BRIEF REPORT AND CRITIQUE OF ASSIGNED ARTICLES

“What are the Challenges in Ethnographic Fieldwork?”

and

“The Social Construction and Reconstruction of the Other: Fieldwork in El Barrio”

Cindy Cruz 86-16518PhD Media Studies

Anthro 299Francisco Datar, PhD

ARTICLE 7

CHAPTER ONE

What are the Challenges

in Ethnographic Fieldwork?

Fieldwork is the foundation of anthropological studies. Anthropology is shaped by fieldwork ... anthropologists are shaped by field experiences. (Shirley A. Fedorak)

• Teacher of anthropology and archaeology at the University of Saskatchewan

• Author of textbooks, children’s stories and science fiction novels

Synopsis

• Chapter One “What are the Challenges of Ethnographic Fieldwork?” defines key concepts as reflections based on immersion in the field and discusses issues and examples of challenges to be expected in during long term living arrangements with research groups. Ethnographic fieldwork is challenging but relevant especially when this leads to the provision of services and the promotion of advocacy for the community.

Definition & Discussion of Key Concepts

• By providing definitions that are informed by actual experiences of anthropologists, the author empirically recasts these key concepts and departs from the romanticized, ethnocentric and armchair notions associated with them. The article emphasizes the following: 1) ethnocentrism as a point of reflection and not as a measure of expectations; AND 2) experience through interaction, not extraction and arbitrary or ethnocentric interpretation, with key informants as the supreme authority on their culture/s.

Challenges of Fieldwork• The author also discusses and effectively illustrates the

ways that anthropologists successfully and/or unsuccessfully encounter and resolve challenges in the field despite ample academic, psychological, and physical preparation as well as extensive field experience. The anecdotal details provided by the author demonstrate that there are no prescriptions for dealing with these challenges and anthropologists must rely on and draw from their cultural learnings and their commitment to protect the groups that they study and then oftentimes hope for the best results stemming from their decisions. There is emphasis on the following:

Challenges of Fieldwork

• How everything you know about proper and acceptable behaviour, decorum, rules for social etiquette become immaterial;

• How uncertainties and dilemmas become points of reflection on one’s own culture and not sources of expectant comparison; and

• How the issues of definitions of violence, dominion, and need are defined differently in an anthropologist’s culture and the culture of the group/s in the study.

Critique• Working from the assumption that

anthropologists (must) acknowledge their strangeness from other groups’ perspectives, Fedorak communicates in her article how she emphasizes and values experience through interaction over extraction and arbitrary or ethnocentric interpretation, which had been (and perhaps continues to be) a way of thinking in anthropology.

• The supreme authority she confers on key informants regarding the knowledge of their culture/s displaces the utilitarian view of them as merely a means to communicate with groups.

EXAMPLES FROM THE TEXT:Concepts as

Reflections in Fieldwork

The Field Anthropologist

• “ethnographer”

• “stranger in a strange place”

• “enter[s] a world without cultural guideposts”

• “learn[s] and understand[s] the symbols and concepts that have meaning to members of a culture, and then convey[s] this understanding to others”

Fieldwork

• “unique method for learning about people and their behavior”

• “rite of passage” – survive harsh environments and confront personal and moral challenges

• “journey of discovery” – both cultural and personal

• “the process of collecting descriptive data on a specific culture through extended periods of living with members of the culture”

Fieldwork Elements• Participant observation – “the most common

and useful form of fieldwork... which involves living with a cultural group for a period of time and interacting with the people on a daily basis.”

• True ethnographic fieldwork – “relies primarily on conversations and interviews, as well as on interacting and participating in the daily lives of the study group.”

• Key informants – “experts in the social complexities of their culture” and “provide the basis for understanding the culture’s experience and meaning.”

EXAMPLES FROM THE TEXT:Challenges of Fieldwork

The viability of the research proposal

• Situations where anthropologists have been forced to scrap the original research projects due to unexpected developments and/or challenges discovered upon arrival at the community were resolved through their adaptation and sharp observation.

Learning the language

• The vocabulary and grammar

• The nuances and perhaps some colloquialisms

• Non-verbal communication – body language, tone, use of space, and extraneous vocalizations that convey important messages and cues

Dealing with personal and professional uncertainty

• Concerns about what are considered proper and offensive behavior within other cultural contexts

• The extent of participation and the possible effects of refusal to join in cultural activities when invited

Overcoming culture shock

• “... a long process filled with setbacks, but if the anthropologist is fortunate enough to develop friendships with some members of the community, the sense of isolation and disorientation may ease more quickly.”

• “... sometimes very special relationships develop.”

Developing a rapport with community members

• Development of rapport with community members have often led to lifelong friendships and anthropologists becoming full members of the community.

• Incompatible cultural views, practices and behavior have led to confrontations and ostracization.

Gender issues

• Being a single woman and living alone where this concept is unacceptable and the crime rate is high

• Struggling in the face of gender inequality and male dominion and violence

• Dealing with research limitations due to one’s own gender and “crossing gender barriers”

Coping with health and safety issues and personal discomforts

• Dealing with nuisance problems

• Struggling with taking the advice of the locals (which is usually the wise choice)

• Eating traditional foods leading to intestinal discomforts

• Surviving toilet facilities and personal hygiene challenges

• Climate as a source of extreme discomfort

Fieldwork and Ethics• Protection of privacy and dignity of their study

group • Confidentiality• The question of who the research is benefitting• Applied anthropology and giving back to the

community• The difficulty of turning away when the

anthropologist perceives an obvious need – by whose definition is “need” determined?

• In the Ethnography – “issues of voice, objectivity, and the validity of the information concern the anthropologist the most.”

Bibliography• De Col, Anna. 2012. Author Interview: Shirley Fedorak. In

Teaching Culture. Retrieved on February 6, 2015 from http://www.utpteachingculture.com/author-interview-shirley-a-fedorak/

• Fedorak, Shirley. 2008. What are the Challenges in Ethonographic Fieldwork? In Anthropology Matters! Pp. 3-14. Ontario: Broadview Press.

• Shirley Fedorak – Bio. Document entitled “UA 2007 Fedorak”. Retrieved on February 6, 2015 from https://www.google.com.ph/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=5&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CDMQFjAE&url=http%3A%2F%2Flibrary2.usask.ca%2Fspcoll%2FUniversity%2520Authors%2FUA2006-07%2FUA%25202007%2520Fedorak%2520Bio.doc&ei=_RrUVP3rBsbDmwWW-oGQAw&usg=AFQjCNG33UPhPHrTi22kVIB_XgZ5UJAz2A&bvm=bv.85464276,d.dGY

ARTICLE 8

“The Social Construction and Reconstruction of the

Other: Fieldwork in El Barrio”

Anthropology Quarterly

SAGE Handbook of Research

Growing Old in El Barrio

Interview instruments that engage the other in their own constructions of otherness are particularly useful in ethnographic research on multicultural and socially stratified contemporary urban societies. (Judith Noemi Freidenberg)

• Teaches anthropology at the University of Maryland

• Does research on medical anthropology and community development

Synopsis• “The Social Construction and Reconstruction of the

Other: Fieldwork in El Barrio” reviews the ways in which knowledge about social groups are constructed given the intrusion of ethnocentric, academic and middle-class positioning of academics and researchers. By proposing perspectives that champion the active participation of the social groups in this study and accompanying methods that allow these groups to construct knowledge and situate themselves within social strata, the author avoids imposing notions of context and instead provides them with ways to derive and define their own contexts as frameworks of their own narratives.

Critique

• The importance of making informants active participants entails giving them the stage / mic / active voice in narratives about them.

• Our middle class and intellectually elite conceptions and notions of not only poverty but also all groups and cultures that comprise an “other” will inadvertently affect the construction of knowledge and interpretation of data that will define the groups that we research on and write about. As such, it is key that we involve them in this construction and remain true to their own meanings, issues, views, and culture.

EXAMPLES FROM THE TEXT:The Social Construction

of Poverty

(Usual) Practice

• Using poverty as an explanatory construct or as a world view

• Using poverty as an epithet or as a view of the poor from the mainstream

Proposition

• Problematizing the social construction of poverty to understand articulation between and within social classes

• Concentrating on the poor's view of their own life circumstances in the context of structural inequality

EXAMPLES FROM THE TEXT:Ethnographic Field Work:

Product and Process

• Process and product are intimately interrelated in ethnographic research

• Fieldwork affects both the method of data collection (participant observation) as well as the interpretation (the construction of the other)

• Understanding the interviewer's role in the production of physical knowledge of the other

• Distinguishing between the anthropological self and the anthropologized other

EXAMPLES FROM THE TEXT:Learning How to Ask

in El Barrio

• "I needed to move away from the traditional central position of the anthropologist as observer, and from the control she/he has over the flow of information when relying on straightforward interviewing.”

• "Not only the presence of the fieldworker structures data but that the medium and data-collection techniques employed to elicit data also affect the construction of knowledge."

Questions for the Anthropologist

• "What does it take to give "the" an active voice, rather than a passive response to our questions?“

• How does one conduct fieldwork WITH informants rather than ON informants?

EXAMPLES FROM THE TEXT:Techniques

Interviewing with Photographs

• To validate the ethnographic information derived during the initial fieldwork

• Helps the observer to listen more than ask

• Interviewees often responded directly to the photography, paying less heed to the observer’s presence.

• As a projective interviewing technique: presenting the subjects with photographs of themselves to verbalize issues and problems, and to prompt them to analyze their situations within the limits of their perspectives and experiences.

Interviewing with Artifacts

• Used, like photos, as visual prompts to elicit stories about people's experiences in their natural environments

• Examples: home altars, statues of saints, Bibles, family photographs, mementos from home (in this case, Puerto Rico), miscellaneous items of hope and faith

EXAMPLES FROM THE TEXT:Three Stages of Fieldwork

• My construction of the context for informants' behavior, based on pariticipant observation and interviewing

• The informants' construction of the context, elicited through visual methods that helped informants project their views, engage in dialogue and construct their own visions of "self" and "other" ("the view FROM El Barrio")

• The general public's construction of the informants' context ("the view ABOUT El Barrio")

Stage 1

• My view constructed from population documents, participant observation, and photo documentation of the privte space.

• Showed informants the photos - got feedback on other places (to take photos of) which adversely affected their lives

• Participants gave a social commentary on national society, defined who was excluded, outside, left out to define larger context of society

Stage 2

• This stage generated data on space and place for self and others

• Use of photos as an effective "second eye" to document what I was learning through observation, participant observation and interviewing

• With the photos, I often presented my insights and interpretations to the informants for confirmation or disconfirmation as I continued to learn from them in the field situation

Stage 3

• Data consisting of the photographs and excerpts from my discussions with the study population were presented in a museum exhibit where audience reactions to informants' perspectives were solicited.

Bibliography

• Friedenberg, Judith. 1998. The Social Construction and Reconstruction of the Other: Fieldwork in El Barrio. In Anthropological Quarterly, Vol. 71, No. 4 October 1998), pp.169-185.

• Judith Freidenberg, Professor. Department of Anthropology. In University of Maryland. Retrieved on February 6, 2015 from http://anth.umd.edu/facultyprofile/Freidenberg/Judith