The Anthropological way: Doing fieldwork - Research (Part 1)

The Anthropological way: Doing fieldwork - Research (Part 1)

Introduction

When you first registered onto the Steemit.com you entered, or at least were exposed to, an entirely new "world". You must have had similar experiences when you joined a new gymnasium or sports club, moved to a new flat, house or neighbourhood, or arrived at a new job. In every case you met or had to deal with people you had not known before - strangers. You also had to learn or become familiar with their "ways of doing" and probably also the various rules, regulations or laws that were different from those you had grown up with. Some of these "strangers" may even spoken a language you didn't understand - whatever happened, your experience gave you some idea of what fieldwork in anthropology entails.

In the Introduction to Anthropology post we indicated that one of the key questions anthropologists seek to address is how we can account for both the uniformity and diversity of human beings and human behaviour (the human experience and the human condition):

Probably the most significant way in which anthropologists have tried to develop an understanding of different societies in diverse settings, and of their own people and their own context, is by spending extended periods of time with other people in their own surroundings and becoming familiar with their context. This is what fieldwork in anthropology involves. In short: experiencing something of other people's lives.

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Fieldwork and Ethnography

We have already understood that fieldwork is one of the distinctive features of anthropology and that this method of doing research is what differentiates it from other disciplines or fields of study. To do fieldwork, anthropologists have to leave their offices, libraries, lecture rooms, homes, towns or cities and sometimes their own countries to study another community or people in a different setting by spending a prolonged period of time with them. What the anthropologist is doing is often called ethnographic fieldwork, because ethnography is both the process and the product of fieldwork. In the early days of anthropology, ethnography was regarded, and practised, as a mere description of a group of people (although this is no longer the case).

"Ethnography" is derived from the Greek ethnos (peoples) and graphein (to write). Literally: to write about peoples. Anthropologists used to regard this as the descriptive study of "cultures" or "human societies".

When anthropologists now produce knowledge, that is, when they do ethnography, this involves more than just describing the people and their activities or just collecting information or data. This is because analysis is already, and should instinctively be, part of the ethnographic description. Description answers the question what and possibly where, but analysis answers the questions why and how. Anthropologists are both curious and sceptical, so these are the kinds of questions they want to answer. The other important aspect of ethnography is the writing up of the information and the findings - this is called the recording of, or the reporting on the data collected. This, in turn, representation - that is, the anthropologist now represents the people and their activities that he or she studied. This representation is a text, usually in the form of a research report, a paper for presentation at a conference, an article, a dissertation, a thesis or a book.

Important questions and criticisms regarding representation and the creation of anthropological texts have been raised with increasing frequency, particularly over the last number of years. Have anthropologists/ethnographers been fair in their representation of the people they studied? Are the texts that they produce true reflections of the reality - as experienced and lived by those people? We will get back to that in later posts.

To turn your thinking toward these kinds of discussions and criticisms, consider the following:

• You attend a soccer or rugby game
• You went to see a movie
• You read a book that was recently published
• You attended a political rally
• You attended a show by a popular singer or performer
• You witnessed or were involved in a motor vehicle accident

You then subsequently read or hear or see a newspaper or television or radio report, review or commentary about the above - or you speak to a friend about the very same experience. Do you find that such reports are a true reflection of your own personal experience? Did your friend experience the event in the same way you did?

If not, why do you think you differ?
Remember that such reports are "texts" created by the person who presents or writes or produces them. Although they are supposed to be an accurate representation of "what actually happened", peoples' perceptions differ - and when anthropologists produce an ethnographic record of people and their activities, this is the very challenge they face.

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Preparing for fieldwork and entering the field

It almost goes without saying that thorough preparation is required before an anthropologist embarks on a fieldwork project, because he/she will be dealing with people and their context for the first time. If you intend to visit a foreign country you need to find out more about the place, the people, the conventions, the customs etc, beforehand. You will also need "permission" to enter the country by having to obtain a passport and/or visa. Also, of course, you will need money for travelling and other costs.

Preparation for fieldwork in anthropology begins with the selection of a research topic, which will involve deciding on where and how the fieldwork is to be done.

Once the decision on a research theme and locality of the fieldwork has been made, the anthropologist, will need to collect as much information as possible about the people and the topic he or she is going to research. He or she will need to consult all published, internet and unpublished sources such as unpublished dissertations and theses. Maps and aerial photographs are also useful orientation aids in a rural area. In some cases, street plans, a factory outlay or even an office floor plan might be useful. If the anthropologist is commissioned by an organisation to conduct the research, he or she will have to present the organisation with a concrete research proposal.

Please note that a concrete research proposal is also required for students undertaking Master and Doctoral studies. Such a research proposal usually includes the following information:

• a delimitation of the research area or field and the theoretical orientation of the proposal, based on an exhaustive study of the relevant subject and other literature
• the relevance and significance of the research
• a depiction of the people who are the focus of the investigation
• a discussion of the research methodology, and the methods and techniques that will be used to collect data
• the probable duration and phases or stages of the research
• a budget of the expenses of the researcher and his or her assistants, as well as the compensation required for such assistants

Before undertaking any research, the anthropologists must, of course, obtain permission from the people he or she wishes to research and study. This means that he or she will have to visit them and explain what the research entails. Knowledge of their language or the services of a good interpreter (if the anthropologist is at first unable to communicate in that language) is also a requirement, otherwise serious misunderstandings can arise. An example of such a misunderstanding is given by an anthropologist who wanted to conduct research in the town El Pinar in Spain:

I was introduced by a friend to group of men, mostly fairly elderly civil servants, and one of the older men asked what I did. In my best Spanish, I said I was un anthropologo. There was a definite stir in the group, as the man looked rather taken aback and, after a pause, inquired, "Are there many of you in your country?" My answer was that there were probably only about seven or eight thousand of us in the world. My friend, seeing that something was wrong, took the man aside to see what was troubling him about me. It turned out he had a hearing problem and thought I said I was un antropofago, that is, ..... a cannibal. We got the mix-up straightened out, but thereafter I simply said I was a professor who was writing a book and left out the details unless specifically asked for them. (Aceves and King 1979:8)

Entering the field and being accepted by the people whom the anthropologist wants to research is a crucial and often delicate stage of any project. If he or she is rejected by these people, then, of course, the fieldwork will simply never happen. Equally, whatever the group or community the anthropologist intends to study, he or she has to take into account all the people, authorities etc that his or her "research subjects" interact with.

End of Part 1

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