Anthropology
Paolo Favero, Elisabetta Costa, Milena Belloni
5 questions about: your knowledge of the key concepts and debates presented in
the course, you have to be capability to reflect critically and capability to write
logically and consistently. Critical thinking in the exam!
Class 1 – Why anthropology?
Anthropology = the study of humans as cultural and social beings, shaped
and inspired by postcolonial thinking and reflections. Aims to study and describe
in the broadest possible sense what is means to be human. The study of
humanity across time and space. The scientific study of human beings as social
organisms interacting with each other in their environment. Comparative studies.
Different uses, countries and consequences.
Why postcolonial thinking?
It is an uncomfortable past. Anthropology was born during the time of the
European colonies and imperialism. It has still an impact. We are aware of this
past, and the studies from that time because of the racism. The decolonialize
struggle is still recent. The briefly message is that anthropology is a child of the
Western imperialism. Also, a development of science and technology with the
empire. New opportunities of mobilities. Times and spaces changed. These had
an impact of the human behavior.
Anthropology is holistic, interdisciplinary and global:
HOLISTIC = studying human beings as part of a society and the relation to other
things about the human being. We don’t look at one phenomenon itself, we look
at relationships with it. For example, social media as part of the system and the
impact it has on people their live. Each phenomenon in relation to peoples live
and society.
INTERDISCIPLINARY = we can study people in relation to everything. Objects,
media, migration,…
GLOBAL = refers to cultural relativism. A global perspective of the world. We
study human beings and look at the cultural differences between them.
The purpose of anthropology is to make the world safe for human differences.
But… does it study or also produce diversity? It can have an impact in the world
so let’s be careful to not produce differences just like the inferior versus the
superior. We need to be critical about the social effects of studying human
differences.
Ethnography = the main methodological approach of anthropology. Studies
human behavior in the natural settings in which people live. We don’t do
experiments, only by interviewing in the context where people live. Situated
studies. Immersion, mind and body. We fully immerse ourselves in the lives of the
people we study. Also, participant observation by living around people for a long
time and observe them. Putting our feet in other people their shoes. Another
approach then other disciplines.
Het bovenstaande gebeurt constant, je bent altijd andere culturen aan het
observeren.
1
,Cultural relativism = we never judge, the goal is to understand. When we
study our research participants, we try to grasp their point or view without
judging.
Class 2 – The science of ethnography I
The method and the product. Doing fieldwork and being in the field.
Ethnography = a particular method or sets of methods. In its most characteristic
from, it involves the ethnographer participating, overtly or covertly (explaining
who you are or not), in people’s lives for an extended period of time, watching
what happens, listening to what is said and asking questions. It is a family of
methods involving sustained social contract with agents, and richly writing up the
encounter, respecting, recording, representing at least partly in its own terms,
the irreducibility of human experience. Being there and representing.
Ethnos (people, cultures, nations) + graphy (writing)
You can see ethnography as an approach, as a method and as a product. In this
class we are going to look at ethnography as a method and as a product.
Ethnography as a method:
Participant observation is the core method, but there are several other things you
do as an ethnographer in the field. We are in the field because we write
fieldnotes. It is a kind of dairy. Different people have different fieldnotes. We write
books, not just articles. Complexifying what people are doing. You don’t use only
your brain by researching, you also use your heart. You participate and you try to
understand what they do, say and the way they feel about things.
Example of a book: the Argonauts of the Western Pacific from
Malinowski
Marking the distance between colonial officers and missionaries and
ethnographers. Solo enterprise, immersion for long periods of time. By writing a
dairy about gifts, behavior, cultural aspects, spirit, economic lives, politic systems
of the people. Focusing on a specific aspect to draw connections with the more
general context and other aspects of the life of people. Besides all that he also
talks about the imponderabilia of actual life. This is about talking about emotions,
tools, friendships, lifestyle. Here belongs the daily routines of the participants.
Participant observation = the main technique of ethnographic research.
Learning by taking part in the same activities, discussions etc (skills). Learning by
being part of the group (expectations) and by living in the same environment
(affects). And also, learning by sharing. Critical need of multi-sensorial
involvement. What people say, do, feel, smell, hear. You studie the whole context
and you can only do this by being there. For example: listening to the same
lecture and taking notes like the students do, then you can see when the people
are stressed.
Knowledge by full immersion = research as an embodied experience. You forget
what you learned about science, you are going to understand people. The
importance of emotions in understanding other people’s lifeworld’s. Empathy –
feeling with – feeling in – be affected by the same conditions. We are not judging,
we try to understand.
2
, Is observation and participation at the same time a trade off or a synergy?
There are several degrees of participation, which are based on the research topic,
on the setting and also on the relationships with informants. But different implicit
views of ethnography are mutually in trade off: you want to be part of the group,
but you need to be accepted by the group. You may be or may not be willing to
share your life with the people you are studying, you become an insider. The idea
is to reconstruct the complexity by participants withing a specific social, cultural,
political context.
Examples about what is told VS what is practiced:
Understanding the gap between what people say and what people do. The gap
between explicit and implicit knowledge/understanding. A first example is
smugglers (conforming) where people are going to migrate and die in the sea.
People would say that smugglers are bad people. But if the same people are
going to follow them for more weeks, they will understand the smugglers better.
They conform to the overall views on the topic. Another example is a vote and
behavior (incoherence) where people have attitudes towards migrants. But
actually, if you have best friends who are migrants, then you are more supposed
to help them. Voting for certain parties doesn’t necessarily mean that you have a
certain opinion about migrants. People are not always consistent in their vote and
behavoir. A least example is rituals which is about why do we do what? We
would make up an explanation (putting candles on a cake), but we can’t actually
explain why we do this.
Ethnography is not only for anthropologists. Ethnography came in the 50’s to to
sociology. The difference is that anthropologists go far away from home to do
their field work. Sociologists stay closer to home, and they are often active
members of the society they are studying. This brings us to the field.
The field and fieldwork = a practice key to the discipline of anthropology.
Separation from home and going far away, which is a separation from other
researchers. Rural, wild, natural, exotic, local, cultivation. A field as a site
constructed by mapping culture regions area studies of a result of state’s
interests because studying people who were considered remained of humanity at
its origin. Fields relates to the most natural, wild setting, set apart from the
urban, away from home. A field as a site in place and time is fixed in time and
isolated from the outside. You have to understand your field (and the time at the
same time), but that is not easy.
!!! Globalization makes fieldwork very difficult. The interaction between global
and local is important to ethnography. Some products are coming from other
countries. Different places are connected to each other. This could be a challenge
to fieldworkers. From one-sited to multi-sited fieldwork. Multi-sited means
following people, connections, associations, objects, relationships across sites
that are mutually connected with each other.
!!! It also takes time to get trust of your participants. This could be a challenge to
fieldworkers.
!!! You need to know why you are doing research. This needs a strong theoretical
basis.
3
Paolo Favero, Elisabetta Costa, Milena Belloni
5 questions about: your knowledge of the key concepts and debates presented in
the course, you have to be capability to reflect critically and capability to write
logically and consistently. Critical thinking in the exam!
Class 1 – Why anthropology?
Anthropology = the study of humans as cultural and social beings, shaped
and inspired by postcolonial thinking and reflections. Aims to study and describe
in the broadest possible sense what is means to be human. The study of
humanity across time and space. The scientific study of human beings as social
organisms interacting with each other in their environment. Comparative studies.
Different uses, countries and consequences.
Why postcolonial thinking?
It is an uncomfortable past. Anthropology was born during the time of the
European colonies and imperialism. It has still an impact. We are aware of this
past, and the studies from that time because of the racism. The decolonialize
struggle is still recent. The briefly message is that anthropology is a child of the
Western imperialism. Also, a development of science and technology with the
empire. New opportunities of mobilities. Times and spaces changed. These had
an impact of the human behavior.
Anthropology is holistic, interdisciplinary and global:
HOLISTIC = studying human beings as part of a society and the relation to other
things about the human being. We don’t look at one phenomenon itself, we look
at relationships with it. For example, social media as part of the system and the
impact it has on people their live. Each phenomenon in relation to peoples live
and society.
INTERDISCIPLINARY = we can study people in relation to everything. Objects,
media, migration,…
GLOBAL = refers to cultural relativism. A global perspective of the world. We
study human beings and look at the cultural differences between them.
The purpose of anthropology is to make the world safe for human differences.
But… does it study or also produce diversity? It can have an impact in the world
so let’s be careful to not produce differences just like the inferior versus the
superior. We need to be critical about the social effects of studying human
differences.
Ethnography = the main methodological approach of anthropology. Studies
human behavior in the natural settings in which people live. We don’t do
experiments, only by interviewing in the context where people live. Situated
studies. Immersion, mind and body. We fully immerse ourselves in the lives of the
people we study. Also, participant observation by living around people for a long
time and observe them. Putting our feet in other people their shoes. Another
approach then other disciplines.
Het bovenstaande gebeurt constant, je bent altijd andere culturen aan het
observeren.
1
,Cultural relativism = we never judge, the goal is to understand. When we
study our research participants, we try to grasp their point or view without
judging.
Class 2 – The science of ethnography I
The method and the product. Doing fieldwork and being in the field.
Ethnography = a particular method or sets of methods. In its most characteristic
from, it involves the ethnographer participating, overtly or covertly (explaining
who you are or not), in people’s lives for an extended period of time, watching
what happens, listening to what is said and asking questions. It is a family of
methods involving sustained social contract with agents, and richly writing up the
encounter, respecting, recording, representing at least partly in its own terms,
the irreducibility of human experience. Being there and representing.
Ethnos (people, cultures, nations) + graphy (writing)
You can see ethnography as an approach, as a method and as a product. In this
class we are going to look at ethnography as a method and as a product.
Ethnography as a method:
Participant observation is the core method, but there are several other things you
do as an ethnographer in the field. We are in the field because we write
fieldnotes. It is a kind of dairy. Different people have different fieldnotes. We write
books, not just articles. Complexifying what people are doing. You don’t use only
your brain by researching, you also use your heart. You participate and you try to
understand what they do, say and the way they feel about things.
Example of a book: the Argonauts of the Western Pacific from
Malinowski
Marking the distance between colonial officers and missionaries and
ethnographers. Solo enterprise, immersion for long periods of time. By writing a
dairy about gifts, behavior, cultural aspects, spirit, economic lives, politic systems
of the people. Focusing on a specific aspect to draw connections with the more
general context and other aspects of the life of people. Besides all that he also
talks about the imponderabilia of actual life. This is about talking about emotions,
tools, friendships, lifestyle. Here belongs the daily routines of the participants.
Participant observation = the main technique of ethnographic research.
Learning by taking part in the same activities, discussions etc (skills). Learning by
being part of the group (expectations) and by living in the same environment
(affects). And also, learning by sharing. Critical need of multi-sensorial
involvement. What people say, do, feel, smell, hear. You studie the whole context
and you can only do this by being there. For example: listening to the same
lecture and taking notes like the students do, then you can see when the people
are stressed.
Knowledge by full immersion = research as an embodied experience. You forget
what you learned about science, you are going to understand people. The
importance of emotions in understanding other people’s lifeworld’s. Empathy –
feeling with – feeling in – be affected by the same conditions. We are not judging,
we try to understand.
2
, Is observation and participation at the same time a trade off or a synergy?
There are several degrees of participation, which are based on the research topic,
on the setting and also on the relationships with informants. But different implicit
views of ethnography are mutually in trade off: you want to be part of the group,
but you need to be accepted by the group. You may be or may not be willing to
share your life with the people you are studying, you become an insider. The idea
is to reconstruct the complexity by participants withing a specific social, cultural,
political context.
Examples about what is told VS what is practiced:
Understanding the gap between what people say and what people do. The gap
between explicit and implicit knowledge/understanding. A first example is
smugglers (conforming) where people are going to migrate and die in the sea.
People would say that smugglers are bad people. But if the same people are
going to follow them for more weeks, they will understand the smugglers better.
They conform to the overall views on the topic. Another example is a vote and
behavior (incoherence) where people have attitudes towards migrants. But
actually, if you have best friends who are migrants, then you are more supposed
to help them. Voting for certain parties doesn’t necessarily mean that you have a
certain opinion about migrants. People are not always consistent in their vote and
behavoir. A least example is rituals which is about why do we do what? We
would make up an explanation (putting candles on a cake), but we can’t actually
explain why we do this.
Ethnography is not only for anthropologists. Ethnography came in the 50’s to to
sociology. The difference is that anthropologists go far away from home to do
their field work. Sociologists stay closer to home, and they are often active
members of the society they are studying. This brings us to the field.
The field and fieldwork = a practice key to the discipline of anthropology.
Separation from home and going far away, which is a separation from other
researchers. Rural, wild, natural, exotic, local, cultivation. A field as a site
constructed by mapping culture regions area studies of a result of state’s
interests because studying people who were considered remained of humanity at
its origin. Fields relates to the most natural, wild setting, set apart from the
urban, away from home. A field as a site in place and time is fixed in time and
isolated from the outside. You have to understand your field (and the time at the
same time), but that is not easy.
!!! Globalization makes fieldwork very difficult. The interaction between global
and local is important to ethnography. Some products are coming from other
countries. Different places are connected to each other. This could be a challenge
to fieldworkers. From one-sited to multi-sited fieldwork. Multi-sited means
following people, connections, associations, objects, relationships across sites
that are mutually connected with each other.
!!! It also takes time to get trust of your participants. This could be a challenge to
fieldworkers.
!!! You need to know why you are doing research. This needs a strong theoretical
basis.
3
