Anthropological Research in Practice
Exam overview
Lecture 1: Social science in practice: an overview
Introduction
This course is about:
- Learn about the process that gets you to the end-product (book, article, etc.)
- Fieldwork
People think that the only way of doing fieldwork is going to remote places and
emerge yourself for months of years. But this course will show you other
variations of conducting fieldwork.
This cartoon makes fun of the idea of anthropologist. The indigenous people are seeing
the anthropologist coming and are aware that they must present themselves as
authentic as possible, so they hide all their modern things. Anthropologist is the basic white, colonial
men.
The most important thing in anthropological research:
Make the strange familiar and the familiar strange
Learning goals
You’ll learn:
the main research methods anthropologist make use of
why we make use of these research methods
how to make use of these research methods
Reflect on the relationship between data and knowledge production
(this has also to do with ethics. There is one lecture dedicated to ethics
Exam is very much lecture based. The reading is additional!
1
,Anthropological research
There are basic elements of anthropological research
1. Literature review
2. Concepts or theories
Deduct some issues in the theory of debate and come up with some concepts and theories
yourself
3. Formulate a research question
4. Operationalise research question (research design)
5. Sampling cases (witch populations and which place)
6. Fieldwork: Data collection (findings)
7. Data analysis
8. Writing up
These steps are not set in stone. You don’t have to start with a literature review and you can choice
your own way.
Inductive vs deductive
There are two different ways of doing research.
This has to do with how you view reality.
Is reality something what is outside of us and just out there and something we can study?
Or is reality something the emerges from the minds of the people and the people around
them? Is reality made by interpretating and acting?
Deductive approach Inductive approach
The reality is out there and something we can The reality is created by the people themselves
study and therefore cannot be studied
Testing theory Generating theory
Objectivism: Constructionism:
social reality as external to us social reality as emerging in practice
(‘mind-independent’) (‘webs of significance)
Positivism Interpretivism
Value-free Value-laden
Quantitative Qualitative
The idea is that after doing your own research, you create your own opinion which one of those two
approaches works for you.
However, anthropological research in practice is not so black and white and you will often use a little
bit of both. (e.g. you might want to test your theory, but at some point in your research you generate
theory)
You will always make your own choices in your research how to conduct research and how to make
specific aspects of both approaches.
2
,Research question
The research question is the most important thing in your research. You don´t have to start with it,
but it is always key!
Why formulate a research question?
“Research question force you to consider the issues of what it is you want to find out about much
more precisely and rigorously. Developing research question is a matter of narrowing down and
focusing more directly on what it is what you want to know about” (Bryman 2016:8)
So: focus and being more specific in a consistent way
How to formulate a research question?
Start with defining a research topic
(Something that intrigues you, that makes you curious, concerns or moves you)
In which are combined:
A community (who are they?)
A place (where are they?)
A practice (what do they do?)
It has to be feasible (=uitvoerbaar) and accessible!
Where can you take access?
Research question criteria:
Clear
have you clearly formulated what you want to know? Are there links between the
(sub)questions?
Rich
Is it an open-ended question? Can you achieve sufficient depth? Not too narrow, but not too
broad!
Relevance
Is there a connection with established theory? Or Is it societally relevant?
Challenging
Will it make an original contribution? Does it make the strange familiar and the familiar
strange?
Feasible
Do you have access in both material and social terms?
Mostly also about money! And social terms: do you have contacts in these places already?
We always keep reformulating the question over and over again!
3
, Example research question
When the war in Ukraine started, there was an increase of Ukrainian refugees in the Netherlands.
There was an article about giving them a warm welcome here in sports. Apparently sports is a way to
make ourselves at home. Teacher wants to research this.
The research topic is: sports as playground for socio-cultural integration
She already narrowed it down: the concept of integration into soci-cultural integration.
Second step is the literature review
Community: Refugees
Place: The Netherlands (also: sport facilities in the Netherlands)
Practice: Sports
Research question: How does sport participation affect the socio-cultural integration of refugees in
the Netherlands?
Critique on this question:
We can make this question more specific:
- What is sport? Specific sports? Are there some national Ukrainian sports to take into
account?
- What refugees? Specific to Ukrainian refugees
- This question already assumes a relationship between sport participation and refugees. But it
is also based on previous studies.
Ethics is important in research. Refugees are or feel vulnerable. Do you want to study them? Should
you study them? And how do you do that?
This is a how-question. There are also different formats.
Why is not so good in social scientific research (but many people disagree on this)
4
Exam overview
Lecture 1: Social science in practice: an overview
Introduction
This course is about:
- Learn about the process that gets you to the end-product (book, article, etc.)
- Fieldwork
People think that the only way of doing fieldwork is going to remote places and
emerge yourself for months of years. But this course will show you other
variations of conducting fieldwork.
This cartoon makes fun of the idea of anthropologist. The indigenous people are seeing
the anthropologist coming and are aware that they must present themselves as
authentic as possible, so they hide all their modern things. Anthropologist is the basic white, colonial
men.
The most important thing in anthropological research:
Make the strange familiar and the familiar strange
Learning goals
You’ll learn:
the main research methods anthropologist make use of
why we make use of these research methods
how to make use of these research methods
Reflect on the relationship between data and knowledge production
(this has also to do with ethics. There is one lecture dedicated to ethics
Exam is very much lecture based. The reading is additional!
1
,Anthropological research
There are basic elements of anthropological research
1. Literature review
2. Concepts or theories
Deduct some issues in the theory of debate and come up with some concepts and theories
yourself
3. Formulate a research question
4. Operationalise research question (research design)
5. Sampling cases (witch populations and which place)
6. Fieldwork: Data collection (findings)
7. Data analysis
8. Writing up
These steps are not set in stone. You don’t have to start with a literature review and you can choice
your own way.
Inductive vs deductive
There are two different ways of doing research.
This has to do with how you view reality.
Is reality something what is outside of us and just out there and something we can study?
Or is reality something the emerges from the minds of the people and the people around
them? Is reality made by interpretating and acting?
Deductive approach Inductive approach
The reality is out there and something we can The reality is created by the people themselves
study and therefore cannot be studied
Testing theory Generating theory
Objectivism: Constructionism:
social reality as external to us social reality as emerging in practice
(‘mind-independent’) (‘webs of significance)
Positivism Interpretivism
Value-free Value-laden
Quantitative Qualitative
The idea is that after doing your own research, you create your own opinion which one of those two
approaches works for you.
However, anthropological research in practice is not so black and white and you will often use a little
bit of both. (e.g. you might want to test your theory, but at some point in your research you generate
theory)
You will always make your own choices in your research how to conduct research and how to make
specific aspects of both approaches.
2
,Research question
The research question is the most important thing in your research. You don´t have to start with it,
but it is always key!
Why formulate a research question?
“Research question force you to consider the issues of what it is you want to find out about much
more precisely and rigorously. Developing research question is a matter of narrowing down and
focusing more directly on what it is what you want to know about” (Bryman 2016:8)
So: focus and being more specific in a consistent way
How to formulate a research question?
Start with defining a research topic
(Something that intrigues you, that makes you curious, concerns or moves you)
In which are combined:
A community (who are they?)
A place (where are they?)
A practice (what do they do?)
It has to be feasible (=uitvoerbaar) and accessible!
Where can you take access?
Research question criteria:
Clear
have you clearly formulated what you want to know? Are there links between the
(sub)questions?
Rich
Is it an open-ended question? Can you achieve sufficient depth? Not too narrow, but not too
broad!
Relevance
Is there a connection with established theory? Or Is it societally relevant?
Challenging
Will it make an original contribution? Does it make the strange familiar and the familiar
strange?
Feasible
Do you have access in both material and social terms?
Mostly also about money! And social terms: do you have contacts in these places already?
We always keep reformulating the question over and over again!
3
, Example research question
When the war in Ukraine started, there was an increase of Ukrainian refugees in the Netherlands.
There was an article about giving them a warm welcome here in sports. Apparently sports is a way to
make ourselves at home. Teacher wants to research this.
The research topic is: sports as playground for socio-cultural integration
She already narrowed it down: the concept of integration into soci-cultural integration.
Second step is the literature review
Community: Refugees
Place: The Netherlands (also: sport facilities in the Netherlands)
Practice: Sports
Research question: How does sport participation affect the socio-cultural integration of refugees in
the Netherlands?
Critique on this question:
We can make this question more specific:
- What is sport? Specific sports? Are there some national Ukrainian sports to take into
account?
- What refugees? Specific to Ukrainian refugees
- This question already assumes a relationship between sport participation and refugees. But it
is also based on previous studies.
Ethics is important in research. Refugees are or feel vulnerable. Do you want to study them? Should
you study them? And how do you do that?
This is a how-question. There are also different formats.
Why is not so good in social scientific research (but many people disagree on this)
4
