Читать книгу Anthropology For Dummies - Cameron M. Smith - Страница 63

Cultural anthropologists gather their raw data — information about life in traditional societies — in a number of ways, but a major technique is participant observation. This method includes living with or among the people they observe and even taking part in those peoples’ activities, such as foraging or religious ceremonies.

Early anthropologists didn’t spend too much time thinking about how to do this work effectively and were often so scientifically detached from the people they were studying that they came away with inaccurate reports. As the pendulum has swung the other way in the last few decades, some anthropologists became so personally involved with the societies they were investigating that their own reports were too personal and still missed real understanding. Cultural anthropologists must tread a fine line between these extremes if they want to claim any kind of scientific objectivity.

Today, most cultural anthropology graduate students spend a long time studying how to do participant observation before simply heading out to do it. They often study

 Effective and respectful ways to introduce themselves to a community they want to study. (How would you react if someone from, say, New Guinea arrived at your doorstep and asked whether she could live with you for a few months, just out of her own curiosity?)

 Culturally sensitive ways to negotiate difficulties.

 The language(s) of the region they will study.

 Everything ever written, filmed, recorded, or speculated about the society they will study.

Once doing actual field research, cultural anthropologists stay on track by maintaining both emic and etic perspectives.