The Importance Of Fieldwork

In order to understand any culture, it is essential to acknowledge the importance of taking a holistic view. This approach, which gained recognition and validation in the twentieth century, stresses the importance of accounting for all of the components of a culture. The concept requires an understanding of each subsystem, which dictates certain aspects of the culture being studied. With this theory as basis for her approach, Myerhoff is faced with the difficult task of piecing together the many parts contributing to the formation of the culture at the Center, while simultaneously recognizing the distinctions between the acting subsystems. Sometimes it seems that realizing what leads to specific cultural constructs would be extremely difficult; this is especially the case with traits that have become so naturalized that only an outsider would recognize them as distinct and significant. That said, it is obvious that there are advantages to studying a completely exotic culture, as the majority of anthropologists do; however, Myerhoff chose to do her fieldwork in a culture that is centered

For Miner, he was writing from his years of personal observation of American homes, but often the anthropologist is not already a member of the community to be studied and must develop a rapport within a community. This relationship must be created without being deceptive and creating a negative impression so that members of the community will act naturally and not suppress their habitual or instinctive reaction to life issues (Kawulich, 2005). This method collects data not only from personal observation but also includes interviews, natural conversations, checklists, and surveys. The effective use of this method includes having a nonjudgmental attitude, being aware of culture shock tendencies, wanting to learn more about others, and practicing good listening skills (Kawulich, 2005). When the anthropologist properly explores the organized routines and ritualistic behaviors of the group, they become becomes a part of the community and reports the information about how the group is operating from a holistic understanding of the viewed events.

Calcagno (2003) emphasizes the importance of encouraging biocultural approaches to research. In order to be holistic it is necessary that the research used is widespread across the anthropological sub disciplines (Riley. E, 2006). Calcagno identifies how this approach is easily discussed in practice, but this can be significantly harder to produce successfully in practical settings. The tension surrounding this is due to preceding conflicts in procedures and philosophies disrupting their ability to coexist in the research subfields. Calcagno uses the data collected by Borofsky that indicated the holistic

I believe that Raybeck chose appropriate field methods during his field work. During his field work Raybeck made decisions on how to answer his questions based on what methods would give him the most insight. He chose not to do a lot of surveys because he knew what kind of responses he would get. By doing surveys the information he would have gotten would have been wide rather than deep. An example on a time where the survey was not a good chose was when he was learning about how the Villagers view Chinese people. He would not have learned about how complex the matter truly is by just putting a survey out to the community. Interviews can be a better chose to get more detailed information. Interviews can be

they perform the bulk of their work, and what it is they do in both problem

James P. Spradley (1979) described the insider approach to understanding culture as "a quiet revolution" among the social sciences (p. iii). Cultural anthropologists, however, have long emphasized the importance of the ethnographic method, an approach to understanding a different culture through participation, observation, the use of key informants, and interviews. Cultural anthropologists have employed the ethnographic method in an attempt to surmount several formidable cultural questions: How can one understand another's culture? How can culture be qualitatively and quantitatively assessed? What aspects of a culture make it unique and which connect it to other cultures? If

The interviews in Anne Fadiman’s The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down and Joshua Reno’s Waste Away both have their fair share of barriers to overcome, even though their research could not be more different. Anne Fadiman conducts interviews in two drastically different topics, Hmong culture and medicine. Joshua Reno favors a landfill in Michigan; interviewing residents living next to Four Corners Landfill. However different these two areas of research may be, both books show that interviewing individuals is a research method incredibly valuable when working to determine a person or group’s feelings and ideas. Both anthropologists use interviewing as a method to gain information, but are careful to align with the culture of each of the

In Barbara Anderson’s book, First Fieldwork: The Misadventures of an Anthropologist, she discusses how as a graduate student she went to a small Danish town called Taarnby to do an ethnographic study of the community. When she went to Denmark, she took her family with her: Thor her husband and Katie her daughter. This book talks about the many difficulties and problems that an untried and inexperienced anthropologist can face, even though some of it is “improved upon”.

The article " Working in the Fields" describe kids working in the fields to help support their families. First, it explains a kid named James who spent the summer on a farm in Ohio. He works nine hours a day, 54-14 hours over the legal limit for kids. Then the article talks about a kid named Rodrigo who came here illegally. He has to travel over 2,200 miles. It also talks about Jessica, she is 14-years old and she works on a farm with her father and brothers. Finally, the article talks about an organization that helps kids who work in the fields learn and stay healthy.

Anthropology, as a discipline in the field of human sciences, is based on certain ethical principles to guide its practitioners through their research. This creates a stable framework on which to start any research project. Avoiding deviation, however, can be complicated. Anthropologists have a responsibility to their field,

What topic or presentation is most beneficial to future students transitioning to Bradley University and why?

There are multiple characteristics of ethnographic approach. This research is considered to be more of a descriptive type research approach, that is intended for “in-depth research and descriptions of ethnic groups, cultures, large organizations, and their features” (Percy, Kostere, & Kostere, 2015, p. 16). This type of research immerses its selves in the organization or culture they are reviewing, and becoming a part of the culture, so that we can learn about it from the inside out. Therefore, this methodology often involves longer time frame for information collection, and consists of researchers returning a number of times to the location where the research is to acquire more information. Some “doctoral learners tend to avoid ethnographic studies, because of the typical long time-commitments, however, it can be a fruitful approach, even in shorter periods, for understanding the customs, culture, belief systems, and implicit rules of organizations and large groups” (Percy, Kostere, & Kostere, 2015, p. 15)

I observed and analyzed the design and delivery of an instructional unit in a Montessori school setting. I observed a classroom of grades 1-3 two times from 9 a.m. – 11 a.m. at the Kennebec Montessori school. I was asked to sit quietly and to not interact with the children so I could get a realistic view of the class day and the children would pursue their chosen work.

Reflecting back on my field experience, I was able to gain quality insight as well as a better understanding of the teaching and the learning process of ESOL in a mainstream classroom. My experience in Mrs. Little’s classroom has shown that the role of the ESOL teacher is to educate students in functional language skills, offer content that is academically challenging, and helps students acculturate to the new language and culture.

After centuries of continuous and unresolved (though not fruitless) debate by many great theorists on how the scientific method should be applied to anthropology, a method was formulated that promised to finally put the debate to rest: just don’t apply them at all. Symbolic Anthropologists advocated the use of “a variety of tools from psychology, history, and literature” to conduct their anthropology (McGee and Warms 2004:525). The work of Sapir and Whorf had made revolutionary claims about the idea of knowledge and the mechanism behind its transmission. Symbolic anthropology could use this as a base with which to launch assumptions about knowledge and culture; science, after all, isn’t primary or even essential in these processes. The human mind, however, was. The traditional studies of literature, psychology, and history are in some important ways closer to the source of human knowledge in this model laid out by Sapir and Whorf. Of course, the individual human mind is impossible to enter and so expressions of these ideas, rather than the ideas themselve,s are “culture” and important. These ideas were hugely different than those before them; it was a complete restatement of anthropology all together. Perhaps because it was so different, and also due in part to its nature where great respect is given to personal interpretation, there were similarly large differences of opinion by its subscribers about how it should be