Tuesday, September 10, 2019
Chapter 2
Modes of Ethnographic Fieldwork: A Short Story
The Positivist Approach
• Positivism: the view that there is a reality “out there” that can be detected through the
senses and that there is a single, appropriate scienti c method for investigating that reality
• E.g. Mead’s application of controlled comparison to study gender roles in four societies
• Objective knowledge: knowledge about reality that is absolute and true for all people, in all
times and places
• Separating facts from values
Anthropology and science
• Positivist approach
• Field as a living laboratory
• Controlled comparison
Participant observation
• Franz Boas
• Bronislaw Malinowski
• Margaret Mead
Ethics of Fieldwork
• Positivism contains implicit hierarchy between researcher and
participants
• Approaching human beings as ‘objects of study’,mischaracterizes the subject matter of
anthropology
• Need to recognize ethical obligations to other human beings
• Anthropologists are involved in human interactions and their observations are not entirely
value free
Does rejecting positivism make eld work an exercise in subjective meaning?
• Meaning that seems true to a particular person, based on his or her personal values, beliefs,
opinions and assumptions
1
fi fi
Chapter 2
Modes of Ethnographic Fieldwork: A Short Story
The Positivist Approach
• Positivism: the view that there is a reality “out there” that can be detected through the
senses and that there is a single, appropriate scienti c method for investigating that reality
• E.g. Mead’s application of controlled comparison to study gender roles in four societies
• Objective knowledge: knowledge about reality that is absolute and true for all people, in all
times and places
• Separating facts from values
Anthropology and science
• Positivist approach
• Field as a living laboratory
• Controlled comparison
Participant observation
• Franz Boas
• Bronislaw Malinowski
• Margaret Mead
Ethics of Fieldwork
• Positivism contains implicit hierarchy between researcher and
participants
• Approaching human beings as ‘objects of study’,mischaracterizes the subject matter of
anthropology
• Need to recognize ethical obligations to other human beings
• Anthropologists are involved in human interactions and their observations are not entirely
value free
Does rejecting positivism make eld work an exercise in subjective meaning?
• Meaning that seems true to a particular person, based on his or her personal values, beliefs,
opinions and assumptions
1
fi fi
