Course Syllabus 2008 |
Summer Ethnographic Field School in Huanchaco Peru Instructor: Bonnie Glass-Coffin, Ph.D. 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: Student Reports from Team-based research conducted during 2006 field season. Available at www.usu.edu/anthro/peru/2006.html Action Research (2 nd 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 Asset Based Community Development Handbook (John Allen, et al, available on the website at www.usu.edu/anthro/peru/2006.html Course requirements and evaluations: 1) Classroom meetings, research team meetings and one-on-one discussions with instructor = 75 points Course Outline: * 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 10th (4 hours) * "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 design/operationalism
Wednesday, June 11th (4 hours) * DUE in class: write-up of unobtrusive observation * Introduction to mapping, charting, canvassing * Exercise #2: community-resource maps of Huanchaco
Thursday, June 12th (4 hours) * 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 13th (4 hours) * 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 16th (4 hours) * Defining community development 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, focus groups * 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 * Preparing and checking your equipment * Recording, charting and transcribing the interview * Semantic analysis and coding for themes. * Defining research possibilities in terms of community development issues * Exercise #4: asset inventories (collecting and publishing information)
Tuesday, June 17th (4 hours) * DUE in class: analysis of local documents related to asset based community development 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 or focus group:
Wednesday, June 18th (3 hours) * How to construct a research design/formulate a research proposal * Quantification in cultural anthropology * 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 19th (4 hours) * 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
Friday, June 20th (4 hours) * 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) * Introduction to participatory research * In-class completion of a participatory research activity ( * Identifying sources for background information * Selecting appropriate methodologies
Tuesday, June 24th (2 hours + independent consultations on research/writing) * Coding and analyzing fieldnotes * Memoing and developing themes * Individualized help with research protocols and techniques
Wednesday, June 25th (2 hours + independent consultations on research/writing) * One-page research proposal DUE
Thursday, June 26th
Friday, June 27 th-Thursday, July 10 th * 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
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