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Anthropology/Sociology 292
Mr. Caulkins Goodnow 301
Telephone 269 3136
Office Hours: MFW 10:00-11:50
MWF 8:00 to 8:50
Steiner 107
CAULKINS@grinnell.edu
ETHNOGRAPHIC RESEARCH IN COMPLEX SOCIETIES
"Research is formalized curiosity"-- Zora Neale Hurston, "Dust Tracks on a Road"
Course Content and Objectives
This course is not designed to transform you into a professional sociologist or anthropologist.
What you learn here should be useful if you become a journalist, social worker, market
researcher, nurse, sales person, hospital administrator, lawyer, corporation executive, union
organizer, politician, community development worker, urban planner, or novelist, among other
occupations. What you learn in this course will also be an important foundation for graduate
work in anthropology or sociology, although I do not assume that you have career interests in
either of those fields.
My fundamental assumption is that a liberal arts education ought to provide you with some
insights into the processes by which disciplines construct, organize, and interpret information. In
this course you will learn about these processes through first-hand experience as well as through
readings and lectures. We will carry out primary ethnographic field research, in which you
construct primary data from interviews and/or observations and analysis of written and oral
discourse. Second, we will devote some time to cross-cultural or comparative research,
reviewing studies that utilize secondary data--data collected by others and preserved either as
full-text or numerically coded data. The most complete source of organized data from other
societies is the Human Relations Area Files. These are the two basic kinds of research carried out
by anthropologists: cultural description and cultural comparison. This course will also emphasize
using the results of anthropological research to help shape policy and illuminate societal
problems.
On such society problem will be the focus our research this semester: "stress" at Grinnell
College. We will employ a variety of techniques for probing the meaning of "stress" at Grinnell.
Unstructured Interviews: First, Director of Institutional Research Carol Trosset will do
unstructured interviews with all members of the class about their experiences of stress and will
report back to the class on January 30.
Discourse Analysis: We will do an analysis of journal by a Grinnell student who recorded his
daily experiences, including the occasions when he felt stressed. You will report on
conversations that you hear or have had dealing with stress.
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Open-ended, In-depth interview with one student: An exploration of the meaning of stress in
student life.
Semi-structured Domain Analysis "Freelisting" Interviews with 5 students: "What kinds of
situations cause you stress?" "What kinds of stress are there?" "What can you (students) do to
relieve stress (of that kind)?"
Structured Interviews with 5 Students: Building on the earlier information from open-ended
and semi-structured interviews we will develop a set of scenarios for students to respond to: "On
a scale of 1 to 5, how stressful would this be to you?" "To your friends?"
Decision Analysis: Interview a student about a decision to seek peer or professional support in
dealing with stress.
Semi-structured Interview: Over Spring Break interview a non-Grinnell adult about the
stresses that they experience in their life/occupation.
Cultural Consonance Interviews: Possibly developing measures of cultural consonance and
individual behavior as suggested by Dressler and his associates.
Our two books, by LeCompte and Schensul (Designing & Conducting Ethnographic Research
and by Handwerker (Quick Ethnography) provide concrete and will-illustrated guides to the
process of ethnographic research: (a) the literature search on your topic or research problem, (b)
research design, (c) creating a sample/sampling frame, (d) data construction through participant
observation and/or interviewing,(e) writing field notes and entering the information in a
database, (f) doing both qualitative and quantitative analysis, and (g) interpreting your results.
Our goal is to have a better understanding of the meaning and construction of "stress" at Grinnell
College.
General Course Goals:
To familiarize students with:

ethical issues in research

research design

writing of field notes

variety of ethnographic research techniques

approaches to the analysis of ethnographic data

the uses and limitations of ethnographic research
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
the personal challenges of ethnography, through personal experience
Tentative Summary of Written Assignments:
Class attendance and participation is required.
Fieldwork 50% of Grade

12 Interviews with students (with field notes and transcriptions)

Written analyzes of the interviews

1 interview with a non-Grinnell adult plus transcription
Class participation 30% of Grade
Final Project 20%: Research design for a research problem of particular
interest to you
READING LIST
Texts on Ethnographic Research:
W. Penn Handwerker, 2001, Quick Ethnography, AltaMira Press
Margaret LeCompte and Jean J. Schensul, 1999 Designing and Conducting Ethnographic
Research. Walnut Creek (CA):Alta Mira. (Volume 1)
Articles on Ethnographic Research
*Douglas Caulkins, 1999 "Student-Faculty Research: Collaboration in a Liberal Arts College"
Anthropology of Work Review. XIX, (4) Pp 18-23.
*Anna Painter and Douglas Caulkins, 1999 "Work and Success in a De-Industrialized English
Region." Anthropology of Work Review. XIX, (4) Pp 23-28.
William Dressler, et al. 2002 Cultura E Estresse Psiocologico
William Dressler, et al. manuscript: Measuring Cultural Consonance: Examples with Special
Reference to Measurement Theory in Anthropology.
*1994 Douglas Caulkins "Norwegians: Cooperative Individualists" in Carol Ember, Melvin
Ember, and David Levinson, Portraits of Culture: Ethnographic Originals, Prentice Hall.
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2001 Carol Trosset and Douglas Caulkins, "Triangulation and Confirmation in the Study of
Welsh Concepts of Personhood.@ Journal of Anthropological Research. 57 (1): 61-81.
2001 Douglas Caulkins AConsensus, Clines, and Edges in Celtic Cultures." Cross-Cultural
Research.35 (2):109-126.
2003 Douglas Caulkins Globalization and the Local Hero: Becoming a Small-scale Entrepreneur
in Scotland. Anthropology of Work Review XXIII (1-2) Spring and Summer. 2002 (pages 24-29).
2001 Carol Trosset and Douglas Caulkins, "Triangulation and Confirmation in the Study of
Welsh Concepts of Personhood.@ Journal of Anthropological Research. 57 (1): 61-81.
2002 Carol Trosset and Douglas Caulkins. Cultural Values and Social Organization in Wales: Is
Ethnicity the Locus of Culture? In Nigel Rapport, (ed.) "British Subjects" An Anthropology of
Britain. Oxford: Berg.(239-256).
*2000 Douglas Caulkins, Anna Painter, and Tanya Hedges "Regional Identity and the Prospect
of Devolution in Northeast England: A Method for Cross-Regional Comparison." World
Cultures: Journal of Comparative and Cross-Cultural Research. 11 (2):121-137.
*2000 Tanya Hedges and Douglas Caulkins, "Consensus or Contestation in the Construction of
Irish Identity." World Cultures: Journal of Comparative and Cross-Cultural Research. 11(1):
66-76
Video: Anthropologists at Work. National Association of Practicing Anthropologists.
Cross-Cultural Research
2004 Douglas Caulkins, Globalization and the Regional Development: The Evolution of a
Comparative Project. Manuscript
1999 Douglas Caulkins, Jonathan Andelson, Vicki Bentley-Condit, and Kathryn Kamp.
ADiscovery-Mode Teaching using the Electronic Human Relations Area Files for Cross-Cultural
Comparison.@ Cross Cultural Research 33 (3) (278-297).
1999 Douglas Caulkins, AIs Mary Douglas=s Grid /Group Analysis Useful for Cross-Cultural
Research? A Cross-Cultural Research, 33 (1) Feb (108-128).
2002 Douglas Caulkins and Christina Peters. Grid-Group Analysis, Social Capital, and
Entrepreneurship in North American Immigrant Groups. Cross-Cultural Research. 36 (1): 48-72.
On Reserve:
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H. Russell Bernard, 1994 Research Methods in Cultural Anthropology. (Second Edition)
Newbury Park, CA.: Sage
H. Russell Bernard (editor) 1998 Handbook of Research Methods in Cultural Anthropology.
Sage. (For reference for comprehensive reviews of particular topics).
SCHEDULE
M 1/ 19
W 1/21
F 1/23
M 1/26
W 1/28
Introduction: Ethnography of Stress at Grinnell College
LeCompte and Schensul, 1999 Designing and Conducting
Ethnographic Research , Chapters 1 (What is Ethnography) and 2
(When and Where is Ethnography Used?) Discussion: How do we
describe ethnography and what is it good for? Given L&S's
criteria, would ethnography be a good tool for investigating
stress?
LeCompte and Schensul, 1999 Designing and Conducting
Ethnographic Research , Chapters 3 (Paradigms)
1994 Douglas Caulkins "Norwegians: Cooperative Individualists"
in Carol Ember, Melvin Ember, and David Levinson, Portraits of
Culture: Ethnographic Originals, Prentice Hall. Discussion: How
does this chapter illustrate or fail to illustrate LeCompte &
Schensul's contentions (chapters 1-3)?
Douglas Caulkins, 1999 "Student-Faculty Research: Collaboration
in a Liberal Arts College" Anthropology of Work Review. XIX, (4)
Pp 18-23. What are the characteristic of the collaborator role?
Why is the author never finished with a research question?
Anna Painter and Douglas Caulkins, 1999 "Work and Success in a
De-Industrialized English Region." Anthropology of Work Review.
XIX, (4) Pp 23-28 Discussion: what further questions does this
research raise?
Handwerker, Quick Ethnography, Introduction. Discussion: What
is the significance of those "false assumptions"? How does that
change your understanding of ethnography?
2000 Tanya Hedges and Douglas Caulkins, "Consensus or
Contestation in the Construction of Irish Identity." World Cultures:
Journal of Comparative and Cross-Cultural Research. 11(1): 66-76
2000 Douglas Caulkins, Anna Painter, and Tanya Hedges
"Regional Identity and the Prospect of Devolution in Northeast
England: A Method for Cross-Regional Comparison." World
Cultures: Journal of Comparative and Cross-Cultural Research. 11
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F 1/30
(2):121-137
Discussion: what further research questions do these reports
raise?
Feedback on interviews