Summer Ethnographic Field School in Huanchaco Peru
June 12-July14, 2006
Instructor: Bonnie Glass-Coffin, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Anthropology
Department of Sociology, Social Work and Anthropology
Utah State University
Logan, UT 84322-0730
435-797-4064
glasscob@cc.usu.edu
Course objectives: Anth/Soc 5130/6130
This course will provide students with practical training and experience in the use of
ethnographic field methods with a special emphasis on participatory action research.
During the course of the five week program, students will be introduced to a "tool-kit" of
methods that ethnographers use to design and conduct research as well as to theoretical
and methodological paradigms that guide research design. Beginning in 2006, students
will then apply what they learn in the context of a participatory action framework
designed to aid Huanchaco residents envision and plan for the future in this rapidly
changing community. Throughout the course, students will play close attention ethical
issues that impact ethnographic research. Cross-listing between Anthropology and
Sociology as well as an undergraduate and graduate course number as of the 2006 field
season should make this course even more appealing to undergraduates and graduate
students. Additional course requirements must be completed to obtain graduate-level
credit. Please contact the instructor if you plan to register for the graduate section of the
course in either Anthropology or Sociology.
Required texts (purchase at www.amazon.com):
Native Tours: The Anthropology of Travel and Tourism by Erve Chambers ISBN 157766-089-7
Additional on-site reading assignments assigned by instructor.
Course requirements and evaluations:
1) Classroom meetings and one-on-one discussions with instructor = 65 points
2) Writing assignments and field-work exercises = 100 points
• Unobtrusive observation/description vrs. inference in field-note writing
• Mapping/Household census/kinship chart
• Participant observation/strategies for expanding "scratch" notes
• Finding and evaluating documents
• The ethnographic or life-history interview/depicting dialogue
• Coding and analyzing field-notes/asides, memos/ethno-semantic analysis of
occupational, SES, tourist, illness categories
• Sample selection and survey design
• Rapid assessment and participatory procedures.
3) Field notes, activities log and field journal = 40 points
4) One page research proposal = 20 points
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5) Written ethnographic report = 65 points
6) Oral presentation of report = 10 points
Course Outline:
Monday, June 7h (6 hours)
Required reading: DeWalt, pp. 1-34
• Overview of field-school objectives and review of field-school rules
• Introduction to ethnographic research
• Objectives and orientation: (cultural relativism, ethnocentrism, holism)
• Components (observation, participation, written description, analysis,
report)
• Types of fieldnotes: the daily log of research activities, the personal journal, the
field-record
• The researcher as instrument: learning to differentiate between observation and
inference
• Exercise #1: field-trip to Trujillo: unobtrusive observation exercise (with focus
on proxemics)
Tuesday, June 8h (4 hours)
Required reading: DeWalt, pp. 141-162.
• "Head" notes, "scratch" notes, and "extended" notes: transforming systemmatic
observations into descriptive accounts
• Ethical considerations in ethnographic research
• Thinking about research:
• Differentiating between basic and applied research
• Differentiating between positivistic and phenomenological paradigms
• Deductive and inductive approaches to data collection
• Traditional and participatory methodologies
• Structure and function/symbol and ritual/macro and micro levels
• Beginning to formulate the research question/operationalism
Wednesday, June 9th (4 hours)
• DUE in class: write-up of unobtrusive observation
• Introduction to mapping, charting, canvassing
• Exercise #2: community-resource maps of Huanchaco
Thursday, June 10th (4 hours)
Required reading: DeWalt pp. 35-91
• DUE in class: completed maps
• Introduction to participant observation
• Entering the scene and building rapport
• Explaining your presence
• Making descriptive observations
• Recording interactions: the pros and cons of jottings
• Exercise #3: doing participant observation
Friday, June 11th (4 hours)
Required reading: DeWalt, pp. 209-235
• Discussion of readings: strategies for expanding fieldnotes
• Methods for recalling in order to write
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• Perspectives and points of view
• Expanding jottings
• Setting the scene
• Incorporating dialogue
• Sketches and episodes
• Exercise #3 (continued): writing it up.
Monday, June 14th (4 hours)
Required reading: DeWalt, pp. 120-140, Chambers, preface
• Defining tourism and our relationship with it
• Overview of tourism research possibilities
• DUE in class: write-up of participant observation exercise
• Introduction to ethnographic interviewing
• Selecting informants
• Informants and ethical issues
• The importance of triangulating
• Kinds of interviews: structured, semi-structured, informal
• Preparing question lists
• Kinds of questions: fixed response, open-ended: grand-tour, structural,
attribute/contrast
• Paying attention to language/identifying the speaker and recording
verbatim phrases
• Life-history vrs. kinship-charting, vrs. topic-centered interviews
• Preparing and checking your equipment
• Recording, charting and transcribing the interview
• Semantic analysis and coding for themes.
• Defining research possibilities in terms of tourism issues
• Exercise #4: recovering and evaluating local documents for tourism research
Tuesday, June 15th (4 hours)
Required reading: DeWalt, pp. 83-119 and Chambers, Ch. 1
• DUE in class: analysis of local documents related to tourism in Huanchaco
• Memos and commentary in fieldnotes: in-process data-analysis and generating
questions for future inquiry (group-work)
• Exercise #5: Setting-up/conducting an ethnographic interview: tourism in
Huanchaco
Wednesday, June 16th (3 hours)
Required reading: Chambers, Ch. 2
• How to construct a research design/formulate a research proposal
• Quantification in cultural anthropology
• Why quantify?
• To find patterns and generalizing from particular cases
• To increase reliability and comparability of research
• To resist tendency to ignore diversity/negative cases
• To strengthen theoretical propositions through measurement/hypothesis
testing
• To provide statistical power
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• How to quantify:
• Suggesting hypotheses
• Defining and operationalizing variables
• Deciding how to test/measure (surveys, questionnaires, observations,
various experimental designs like case/control, cohort, etc.)
• Enumerating the research population
• Selecting a representative sample (differences between simple random,
structured random, opportunity/snow-ball, samples)
• Designing the research protocol
Thursday, June 17th (4 hours)
Required reading: DeWalt, pp. 163-208, Chambers, Ch. 3
• Formulating the research question/problem
• Field-note check #1
• DUE in class/Ethnographic interview
• Discussion of interviewing techniques and methods of reporting
• Designing and differentiating between surveys and questionnaires
• Conducting pre-tests and pilot-studies
• Coding: quantitative vrs. qualitative challenges
• Exercise #6: Designing a sample survey
Friday, June 18th (4 hours)
Required reading: DeWalt, pp. 239-263, Chambers, Ch. 4
• DUE in class/Sample survey
• Discussion of survey design
• Discussion of readings/elements of the community study and the cultural content
checklist
• Narrowing the research question/problem and deciding on a research orientation
Monday, June 21st (2 hours + independent consultations on research/writing)
Required reading: TBA from Scrimshaw and Hurtado
• Introduction to rapid assessment procedures
• Discussion of readings
• Defining the population in terms of relevance to the problem, access, sampling
• Describing the significance of the research
• Field-note check #2
Tuesday, June 22nd (2 hours + independent consultations on research/writing)
Required reading: Slocum, et. al pp. 3-30 and TBA
• Introduction to participatory research
• In-class completion of a participatory research activity (exercise #7)
• Identifying sources for background information
• Selecting appropriate methodologies
Wednesday, June 23rd (2 hours + independent consultations on research/writing)
• Coding and analyzing fieldnotes
• Memoing and developing themes
• Individualized help with research protocols and techniques
Thursday, June 24th (2 hours + independent consultations on research/writing)
• One-age research proposal DUE
Friday, June 25th (no class day)
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Huanchaco festival of San Pedro/San Pablo is this Friday, Saturday and Sunday
Monday, June 29th through Thursday, July 8th (1 hour+ independent consultations on
research/writing) Includes Fieldnote checks 3 and 4 on July 1st and July 4th
• Discussion topics depend on student activities but will include the following:
• Instructor observation of research techniques
• Development of outlines as models for data gathering
• Writing as disciplined activity
• Keeping in sight the holistic perspective of anthropology
• Reviewing problems in coding
• Discussion of appropriateness of rapid appraisal, participatory, and teamoriented approaches to data collection
• Protecting informant identities
• Responsibilities to local community, clients, colleagues, and the discipline
• Writing executive summaries and making your research useful to specific
audiences
• Fieldwork as personal growth
Friday, July 9 th (4 hours--Presentation of final papers and concluding remarks)
• FINAL REPORT DUE IN CLASS
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