Transcript fieldwork.ppt

FIELDWORK
Imagine you wanted to understand
how tourism had affected
gender relations among the Huli.
1. What would you do to prepare
yourself for the fieldwork?
2. What would you do when you
got there?
Young Huli girls of
Papua New Guinea
dressed for traditional
dance
3. How would you structure your
research and what would you do
when you got back?
“Imagine yourself suddenly set
down surrounded by all your gear
on a tropical beach close to a native
village while the launch or dinghy
which has brought you sails away
out of sight….Imagine yourself then,
making your first entry into the
village….Some natives flock around
you, especially if they smell tobacco”
(Malinowski 1922)
kitchen in a local house
special dinner for a visitor
“I looked up and gasped when I saw
a dozen burley, naked, sweaty,
hideous men staring at us down the
shafts of their drawn arrows! I am
not ashamed to admit that had there
been a diplomatic way out, I would
have ended my fieldwork then and
there….I wondered why I ever
decided to switch from physics and
engineering in the first place.
“Chagnon 1983
Mt Hagen
The market
Local street
General store
BEFORE YOU GO
1. Funding
2. Health Precautions
3. Language
4. Personal Affairs
5. Authorization/Permission
6. Research – Group and Topic
What is the goal of Fieldwork?
“to grasp the native’s point of view,
his relation to life, to realise his vision
of his world”. Malinowski 1922
CONDUCTING FIELDWORK
1. Establish Rapport
2. Find an “Informant”
3. Learn Language
4. Take notes, photograph, conduct census,
interview, analyze documents, case histories
5. Participate and Observe
Stages of Field Research
1. Selecting a Research Problem
2. Formulating a Research Design
3. Collecting the Data
4. Analyzing the Data
5. Interpreting the Data
6. Present the Results