History of Ethnographic
Research and Its Uses
Part II
Applied Anthropology

Applied anthropologists use their insights
and research techniques to analyze social,
political, and economic problems and
develop solutions.
Culture at a Distance

During World War II anthropologists
interested in learning more about enemy
states gathered information by reviewing
newspapers, literature, photographs and
popular films as well conducting interviews
with immigrants and refugees.
Contemporary State and Peasant
Studies
After WWI and even more so after WWII,
cultural anthropology took yet another turn,
expanding fieldwork and ethnography to peasant
and urban societies, which were enmeshed in
more complex regional and national systems.
 The connections between cultures are so central
that no society, no matter how seemingly
remote, can be studied as if it existed in cultural
isolation.

Advocacy Anthropology

Advocate anthropology is research that is
community-based and politically involved.

Some anthropologists have become
advocates for the groups they have
studied, such as peasant communities,
ethnic or religious minorities, or
indigenous groups.
Multi-sited Ethnography

The investigation and documentation of
peoples and cultures embedded in the
larger structures of a globalizing world,
utilizing a range of methods in various
locations of time and space.

In multi-sited ethnography research tracks
a subject across spatial and temporal
boundaries.
Doing Ethnography: Cultural
Anthropology Research Methods

Ethnography is the written description and
analysis of the culture of a group of
people based on fieldwork.

Site selection and preporatory research
are both crucial first steps.
Participant Observation

It is a research method in which one
learns about a group’s beliefs and
behaviors through social participation and
personal observation within the
community, as well as interviews and
discussion with individual members of the
group over an extended stay in the
community.