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Course Home E-mail the class Class discussion board FRIDAY HISTORICAL READINGS Oct 10: Pioneers Oct 17: Expertise Oct 24: Cliffords Oct 31: Danger Nov 7: El Dorado Nov 14: Emotions Nov 21: Natives M Dec 1: Assistants Dec 5: Summary MONDAY EXERCISES Sep 29: Experience Oct 6: Observation Oct 13: Interview Oct 20: Discomfort Oct 27: Formal Nov 3: Survey Nov 10: Photo Nov 17: Video Nov 24: Digital |
Today we begin our historical survey of how ethnographic methods came to be and how they have changed over the years. Initially, the roles of the data-collector and the analyst were separate; scientists in the 19th century spent little or no time gathering information "in the field," but rather used field reports from explorers, missionaries, colonial officials, and other agents of the European and Euro-American colonial expansion as fodder for their grand syntheses. For today, we read a general history of British fieldwork in this period, then sidetrack a little bit to the American side of the ocean and the contribution of Boas, and then concentrate on Malinowski as the iconic founding figure of "fieldwork."
Read the following: Then, by midnight on Thursday, October 9, post a comment of about 200 words on the way the legend of Malinowski's fieldwork has shaped anthropological discourse (including the expectations of graduate students), and how things might have been different had we known the realities of Malinowski's stays in the field. |