Lindsay Poirier
Professor Fortun
Research Methods
Methods Annotations
Bray, Francesca. “Gender and Technology.” Annual Review of Anthropology 36, no. 1
(September 2007): 37–53.
Francesca Bray is a Social Anthropology professor at the University of Edinburgh in
the United Kingdom. She began her research in China, studying the history of
agriculture, medicine, and technology in China and eventually shifted into the realm
of anthropology. She has since become interested in the politics of everyday
technologies and, in 1997, published her book Technology and Gender: Fabrics of
Power in Late Imperial China.
This review covers feminist technology studies, the anthropology of technology, the
anthropology of technoscience, material culture studies, and globalization. It seeks
to define the literature on each of these topics individually in order to show how the
concepts can be linked to bridge the gap in discussion between feminist technology
studies and cultural anthropology.
The main argument of this review is that, while feminist technology studies have
made significant strides towards developing knowledge surrounding technology
and gender by using traditional anthropological methods, they have failed to link
with other, well-developed areas of study such as the anthropology of technology,
technoscience, and material culture studies. By bridging this divide, it may become
possible to broaden and strengthen the field of FTS.
The anthropology of technology views technology use as a global concept, taking
into consideration Western and non-Western societies. Feminine technology
studies remain primarily focused in the developed world and take less
consideration of how gender and technology may collide in non-Western societies.
However, the anthropology of technology provides a useful conceptual framework
for understanding gender and technology in this way.
While FTS and the anthropology of technoscience share concerns such as “the
formation of the modern subject and the distribution of power through emerging
global networks”(45), the anthropology of technoscience has placed less focus on
how the apparatus of technology relates to gender. Typically greater focus is placed
on the outcome of technoscience and its implications for gender-technology
relations.
Material culture studies have triumphed at analyzing how culture is coproduced
locally and globally through emerging apparatuses. By incorporating more critique
of techniques and skills in analysis, material culture studies could provide greater
insight into gender-technology studies.
“In modern societies gender is constitutive of what is recognized as technology,
determining whether skills are categorized as important or trivial (Bowker & Star
1999). An electric iron is not technology when a woman is pressing clothes, but it
becomes technology when her husband mends it. A woman engineer who tests
microwave ovens is told by her male colleagues that her job is really just cooking
(Cockburn & Ormrod 1993).”
“FTS has drawn heavily on ideas and methods developed within anthropology: the
integrity of social action and culture; the “micromacro” linkage of everyday skills
and techniques and political-economic activities; and detailed empirical observation
and broad- ranging comparative analysis. Could we now envisage more explicit and
sustained forms of engagement among different branches of anthropology and FTS,
to strengthen our understanding of gender-technology relations in a rapidly
changing world?”
“MSC studies of the Internet in Trinidad (Miller & Slater 2000) or of cell-phones in
Jamaica (Horst & Miller 2005) generate richly textured analyses of how technology
use intertwines with sociality, including the expression and affirmation of gendered
identities and forms of intimacy and relatedness. They also document the gratifying
extension of Jamaican or Trinnie styles of communication across transnational
spaces, transforming the experiences of migration or diaspora. The point is
convincingly made that Caribbean Internet users are not reacting to globalization
but creating it. By insisting that the new technologies facilitate but do not determine
these cultural extensions, these studies reflect the MCS position on ‘materiality.’”
The article mentions the coproduction of gender and technology as well as the
coproduction of global and local culture in reference to technology. What other
elements of society are coproduced with technology, and to what extent has
research been carried out in these areas?
The article notes how FTS focuses a great deal on how technologies can be
patriarchal or are “placed within broader configurations of power” (41). Do the role
of technologies within these power configurations change based on local context?
What “grassroots” research has been carried out to determine how certain
technologies affect power relations in different societies?
How would an anthropologist define globalization? What sort of research project
could (s)he develop to determine whether globalization was a concern (or even
existed) in the minds of local citizens?
I followed up on the following points/topics:
1. Actor network theory from Latour
2. Gender scripts
3. Hegemonic masculinity
4. Langdon Winner
Charmaz, Kathy. “Grounded Theory: Objectivist and Constructivist Methods.” In
Constructing Grounded Theory: A Practical Guide Through Qualitative Analysis,
509–535. Pine Forge Press, 2006.
Kathy Charmaz is a Professor of Sociology at Sonoma State University. Her work
focuses on qualitative research methods, social psychology, and writing for
publication. Her most significant publications were the books, Constructing
Grounded Theory: A Practical Guide Through Qualitative Analysis and Good Days, Bad
Days: The Self in Chronic Illness in Time.
The main concepts that Charmez covers in this article revolve around qualitative
research and grounded theory and how they relate to objectivism, positivism, and
constructivism.
The main argument of this chapter is that, when doing qualitative research,
grounded theory does not necessarily have to be objective and can instead be
developed based on constructivist approaches by a social scientist.
Past grounded theory proponents focused on positivist approaches to grounded
theory, believing that all knowledge was only reliable if it could be grasped and
scientifically tested. This left little room for the construction of knowledge through
subjective interpretation of data by social scientists. Grounded theory strategies,
however, can be flexible rather than rigid. They should always be pragmatic.
Using methods, such as coding, memo-writing, and theoretical sampling, it is
possible to develop grounded theory from the bottom up. Social scientists can begin
data collection without preconceived notions on what the outcome will be. By
carrying out the methods listed above, they develop interpretative understanding
that allows for a constructivist development of theory.
Grounded theory can be objectivist or constructivist. However, objectivist
approaches trend towards positivist analysis and assume that hypotheses and
methods will lead to a true, testable reality. This approach does not allow the
research to interact with the data. Constructivism, on the other hand, seeks
meanings through the interpretation of the researcher.
“Data are narrative constructions (Maines, 1993). They are reconstructions of
experience itself (see also Bond, 1990). Whether our respondents ply us with data
in interview accounts they recast for our consumption or we record ethnographic
stories to reflect experience as best we can recall and narrate, data remain
reconstructions” (514).
“By adopting a constructivist grounded theory approach, the researcher can move
grounded theory methods further into the realm of interpretive social science
consistent with a Blumerian (1969) emphasis on meaning, without assuming the
existence of a unidimensional external reality” (522).
“To seek respondents’ meanings, we must go further than surface meanings or
presumed meaning. We must look for the views and values as well as for acts and
facts. We need to look for beliefs and ontologies as well as situations and structures.
By studying tacit meanings, we clarify, rather than challenge, respondents’ views
about reality” (525).
Are research projects that take a constructivist approach less likely to garner
funding than projects that take an objectivist approach?
The process that Charmaz outlines to do constructive grounded theory is heavily
dependent on a researcher garnering thoughts and interpretations during each step
(coding, memo writing, and theorizing). To what extent would the final theory
change if a different individual were to carry out the same steps? Is this positive or
negative aspect of constructivist grounded theory?
What sort of visual exercises could follow coding and precede memo writing in
order to garner a better understanding of connections before jumping into writing?
This article required me to research and understand the following –isms prior to
being able to interpret it: positivism, constructivism, objectivism, postmodernism,
and post-structuralism.
Coleman, E. Gabriella. “Ethnographic Approaches to Digital Media.” Annual Review of
Anthropology 39, no. 1 (2010): 487–505.
Gabriella Coleman is anthropologist that researches hackers and digital activism.
She is currently the Wolfe Chair in Scientific and Technological Literacy in the Art
History and Communication Studies Department at McGill University. Her most
notable publication is her book on free software, Coding Freedom: The Aesthetics and
Ethics of Hacking.
This review broadly covered the field landscape of digital anthropology. It honed in
on topics such as digital media, modes of communication, the politics of digital
technologies, and the universality of digital experiences.
The main argument of this review was that, in order to fully understand the
contours of digital media, ethnographers and social scientists should devote greater
attention to frames of analysis, history, local contexts, and instances of actual
experience with digital media. Coleman argues that doing so will highlight the
“provinciality” of digital media, allowing us to see it as a culturally-specific force for
change rather than a universal one.
The cultural specificity of digital media as it relates to politics is shown through
examples such as the role or position of information and communication
technologies in diasporas, racism, and the digital divide. Coleman also argues that a
great deal of the work done on free culture for digital technologies focuses on
capitalistic ideals and overlooks considerations for non-Western societies.
Coleman discusses how ethnographers pull out vernaculars of digital media, such as
the debates over open source versus copy written software, digital activism, and the
change of language and formality through the increased use of communication
technologies. Each of these conversations takes place within a specific rather than a
universal, realm of technology use.
By analyzing the specific “lived experiences” and modes of digital media, it is
possible to distinguish the “material and ideological functions” created by the use of
these technologies. These functions are highly contextual, falling within the scope of
the lived experience. Modes of communication within the realms finance, news, and
religion provide poignant examples of how digital technologies create specific
functions within the experience.
“A number of studies examine how indigenous groups, with the aid of
ethnographers and nongovernmental organizations, have thus crafted (in
painstaking detail) digital databases, interactive multimedia projects, and cultural
mappings to represent, circulate, and at times, exclude various cultural motifs,
norms, values, and folklore (Christen 2006, 2009; Christie 2008; Cohen & Salazar
2005; Salazar 2005; Srinivasan 2006). These digital projects represent what
scholars have identified as “digital ontologies,” which map “the community’s overall
structure of priori- ties and issues” (Srinivasan 2006, p. 510). These mappings,
which often bypass the need for traditional forms of digital literacy, provide new
visual representations of anthropological knowledge as well as resources for the
community that respect cultural protocols” (491).
“This ethnographic analysis is methodologically significant because the authors
make sense of data—Internet memes, chatting, viral videos, and an astonishing
cascade of comments that accompany this material—that may initially seem
unsuitable for ethnographic analysis. It illustrates how the study of digital media
transforms the possibilities and contours of fieldwork (Burrell 2009, Wesch 2007).
Ethnographers will increasingly have to address how to collect and represent forms
of digital data whose social and material life are often infused with elements of
anonymity, modalities of hybermobility, ephemerality, and mutability and thus pose
new challenges to empirical, let alone ethnographic, analysis” (494).
“ As journalism in industrialized nations migrates online, and as regional papers in
the United States struggle to survive as advertising revenue dwindles, the scholarly
discussion has been fiercely focused on what these transformations mean not only
for the future of journalism but, by extension, the future of democracy (Downie &
Schudson 2009)” (495).
The document describes research on digital ontologies for mapping and preserving
a “’community’s overall structure of priorities and issues’ (Srinivasan 2006, p. 510)”
(491). How do these projects account for the changes in community priorities and
issues over time? Are they attempting to preserve primarily indigenous values, or
do they chart the development of societies?
The review describes how ethnographers analyzed the moral panic over the demise
of literacy by analyzing user-generated comments left on YouTube videos after an
AT&T advertisement about the language used in text messaging went viral. While
this method empirically gathers data about the users, it fails to study the extent of
the panic. What research methods would an ethnographer use to understand the
causes and amplifiers of moral panics?
How do the ethnographic findings of gambling addiction chart onto other digital
technologies such as social media platforms and online games?
I followed up on this article by reading summaries of work from the following three
referenced authors:
 Danah boyd
 Arturo Escobar
 Landzelius
Emerson, Robert. "Chapter 1: Fieldnotes in Ethnographic Research.” Writing
Ethnographic Fieldnotes. University of Chicago Press, 1985.
Richard Emerson has been cited as a “primary architect of social exchange theory
and power-dependence theory.” He has worked as a professor of sociology at both
the University of Cincinnati and the University of Washington, during which time he
wrote significant papers on power dependence relations.
Broadly, this chapter describes methods for participant observation, writing field
notes, and the implications for each.
The main argument of this text is that, when an ethnographer writes field notes,
he/she is not simply narrating notions, observations, or events. Writing field notes
is an interpretative process, and the approach that the ethnographer takes to
documenting their research greatly influences the way that others will come to see
the culture being described. In this way, an ethnographer is constantly shaping the
framing of a society through the process of writing field notes.
Carrying out ethnographic studies requires a field researcher to become immersed
into a society in order to fully understand its people’s motives, decisions, behaviors,
and interactions. It also allows the field researcher to experience for him/herself
certain aspects of the society. While the presence of the field worker in this society
may implicate the way that individuals act or react, this should not discount the
research and should, in fact, be noted with particular significance.
When a field researcher takes field notes, he/she is not simply recording everything
seen. He/she is choosing what is important to record and what can be left out. In
this way, taking field notes is an interpretive process that can be referred to as
transcription. The social world is therefore framed from the ethnographer’s
recordings.
Emerson cites four implications for taking field notes. First, the ethnographer
should not separate the research findings from the methods used to collect them
because it could blur the situational realities of those being studied. Second,
ethnographers should try to understand what experiences mean to those they are
studying rather than examining how they perceive the experiences. Field notes
should be written as the ethnographer observes and should not be recorded after
the ethnographer has had time to reconsider and reconstruct them – this often
causes the ethnographer to manipulate initial insights, which could harm the data.
Finally, it is important for the ethnographer to pay attention to detail when
recording field notes.
“With immersion, the field researcher sees from the inside how people lead their
lives, how they carry out their daily rounds of activities, what they find meaningful,
and how they do so. In this way immersion gives the fieldworker access to the
fluidity of others’ lives and enhances his sensitivity to interaction and process” (1).
“As inscriptions, fieldnotes are products of and reflect conventions for transforming
witnessed events, persons, and places into words on paper. In part, this
transformation involves inevitable processes of selection; the ethnographer writes
about certain things and thereby necessarily ‘leaves out’ others. But more
significantly, descriptive fieldnotes also inevitably present or frame objects in
particular ways, ‘missing’ other ways that events might have been presented or
framed. And these presentations reflect and incorporate sensitivities, meanings,
and understandings the field researcher has gleaned from having been close to and
participated in the described events” (4).
“It is critical to document closely these subtle processes of learning and
resocialization as they occur; continuing time in the field tends to dilute the insights
generated by initial contact with an unknown way of life. Long-term participation
dissolves the initial perceptions that arise in adapting to and discovering what is
significant to others; it blunts early sensitivities to subtle patterns and underlying
tensions. In short, the field researcher does not learn about the concerns and
meanings of others all at once, but in a constant, continuing process in which she
builds new insight and understanding upon prior insights and understandings” (7).
How does a researcher negotiate the extent to which he or she becomes immersed
into a culture without losing their status as a researcher? How do moral
implications play into this?
The author points out that, when an ethnographer takes field notes, he or she
constructs the future notions of that area based on how they interpret and write
about their observations. If this is the case, how does a researcher avoid bias in
their writings? Are there methodological considerations for ensuring the accuracy
of field notes taken from the point of view of a single ethnographer?
How are field notes maintained? What sort of data management plans need to be
made or considered to ensure that data collected in the field is secure and accessible
to future ethnographers? Who owns these notes, and is it required that
ethnographers record their note-taking methods so that future researchers can
replicate their experiments/observations?
I followed up on the following three points from the text:



Modern mediums for collecting field notes
Data management plans for anthropological/ethnographic studies
Ethical consequences of becoming overly immersed into a field cite
Ferguson, James. Global Shadows: Africa in the Neoliberal World Order. Duke
University Press, 2006.
James Ferguson is a Professor of Cultural and Social Anthropology at Stanford
University and a leading African field scientist. In addition to the book that this
annotation was drawn from, he has written about modernity in Zambia and
development, politics, and bureaucratic power in Lesotho. He also co-authored two
anthropological methods books with Akhil Gupta, an Anthropology professor at the
University of California Los Angeles.
This introduction covers a variety of issues related to Africa including its position in
globalization, the effects of its portrayal through Western media, the effects of
neoliberal strategies used to promote economies, and the way that anthropologists
have approached researching it.
The main argument that Ferguson attempts to make in this introduction is one that
seeks to pull together the arguments that will be made in later chapters of his book.
In an attempt to avoid generalizing Africa as a place lacking diversity,
anthropologists have typically narrowed their research to focus on a single concept
within a single African community. While this draws out important localized
knowledge, it fails to distinguish where Africa is placed within a globalizing world
order. The point of this chapter is to describe how a region as large and diverse
Africa came to be positioned within a certain mental frame (what the West often
equates with poverty and failure) and how that has affected politics, economies, and
social institutions.
While the remainder of the world is globalizing and becoming more uniform, Africa
remains in the backdrop – the “dark continent” or “a scar on the conscience of the
world.” Its social construction serves as a drastic comparison in quality of life for
Western onlookers. Africa is traditionally viewed by Westerners as in crisis,
whether it be due to poverty, lack of sanitation, lack of resources, or AIDS. However,
while it would be harmful to adhere entirely to these discourses, it is also important
to not take an entirely optimistic approach to the position of Africa within the world
order because doing so would discount bleak conditions collected through recent
empirical studies.
Following colonialism, several reforms were proposed by intergovernmental
organization and non-governmental organizations in order to move Africa out of
their poverty-stricken economic state. These included structural adjustment
programs, the privatization of many local industries, and the promotion of
democracy. In most instances these reforms resulted in worsened conditions, and
since they were brought about in a newly democratic society, it was possible to
place the blame on the citizens that had voted for the reforms. While these reforms
were intended to boost Africa into the globalized world economy, they have
essentially created further separation between Africa and the remainder of the
world.
Ferguson points out that there is an important distinction to be made between
cultural differences and material inequality, which has typically been ignored by
social and cultural anthropologists. Cultural practices “index membership in
different and unequal social groups, globally as well as locally” (20). While many
anthropologists have seen African desires to replicate Western standards as a
negative impact of the homogenizing world, the notion of material inequality should
be considered before attributing all problems to diminishing culture.
“Journalistic and policy visions of ‘Africa’ thus continue to rely on narratives that
anthropologists readily recognize as misleading, factually incorrect, and often racist;
meanwhile, the scrupulously localized ‘Africa’ that appears in the ethnographic
accounts in professional anthropology journals becomes ever more difficult to relate
to the ‘Africa’ we read about in the New York Times. Refusing the very category of
‘Africa’ as empirically problematic, anthropologists and other scholars devoted to
particularity have thus allowed themselves to remain bystanders in the wider arena
of discussions about ‘Africa’” (3).
“But perhaps the more important point is that the promise of democracy has been
held out to African publics at just the moment in history when key matter of
macroeconomic policy were taken out of the hands of African states, inviting Ankie
Hoogvelt’s skeptical conclusion that ‘it must have been thought in international
policy circles that the pain of [structural] adjustment would be easier to bear if the
people felt that they had voted for it themselves’ (Hoogvelt 2002: 24)” (12).
“In this sense, yearnings for cultural convergence with an imagined global
standard...can mark not simply mental colonization or capitulation to cultural
imperialism, but an aspiration to overcome categorical subordination. The
persistence of cultural difference, meanwhile (however inventive and hybrid it may
be), can come to appear as the token not (as it often appears to the anthropologist)
of brave cultural resistance, but of social and economic subjection (where a
‘traditional African way of life’ is simply a polite name for poverty)” (20-21).
To what extent does researching the position of Africa within the globalizing world
order draw on other social sciences such as sociology, economics, or political
science? Where is the line drawn between the anthropological approach that
Ferguson suggests and other approaches to studying Africa’s position? How would
the methods differ in these fields?
Is it possible to draw upon and possibly assimilate previous ethnographic studies in
order to garner a better understanding of Africa’s position within the globalizing
world order? Or are these studies too localized to offer insight into the position of
the continent?
Which institutions would a researcher need access to in order to empirically study a
region as diverse and large as Africa? More importantly, how could the research
derived from each of these institutions be connected in order to provide insight on
the positioning of an entire continent?
I followed up on the following concepts to further my understanding of this subject:



Neoliberalism
Structural adjustment programs
Shadow economy and the informal sector in Africa
Mascarenhas, Michael. “Humanitarianism, Knowledge, and the Postcolonial
Sovereignty.” (not yet published).
Michael Mascarenhas is an Assistant Professor in the Science and Technology
Studies department at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. With a background in
Sociology, his research involves water resource governance and the power
structures and social hierarchies that affect it. His first book, Where the Waters
Divide, was published this past year.
This book chapter discusses postcolonialism and humanitarianism by analyzing and
evaluating the work of non-governmental organizations.
The main argument of this chapter is that NGOs are strategically assembled and
governed in ways that support certain power relations. As NGOs grow, they gain
sovereignty, which provides increasing allowances to define and determine the state
of the world’s poor.
NGOs are increasingly becoming dependent on official aid to fund their development
projects, and this dependency has often forced them to compromise their original
intentions in order to meet the requirements of the funding organization/agency. It
also forces them to maintain a level of transparency and efficiency, which is more
focused on appeasing donors and beneficiaries than it is ensuring positive social
impact.
Corporate sponsors are taking an increasingly important role in financing NGO
work, and in many instances, corporate officials will be involved in the decision-
making process for the NGO (such as sitting on the Board of Directors), forcing the
NGO to work in a certain way to secure funding. NGOs are thus required to be
financially innovative to expand and legitimate their efforts.
Technology, such as the Internet and applications that promote transparency, have
been used to prove to donors and beneficiaries that work is being carried out in an
appropriate manner and money is being allocated soundly. However, those being
served often do not have access to these records.
“For example, NGOs are increasingly responsible for producing knowledge about the
world’s water problems, and this knowledge influences both citizens and donorgovernment relations. In some places they have replaced government agencies and
translated local water crises into bureaucratic planning. This use of measuring and
monitoring techniques to shore up their legitimacy in a quickly changing political
environment, Dorothea Hilhorst (2003) argues, makes it very difficult to determine
the boundaries of NGO practice and influence” (8).
“Lastly, while claiming to be participatory in their approach, the ‘naked truth’ is that
NGOs are generally suspicious of local governments’ capacity and commitment to
manage their improved water source in a way that is consistent with their notions of
sustainability. Functionality, then, is not simply a matter of designing and installing
physical infrastructure—hand pumps, it is also a matter of tethering it (the hand
pump) and them to the ‘invisible’ infrastructure of people, finance, and other digital
technologies that have transformed twenty-first-century humanitarianism ‘into a vital
mass of immaterial flows and instantaneous transactions’ (Galloway 2001: 82)” (14).
“...the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to support their Sanitation as a Business
program. The goal of this program is to introduce profit incentives into the
improvement of sanitation in households and schools in ‘developing’ countries.
According to Water for People, this program will transform ‘unsustainable, subsidybased sanitation programs’ into ‘sustainable, profitable sanitation services’ by
‘merging business principles of market research and segmentation’ with community
involvement and program monitoring (Water for People 2010). This grant,
according to an employee, has put Water for People ‘on the map’” (18).
How do smaller, country-specific NGOs act differently from larger NGOs with larger
budgets? In what ways do they act the same?
How do Western assumptions of the developing world affect the way that NGOs
present knowledge about it? Are their advertising or transparency efforts
manipulated by these assumptions?
What are the motives of individual NGO workers? Do they cite their goals to be the
success of the NGO or providing greater social impact? Do these answers differ
based on position and whether the practitioner is in-country?
I followed up on the following three points:



President Truman’s role in the development era
Michel Foucault’s notion of the apparatus
Economic position of the not-for-profit sector
McKAY, Ramah. “AFTERLIVES: Humanitarian Histories and Critical Subjects in
Mozambique.” Cultural Anthropology 27, no. 2 (2012): 286–309.
Ramah McKay recently finished a dissertation in the field of Social and Cultural
Anthropology at Stanford University. She is currently an Associate Professor at the
University of Minnesota and is interested in how global health aid and intervention
affect social welfare and development in Mozambique.
This text discusses how former refugees in Mozambique have nostalgic memories of
humanitarian aid, making them more highly critical of the current welfare programs
on which they rely.
In regions such as Morrumbula, Mozambique, where society progresses towards
neoliberalism through humanitarian efforts, individuals develop a “nostalgic lexicon
of claims-making” based on their humanitarian history. Their complaints of current
aid programs are based on past memories of aid and often point out the flaws of
current non-governmental governing practices.
While, in the past, refugee aid was extended to any refugee in communities in
Mozambique, it is now typically only offered to vulnerable groups, such as women
and children. The society has voiced angst over this, making reference to past aid
where anyone could access needed supplies.
Non-governmental organizations have increasingly become concerned about those
they support becoming overly dependent on them, so they institute cut-off points
where aid ceases to be distributed to an individual. Most often, in these cases,
individuals are left unable to provide their own means. Those receiving aid view
this new stipulation as a negative shift in the system when comparing to aid
experiences in the past.
Humanitarian histories shape the current politics of aid. Aid workers, policy
makers, and recipients draw on past experiences to describe “habituation” and
“dependency,” which greatly affect the way that aid is currently distributed.
“In these spaces of assistance, older discourses of belonging and claims-making have
become ‘diluted’ as services are delivered by organizations, not the state, and as
‘citizens’ become ‘beneficiaries’ (West 2005:261). Yet in a context where the most
generous forms of support have been humanitarian and where the role of the state
has been ambivalent, marked alternately by disinterest and heavy-handedness,
humanitarian recollection also offers a means by which Susana and her neighbors
articulate ongoing political, material, and social desires and claims” (290).
“Nevertheless, GCF activities today privilege aid to specific populations meeting
biological conditions of vulnerability, particularly patients with HIV/AIDS,
tuberculosis, and other illnesses in the newly powerful category of “chronic
disease.” Temporal and moral arguments regarding appropriate forms of care and
help, fears of cultivating “dependent” subjects, and economic constraints on an
organization funded largely by charitable donations in a time of global financial
crisis all shape the capacity of GCF to intervene in lives in short- and long-term
ways” (291)
“Through nostalgic memories, residents voice a critical position toward
contemporary modalities of aid and welfare, one rooted in experiences with and
understandings of a more universalistic mode of benefits provision—a mode,
ironically, in which one’s national identity was understood as the basis for inclusion
in ways no longer true” (301).
What health implications has a decrease in aid had on the people in Morrumbula?
Has it caused disease, malnourishment, or death? How does this compare to past
aid experiences? More importantly, how would an anthropologist research how
these implications have changed over time?
How strong are the relations between Mozambique governmental agencies and the
non-governmental organizations providing aid? Do they collaborate, or do they
work against each other? How has their relationship changed over the course of the
humanitarian history?
What external influences affect the way that NGOs are structured and governed? Do
these influences play a role in shaping the politics of aid and welfare?
I followed up on the following points/topics:



NGOs and neoliberal governmentality (290)
“’minimalist biopolitics’ of humanitarian action operationalizes biomedical
definitions of life by emphasizing basic needs and survival” (292)
refugee camps as sites for exploring the dangers of identity reduced to
biological being (302)
Nader, Laura. “Up the Anthropologist:” In Reinventing anthropology, by Dell H
Hymes. New York: Pantheon Books, 1972.
Laura Nader is a Sociocultural Anthropology Professor at the University of California
Berkeley. Her research has centered around comparative methods, law, dispute
resolution, and professional mind-sets in the Middle East, Mexico, and the United
States. In 1995, she was awarded the Kalven Prize for distinguished research on law
and society. Her most prominent publications includes the books, Harmony
Ideology: Justice and Control in a Zapotec Mountain Village and Law, Culture, and
Society.
Broadly, this article described why anthropologists have steered away from
“studying up,” the value of such studies, and the difficulties and implications for
carrying out such studies.
The main argument of this text is that, while there are difficulties to “studying up,” it
is vital to produce such studies in order to excite students and integrate aspects of
their studies, to remain scientifically sound, and to promote democracy through
scientific studies. An accurate anthropological study should look at all of the
institutional factors affecting a phenomenon, from observations of the lower class
through the middle class and up to the elite.
Studying up opens up the potential for new questions and new ways of perceiving
world phenomena. Instead of simply determining why individuals are poor, an
anthropologist would also look at why other individuals are rich. This would not
mean discounting the value of studying down; it would simply mean taking a more
balanced approach. Anthropologists are particularly well suited to pioneer this shift
because their work focuses on considering all of the dimensions that produce a
certain phenomena.
As researchers responsible for producing knowledge, anthropologists have a
democratic responsibility to not focus all of their attention on studying those in
marginalized positions. This tends to only produce knowledge valuable to those in
positions of power. It is also necessary to conduct research on individuals in
positions of power in order to provide insight that may be useful to those in
marginalized positions. If no one takes the time to study laws, corporations,
regulations, and the elite, it becomes possible for these institutions to
surreptitiously exploit those in positions of less power.
Researchers have probably typically refrained from studying up because of the
challenges involved. First of all, it is much more difficult to access powerful
institutions and individuals because they often do not want to be studied; they are
busy; they are dispersed, and it has dangerous implications for the researcher.
There is also an issue of motivation, since anthropologists are typically more
motivated to study “the underdog” (303). Finally, there are fewer consequences to
exposing the marginalized than to exposing the powerful, and the marginalized are
less likely to fight back.
Participant observation is often not the best method for “studying up,” so, in order
to carry out this type of research, anthropologists may have to develop or resort to
other methods. This may involve more interviews or studies of documents. One
really useful method in “studying up” is self-analyzing, or distinguishing the role of
the researcher in the study – how is he/she perceived, integrated into the culture, or
dealt with by those being studied.
If we look at the literature based on field work in the United States, we find a
relatively abundant literature on the poor, the ethnic groups, the disadvantaged;
there is comparatively little field research on the middle class and very little firsthand work on the upper classes. Anthropologists might indeed ask themselves
whether the entirety of field work does not depend upon a certain power
relationship in favor of the anthropologist, and whether indeed such dominantsubordinate relationships may not be affecting the kinds of theories we are
weaving” (289).
“We cannot, as responsible scientists, educate ‘managers’ without at the same time,
educating those ‘being managed.’ A democratic framework implies that citizens
should have access to decision-makers, institutions of government, and so on. This
implies that citizens need to know something about the major institutions,
government, or otherwise, that affect their lives” (294).
“Anthropologists have favored studying non-Western cultures as a way of fulfilling
their mission to study the diverse ways of mankind; they have not had an intense
commitment to social reform because of their relativistic stance and a belief that
such a stance was necessary to truly ‘objective, detached, scientific perspective,’ or
because they thought that others, such as sociologists, were involved in social
reform. While scientific findings may be ideally viewed as ‘value-free,’ certainly the
choice of subject for scientific inquiry is most certainly not” (303).
What sorts of legal issues arise when a researcher attempts to “study up” that are
not present when the researcher studies marginalized groups? The article cites that
“studying up” is more dangerous. How is it more dangerous? Are there potential
implications for the researchers reputation?
How can the findings of studies of marginalized groups be integrated with the
findings of studies of powerful groups to better understand a phenomenon? More
specifically, what would that integration look like? For example, let’s say I’m
studying the affect of banks offering loans to individuals who cannot necessarily
afford them, and I have conducted research with individuals who are struggling to
pay back loans and with banking institutions that have awarded them. How would I
go about assimilating that data in order to make sense of the broader picture? How
do I ensure that the assimilation is done in a sensible and unbiased way?
Does the inability to be able to perform participant observation within large
institutions affect the quality of the studies? Do studies that employ participant
observation have greater merit than those that do not?
This article was written in 1972, so in order to gain a better understanding of where
research has since veered, I also looked at an article that revisited “studying up” that
was written in 1997. In Hugh Gusterson’s article, “Studying Up Revisited,” he
frequently cites Nader’s article and describes how, while research that incorporates
“studying up” is still scarce, anthropologists have new methods for employing it.
This includes, what he refers to as polymorphous engagement, which involves
studying subjects across a broad spectrum using many mediums.
Additionally, I followed up on the idea of “self-analysis” within an anthropological
study, and alternatives to participant observation.
Pfaffenberger, Bryan. “Social Anthropology of Technology.” Annual Review of
Anthropology 21 (January 1, 1992): 491–516.
Bryan Pfaffenberger is an anthropologist who earned his PhD from the University of
California Berkely in 1977. He has since contributed a great deal to the field of
Science and Technology studies and has earned international recognition for his
work. In particular, he won the Albert Payson Usher prize (1989) for this essay,
"The Harsh Facts of Hydraulics: Technology and Society in Sri Lanka's Colonization
Schemes." Bryan Pfaffenberger currently works as an associate professor in the
Science, Technology, and Society department at the University of Virginia.
Broadly, this text covers the “mythical Standard View of technology” and how it
lacks anthropological considerations. It then discusses the sociotechnical system, a
view of technological activity that links labor, material culture, and techniques.
The Social Anthropology of Technology argues that the sociotechnical system
concept, as developed by anthropologists to highlight the social aspects of
technology in industrial societies, can in fact be assimilated with findings on
preindustrial societies to develop universal theories on the anthropology of
technology and material culture.
The article describes how, despite the Standard View’s claim that necessity is the
mother of invention, it is in fact culture and society that creates the idea of need
within a society, and technical builders simply respond to this supposed need with
new technology.
It is often claimed that a technology is solely defined by its function. However,
Pfaffenberger claims that style plays an equally, if not more important, role in
defining a technology, and it is only in ignoring ritual that we can understand the
extensive functions for an individual technology based on its style. This can be
proven by how technology is constantly reconfiguring as it enters into new social
contexts.
The Standard View also claims that technology moves in a unilinear progression
from tool to machine. However, Pfaffenberger describes how, as societies adapt
with new technologists, a great deal of knowledge is simultaneously lost.
“Culture, not nature, defines necessity. One could reassert that a ‘hard’ or ‘toughminded’ approach requires the recognition, after all, that people must eat, and so on,
but it is abundantly evident that a huge variety of techniques and artifacts can be
chosen to accomplish any given utilitarian objective” (91).
“Affordances are inherently multiple: Differing perceptions lead to different uses.
You can drink water from a cup to quench thirst, but you can also use a cup to show
you are well bred, to emphasize your taste in choosing decor, or to hold model
airplane parts.”
“Visual/spatial thinking is widespread in all technological activity systems, including
today's high technology. (25, 26, 101, 99). But visual/spatial thinking is silent.
Competent producers and users rarely mention it. This kind of knowledge is lost,
sometimes irretrievably, in the wake of technological "progress." Recreation of a
system that has been lost is virtually impossible. We have no idea how some
preindustrial artifacts were made, let alone how highly effective activity systems
were so successfully coordinated under preindustrial conditions.”
Do some societies construct greater needs than other societies? How would a
researcher determine how need was defined in a given society?
How would a researcher determine the extent of knowledge lost as new technology
adapts societies?
How do the concepts in this article apply to the developing world in instances where
new technology has often been imposed by external cultures? How are indigenous
technologies accounted for, and do the same considerations apply?
I followed up on the following concepts/topics:
1. The role of the social coordination of labor in human’s adaptation to the
environment
2. Scope of knowledge involved in contemporary hunter and gatherer societies
and extent of knowledge lost due to technology transfer
3. “The Gods Must Be Crazy”
Ulin, P. R. Qualitative Methods: A Field Guide for Applied Research in Sexual and
Reproductive Health. Family Health Intl, 2002.
Family Health International (FHI 360) is a non-profit organization that seeks to
promote human development globally. They focus developing on localized solutions
to specific problems and integrating individuals from the community into their
development projects.
Broadly, this text describes participant observation – how to carry it out, the
logistics involved, and the ethics involved. The text was produced by a non-profit
organization, and the methods may, in some ways, differ from those carried out by
an academic researcher.
This text makes the argument that the data collected through interviews and focus
groups may not accurately depict the informants’ views, behaviors, etc. Participant
observation is a more objective approach that allows the researcher to take part in
local activity, view the activity of others in a local setting, and come to their own
conclusions to further the study.
While participant observation can be insightful, offering new information that can
affect project design and interpretation of other data, it is also time-consuming.
Also, it is difficult to record data quickly enough to accurately depict a situation, and
therefore, much of the data is reliant on the researcher’s memory and diligence.
Participant observation can also turn into a subjective activity, even though the goal
of research is to be as objective as possible. These are weaknesses to the method
that need to be considered by the researcher prior to carrying out a study.
Ethical considerations for taking field notes include the extent of disclosure that the
researcher provides, the confidentiality of the data collected, and how and when
informed consent should be handled. Typically, when conducting participant
observation, a researcher should be discreet enough to not affect normal activity,
but open enough to ensure that privacy is not infringed upon. Personal or
identifying characteristics should also never be recorded during participant
observation.
Responsibilities of a participant observer include observing the way that individuals
carry out their activities, bearing in mind the affect of the presence of the observer,
and also, to an extent, engaging in these activities. It also includes interacting with
individuals socially and identifying key informants that can offer more in-depth
information or explain things from the local viewpoint that the researcher may not
understand.
“In addition, the method enables researchers to develop a familiarity with the
cultural milieu that will prove invaluable throughout the project. It gives them a
nuanced understanding of context that can come only from personal experience.
There is no substitute for witnessing or participating in phenomena of human
interaction – interaction with other people, with places, with things, and with states
of being such as age and health status” (14).
“In many situations, there is no reason to announce your arrival at the scene; in
many others, how- ever, it is essential that you openly state your identity and
purpose. You should always alert relevant gatekeepers (community members in
positions of official or unofficial authority) as to your presence and purpose” (1617).
“Another important aspect of participant observation is identifying key informants –
local individuals who can directly provide important information about the
community and thus help the researcher more quickly understand the study
population and cultural environment. Key inform- ants can facilitate your access to
particular resources, populations, organizations, gatekeepers, etc., and can help you
make connections between phenomena that might not be obvious to an outsider”
(20).
How does a researcher evaluate whether a key informant is truthful and unbiased?
Does participant observation necessarily have to be planned or prepared for? For
instance, if a field researcher is traveling through an area and begins to notice
certain interesting activities and jots notes down, would this still be considered
participant observation? What metadata is needed for this to be the case?
The text mentions that, if there is not enough time to carry out a full investigation,
researchers native to the region may be asked to participate. How are these
individuals selected? How are they provided with appropriate training?
Three points that I followed up on include:
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How to expand upon field notes
The difference between academic research and research carried out by NGOs
Considerations for data security and persistence