Stepping in and Stepping Out: Understanding Cultures

• Fieldworking requires curiosity and attention-to-detail– Over the course of your ethnographic project, you

will look, listen, collect, question, and interpret

• Ethnography: the study of people in cultures– Famous fieldworkers:• Jane Goodall, Clifford Geertz, Oliver Sacks,

Margaret Mead,

Culture? Subculture?

• Culture“…an invisible web of

behaviors, patterns, rules, and rituals of a group of people who have contact with one another and share common languages” (3)

• Subculture“…any self-identified group

of people who share language, stories, rituals, behaviors, and values” (6)

What is the difference? And why it significant?

We must be aware of:

• Colonization: the domination (not necessarily physically) of one culture by the values of another; similar to ethnocentrism

• Our assumptions, preconceptions, and biases: our untested attitudes/theories about unfamiliar people, places, or ideas (often based upon the experiences from your own life, or from a limited or second-hand idea about people, places, or ideas.)

Perspectives: Outsider and Insider

Outsider (etic)– Your initial perspective

as a beginning fieldworker

– Also, the ability to “step out” of our own groups and identities and to attempt to see things objectively.

– In our field notes, what we record.

Insider (emic)– The perspective of the

members of the cultural group you will be studying

– Also, the developing ability to “step in” to unfamiliar groups and to examine them closely, subjectively.

– In our field notes, how we respond.

Looking Forward: The Research Portfolio

• You should have a sturdy notebook, and you should back up you data often, either by photocopying it, scanning it, or typing it into a computer.– If you do type your field notes, make certain that you

back up you data with a flash/jump drive, external hard drive, etc.!

• You might also consider having an actual research portfolio – a place where you can keep fliers, notes, photographs, and other artifacts from your fieldworking

Four Main Activities of Fieldworking

(And how having a good research portfolio can help

you)

1. Collecting

You will collect observations (recorded as your field notes), and interviews – but you may also collect maps (existing or ones that you sketch), transcripts, photographs, poems (your or others), newsletters, newspaper clippings, advertisements, programs, etc.

2. Selecting

• You can’t select until you collect!• But…once you have begun to assemble a

thorough collection of field notes and a research portfolio, you will have many different parts from while to construct a whole ethnographic essay

3. Reflecting

• “the act of considering thoughtfully.”• When you reflect upon your project and look

through your notes/portfolio, you need time. • Make certain you set aside intervals to reflect

upon field notes, interviews, etc. and to analyze and synthesize the data

Projecting• Oftentimes, projecting is a by-product of reflecting:

through reflection you can identify areas where you want to concentrate your focus, questions you want to ask, informants you want to interview, and areas of the study that might need to be further developed.

• Projecting allows you to analyze your progress, look forward, conceptualize your project (as it shapes up), and to realize what you need to do.

• In short, projecting is about looking at where you’ve been, analyzing where you are, and identifying where you want to be.