ANT E101 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Culture Shock, Participant Observation, Ethnography
Document Summary
Emerged as a research strategy in societies with greater cultural uniformity and less social differentiation than are found in large, industrial, modern nations. Conversation with varying degrees of formality - chit chat to interviews. Detailed work with informants about particular areas of community life in-depth interviewing leading to collection of life histories of particular people. Problem-oriented research of many sorts team research. At first observation feels alienating as ethnographers experience culture shock record their impressions in a personal diary becomes field notes strive to establish rapport, friendly working relationship based on personal contact with their hosts. Participant observation - takes part in community life as they study it. Questionnaire - form used by sociologists to obtain comparable information from respondents interview schedule directed but did not confine researchers. Enabled ethnography to be both quantitative and qualitative. Genealogical method - using diagrams and symbols to record kin connections. Helps understand current social relations and to reconstruct history.
