincoln, eds. Handbook of Qualitative
Research)
5. J. Beverley (2000) “Testimonio, subalternity, and narrative authority” (Ch 21 in
N. Denzin, Y. Lincoln, eds. Handbook of Qualitative Research)
(Optional: C. Dunn (1999) “View across disciplinary boundaries.”
Anthropology News (10/99): 74 and J. H. Miller (1998) “Literary and
cultural studies in the transnational university.” (J. C. Rowe, ed.,
“Culture” and the Problem of the Disciplines, pp. 45-67).
Alternatively, you may look through H. R. Bernard Research Methods
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in Anthropology – other chapters we’ve read and, e.g., Ch 16
“Analysis of Qualitative Data” – for another framing of the credibility
of anthropology’s field data.)
Workshop IX: Interviewing II. Come to class ready to describe one or two of the
interviews you have conducted. Bring scratch notes and/or other relevant
materials. Pay particular attention to mistakes or other problems you’ve
encountered (including inability to reach people for interviewing) from which we
might learn something. Consider for what purposes interviewing might be
necessary and appropriate, and for what purposes interviewing is inappropriate.
Happy Thanksgiving break 11/22-25
10. Colleagues, Interlocutors and (Other) Readers 1: When They Read What We Write
(11/26)
Who reads what we write? How have our audiences changed? What difference does or should
this make in how or what we write, and in the conduct of the research itself?
A sense of our possible audiences is not only relevant to our strategies for making our
writing comprehensible. Consciousness concerning readership is also key to an understanding
of the dynamics of evaluation: the reproduction/ transformation of contexts within which
any research becomes at least meaningful (not to say significant). Evaluative audiences bear
on all the “gatekeeping” moments constitutive of disciplinary practice: getting research grants,
PhDs, and academic jobs, getting manuscripts published and reviewed. But evaluation is itself
a set of practices -- reviewing grant proposals, manuscripts, and candidates as well as assessing
works for use in teaching, designing syllabi or whole programs for undergraduate or graduate
study – themselves also under scrutiny, and subject to reevaluation. Once again, a
sympathetic but critical awareness of the shifting, multidisciplinary (and extra-disciplinary)
spaces we inhabit is important for understanding how disciplines are made and unmade.
Reading (most of these are very short):
1. D. Brenneis (1994) “Discourse and discipline at the National Research Council:
a bureaucratic bildungsroman” (Cultural Anthropology 9(1): 23-36)
2. G. Marcus (1998, orig. 1997) “The uses of complicity in the changing mise-enscène of anthropological fieldwork” (Ch 4 of his Ethnography Through
Thick and Thin)
3. R. Handler (1993) “Fieldwork in Quebec, scholarly reviews, and
anthropological dialogues” (Ch 4 in C. Brettell, ed. When They Read What
We Write: The Politics of Ethnography)
4. J. MacClancy (1996) “Popularizing anthropology” (Ch 1 in J. MacClancy, C.
McDonaugh, eds. Popularizing Anthropology)
5. L. Drummond (2000) “Last undiscovered tribe exposed.” Anthropology News
(2/00): 5-6
6. B. King II (2000) “Who do we think we are?” Anthropology News (4/00):
11-12
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7. L. Lindstrom and P. Stromberg (1999) ”Beyond the ‘savage slot.’”
Anthropology News (11/99): 9-10
8. K. Erickson (1999) “Postal modernism.” Anthropology News (3/99): 17-18
(Optional: E. Gable and R. Handler (1994) “the authority of documents at
some American history museums.” J. American History 81(1): 119-36
and reply by C. Carson (1994) “Lost in the fun house: a commentary
on anthropologists’ first contact with history museums.” J. American
History 81(1): 137-50.)
Workshop X: On “Reading and being “Read”. Consider questions of your field
identity, and the ethics and politics of your research relationships, as they relate to
this week’s readings. Consider what difference it makes to think of one of your
field personages as “informant” or “colleague”. Think about your own everyday
judgments: about this or that person’s (artifact’s, text’s) credibility (value,
persuasiveness) as well as your academic ones (ethnographies you’ve read,
seminars you’ve attended, as well as field-related assessments).
American Anthropological Association annual meeting 11/28-12/2
11. Colleagues, etc., etc. II: When We Read (And Hear) What We Write (12/3, 12/10)
The last two classes will be run workshop-style. Experiencing a bit of the horror of
professional association meeting time constraints, seminar participants will have about 15
minutes each to present an aspect of their on-going research for comments and advice.
Research and writing are thoroughly social processes: presentations are opportunities for
eliciting and providing constructive criticism. They are also opportunities for developing
comparisons among the projects and reinforcing connections with the readings. As
commentators, this is an occasion for reflexive consciousness-raising concerning how you
evaluate research.
REMINDER: Your final paper (see appendix below) is due at 3 pm on January 15 (as a
hard copy in my department mailbox).
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DISCIPLINARY PRACTICES: Appendix
1. Research Project
The point of this seminar is disciplinary reflexivity. It aims both to broaden and deepen
your awareness of disciplinary presuppositions and to give you experience with the
strengths and constraints of anthropological research practices. Consequently – whatever
else it is – your final paper must be overtly “methodological”.
The topical focus of your research this semester is reasonably open. But to deepen the
reflexive effect, you might center your substantive attention on a methodological
problem: e.g., an exploration of the “how” of some form of expertise (academic or
otherwise) not your own: e.g., chemistry or cooking, journalism or construction…
Whatever the topic, you need to use “participant observation” and related approaches in
its pursuit. That is, you must engage your topic “anthropologically”, using it as a vehicle
for thinking about what such methods are (and aren’t) good for. Your “comparative”
basis is your own emergent expertise in anthropology.
“Needless to say” this doesn’t mean treating (one understanding of) anthropological
methods as if it were immutable structure (as if you were a cog in an implacable
machine…)! Remember (refresh) your history: you’re an active part of a dialectical
process here. While they will be heavy at times, our seminar readings skim the thinnest
surface of existing literatures on anthropological and related (or opposed) methodological
practices. Complement them with additional readings bearing on your emerging
interests. Being a social “agent” in the reproduction/transformation of anthropological
practice also means you need to make an argument for the relevance of the approaches
you use in your study. Do not take your own interpretations and innovations of
conventional practice for granted: make the case explicitly (i.e., articulate your rationale).
Whatever position you advocate be sure to address key themes developed in the
seminar’s readings and class discussions. In particular, you need to face the issue of
“disciplinarity” (in all its contingency and shiftiness) developed in various ways
throughout the semester.
One convention needs special comment: anthropological fieldwork is typically “longterm”. We, however, have only part of a semester, part-time. The time frame is both a
practical problem and an interesting substantive issue. Consequently, I would like you to
treat your field research this semester as an exploratory or “pilot” study. One semester,
part-time, is adequate for exploring the feasibility of a topic and designing an approach to
it. Your final paper may therefore take the form of an elaborated research proposal
or a field report (rather than an “ethnography”), developed on the basis of this shortterm, practical experience (see below). If you believe, on the basis of your semester’s
experience, that some (or all) of your topic really isn’t appropriate for “anthropological”
approaches in some sense, then you can write about that; that is, you can use your
experience as a vehicle for clarifying what you think about the boundaries of disciplinary
practices. Throughout, think about how we learn both to identify and to evaluate
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different kinds of expertise: what’s at issue when we say this is “something” (rather than
something else) – or – this something is “good” (rather than “bad”).
As you think over your options, it may be helpful to look over the entire course syllabus,
noting not only reading topics but also especially the sequence of workshop assignments.
They are designed to act as a creative constraint on your research plans for the semester.
Frustrations, stalemates, and roadblocks are often as useful, for workshop discussion, as
breakthroughs.
2. Initial Research Proposal
A proposal for your semester’s fieldwork is due no later than our class meeting,
October 8. This is an absolute deadline. The point isn’t perfection. The point is
interim feedback: I want to know how far along you are by that date no matter where that
is. Organize your proposal along the lines of an “actual” grant proposal. Consult the
Bernard text for advice; but be assured that I in no way expect the sort of literature
review and/or theoretical apparatus that establishes that the topic hasn’t been investigated
before (originality isn’t the issue). Nor am I expecting a budget section; however, if you
need resources to carry out your work, let me know and we can investigate departmental
sources.
Your proposal should be between 5-6 double-spaced pages long and should begin with a
summary paragraph abstracting the topic, its significance, and your approach. Part I (1-2
pp.) should describe the topic (cultural scene or issue, key questions). This part should
also make clear what’s interesting (useful, etc.) about it, drawing the reader in and
suggesting larger implications. (You may do this by relating the topic to course readings,
other readings or courses you’ve taken, or issues of public (“real world”) concern.)
Part II (2-3 pp.) should discuss methodological strategies and alternatives: where will the
study take place? What sorts of folks will you interact with? Do you plan to interview
certain kinds of people? What other media might be involved? This section requires a
rough timetable and a discussion of feasibility (both with respect to time and to access).
Part III (1-2 page) should discuss research ethics: your sense of the politics and ethical
challenges (risks) of your topic and approach. How will you introduce yourself to your
research subjects and, where necessary, get their permission to carry out the research?
What steps do you plan to take to protect the subjects of your research (and yourself!)
from harm? Questions of feasibility may belong in this final part as well.
3. Final Paper
As noted above, your final paper may take the form of a research proposal, treating the
semester’s research as a pilot exploration of the feasibility of alternative approaches to
your topic. The paper needs to have the following components:
1. Field notes: I’m expecting you to keep a file of fieldnotes all semester (as
discussed in class). While I am not expecting you to turn in your scratch notes, you do
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need to include a sample of fieldnotes as part of the final paper. They may be worked
into the text or they may be included as an appendix.
2. Methodology:
This is a methods course. Your paper needs to be “about”
anthropological methods, in some sense (in addition to relying on them, in some sense):
that is, it needs to show what you’ve learned methodologically (whatever else you may
have learned). How you do this is up to you. As noted elsewhere in this handout, your
topic may itself concern some methodological issue. Alternatively, your ethnographic
exploration may be a vehicle for gaining practical experience with anthropological
methods of different sorts. Over the course of the semester you may or may not learn a
lot about your ethnographic topic. If you do learn a lot, you may be tempted to write
your paper about that: keep that under control for purposes of this course! At the least,
your paper is an opportunity to reflect critically on a selection of relevant readings.
Finally, considerable playfulness is possible in the way you write all this up (that
is, I make no assumptions about the appropriate “voice” from which to write your paper).
However, since reception (audience, writing, etc.) is one of our topics, you need to
consider the implications of your writing strategy and comment on it (or otherwise make
it deliberate) in some appropriate way.
You are welcome to consult me at any time, whether about your paper ideas and progress, or
about class readings and discussion. If my office hours conflict with your schedule, please
email or give me a ring to set up an appointment. Also, once you are registered for the
course, you will have access to the ANT 541 Blackboard website. This is a place where class
discussions can be begun or continued in an inclusive way.