I will send you the chapter PDFS
Write a six-to-eight–page essay (not including your bibliography), double-spaced (except for the bibliography), on the topic of ethnographic field methods. Please include the following topics:
- What is ethnography?
- What are some of the main issues in conducting ethnographic research?
- What is meant by participant observation, and what are the tensions with this approach?
- What is meant by styles of fieldwork, and what four main factors together shape the style of fieldwork chosen by a researcher?
- What is the relationship of fieldwork style to theory and problem? How does the setting of fieldwork relate to these factors?
Please draw on the readings in Ethnographic Research and Being There for your exposition. You may also illustrate points from either your own experience or from other ethnographies you have read.
Please support your argument by citing your sources where appropriate, including indicating page numbers as needed, and be sure to attribute all direct quotations. Provide a bibliography at the end of your essay that includes your sources. For both the Ellen and Watson texts, the individual chapters have titles and authors. Please cite the chapter, or section if necessary, by its author and date in parentheses in your text—as in (Holy 1984, 19) or (Shore 1999, 27)—and in the bibliography as (for example):
Holy, Ladislav. “Chapter 2: Theory, Methodology and the Research Process.” In Ethnographic Research: A Guide to General Conduct, edited by R. F. Ellen, 13–34. London: Academic Press, 1984.
or
Shore, Cris. “Chapter 1: Fictions of Fieldwork: Depicting the ‘Self’ in Ethnographic Writing (Italy).” In Being There: Fieldwork in Anthropology, edited by C. W. Watson, 25–48. London, Sterling, VA: Pluto Press, 1999.
The general structure of your essay must include the following:
- An introductory section of one to several paragraphs
- The body of the essay, which will address the above questions in a coherent fashion
- A summary and conclusions section, which will pull together the argument and present in brief fashion the main points of the paper
You may divide the essay into titled sections such as “Introduction,” “Participant Observation,” “Fieldwork Style,” “Summary,” and so on, if that will clarify the structure of your exposition for the reader.
