Summer Ethnographic Field School in Huanchaco Peru
June 12-July 14, 2006
Associated course title: Anth/Soc 5130/6130
Ethnographic Field School
Instructor: Bonnie Glass-Coffin, Ph.D.
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:
This course combines classroom-based learning with supervised action-oriented field
research that emphasizes asset-based community development. Students will be
introduced to a "tool-kit" of methods (emphasizing participatory research protocols) that
include unobtrusive observation, resource mapping, participant observation, ethnographic
and life-history interviewing, focus groups, rapid assessment procedures, and more. They
will learn how to record and analyze data, and how to work with community leaders to
facilitate inventorying of community assets and implementation of community-defined
goals for change. As part of this course, students are introduced to guiding principles for
ethnographic research, theoretical and methodological paradigms that guide research
design as well as ethical considerations for research and reporting. They learn how
document their work for both private reflection and public reporting. Then, in
collaboration with community research partners, students design, conduct, and "write-up"
ethnographic and project reports using methods learned in the classroom.
Required readings (these are provided by the instructor as part of student program fee)
and may include chapters from any or all of the following texts. Reading assignments
TBA:
Action Research (2nd edition) by Ernest T. Stringer (this will be our main text)
Whose Reality Counts: Putting the first last by Robert Chambers
Participant Observation: A Guide for Fieldworkers by Kathleen and Billie DeWalt
Native Tours: The Anthropology of Travel and Tourism by Erve Chambers
Rapid Assessment Procedures for Nutrition and Primary Health Care by Susan CM
Scrimshaw and Elena Hurtado
Building Communities from the Inside Out: a Path Towrad Finding and Mobilizing a
Community’s Assets by John P. Kretzmann and John L. McKnight
Building on Assets and Mobilizing for Collective Action: Community Guide by John C.
Allen, et al
Diagnostico, Planifiacion, Monitoreo, Evaluacion by Frans Geilfus
Handbook of Action Research, Edited by Peter Reason and Hilary Bradbury
Power, Process and Participation—Tools for Change, edited by Rachel Slocum, et al
Applied Anthropology: A Career-Oriented Approach by Margaret A. Gwynne
Asking and Listening: Ethnography as Personal Adaptation by Paul Bohannan and Dirk
van der Elst
Projects in Ethnographic Research by Michael V. Angrosino
Doing Critical Ethnography by Jim Thomas
Doing Cultural Anthropology: Projects for Ethnographic Data Collection by Michael V.
Angrosino
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
5) Written ethnographic report = 65 points
6) Oral presentation of report = 10 points
Course Outline:
Monday, June 12th (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 o
* The researcher as instrument: learning to differentiate between observation and
inference o
* Exercise #1: field-trip to Trujillo: unobtrusive observation exercise (with focus on
proxemics)
Tuesday, June 13th (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 14th (4 hours)
* DUE in class: write-up of unobtrusive observation
* Introduction to mapping, charting, canvassing
* Exercise #2: community-resource maps of Huanchaco
Thursday, June 15th (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 16th (4 hours)
Required reading: DeWalt, pp. 209-235
* Discussion of readings: strategies for expanding fieldnotes
* Methods for recalling in order to write
* Perspectives and points of view
* Expanding jottings
* Setting the scene o Incorporating dialogue
* Sketches and episodes
* Exercise #3 (continued): writing it up.
Monday, June 19th (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 20th (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 21st (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 o To
provide statistical power
* How to quantify:
* Suggesting hypotheses o 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 22nd (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 23rd (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 23rd (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
Monday, June 26th (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
Tuesday, June 27th (2 hours + independent consultations on research/writing)
* Coding and analyzing fieldnotes
* Memoing and developing themes
* Individualized help with research protocols and techniques
Wednesday, June 28th (2 hours + independent consultations on research/writing)
* One-age research proposal DUE
Thursday, June 29th (no class day)
Huanchaco festival of San Pedro/San Pablo is today
Friday, June 30th-Thursday, July 11th
(1 hour+ independent consultations on research/writing) Includes Fieldnote checks
* 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 team-oriented
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 12th (4 hours--Presentation of final papers and concluding remarks)
* FINAL REPORT DUE IN CLASS