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One of the prime motivations in producing this text is to teach fieldwork methods to undergraduates (as well as other novice researchers). Yet undergraduate research has not always been encouraged. Since Malinowski pioneered the gathering of data through participant observation in the Trobriand Islands, fieldwork has been entrenched within the discipline and viewed as a “sacred” activity (see Sluka and Robben 2012). Indeed, nearly all PhD programs in cultural anthropology today require a student to produce a dissertation based on intensive fieldwork (of a year or more). There are outliers who have managed to graduate without doing fieldwork, but they are rare indeed. Fieldwork is considered the quintessential rite of passage for entering the profession.

Allowing undergraduates into the sacred rites of the profession was at one time viewed with extreme caution, yet increasingly it is seen as an important, if not essential, experience for students (see Ingold 1991; Sharma 1989; Sharma and Wright 1989; Thorn and Wright 1990; Watson 1995). Starting in the 1980s and 1990s, many social and cultural anthropology programs in Britain and the United States embraced undergraduate fieldwork as a core curricular component, but this trend met with loud resistance in some quarters. The chief objections to undergraduate fieldwork are that the positive benefits are limited and do not outweigh the harm that can be caused by inexperienced researchers both to themselves and to those they are working with. Without getting knee deep in this debate I would simply say that adequate advanced preparation and constant supervision by trained faculty mitigate the potential dangers that can arise, and that, in my experience, the value of undergraduate projects has been immense. If it were not, I would not be writing this text. Now, field methods requirements for undergraduates are relatively common, and quite popular because of the enduring effects it has on the students. Fieldwork is like that. It changes you.

While not getting bogged down in the intense quarrels within the discipline concerning the validity of our field research, you should familiarize yourself at some point with the continued re-evaluation of the overarching legitimacy of our methods. I recommend dipping into some of the following:

Anthropological Practice: Fieldwork and the Ethnographic Method by J. Okely

(Berg Publishers, 2006)

Ethnographic Fieldwork: An Anthropological Reader Edited by C.G. Antonius, M. Robben and Jeffrey A. Sulka

(Wiley-Blackwell, 2006)

Being There: Fieldwork in Anthropology (Anthropology, Culture and Society) by C. W. Watson,

(Pluto Press, 1999)

Fieldwork Is Not What It Used to Be: Learning Anthropology’s Method in a Time of Transition by James D. Faubion and George E. Marcus eds.,

(Cornell UP 2009)

Ethnography: Understanding Qualitative Research by Anthony Kwame Harrison.,

(Oxford University Press, 2009)

You might also want to look at how fieldwork on communities that interest you is conducted by anthropologists who have a particular/personal slant on their data, and how this work gets translated into ethnography. Instead of pretending to be presenting “objective” data about individuals and communities, or to being “objective” about their research findings, ethnographers now routinely embrace their own cultural identities, as well as their sympathies with marginalized and oppressed peoples, and use those identities to encourage nuanced or multifaceted ways of writing ethnography. The following is a small example of the types of ethnography that explore marginalized identities. You should review at least one such ethnography to get a sense of ways in which you can move away from traditional, objectified writing. Your instructor can help you find more.

The Body Silent: The Different World of the Disabled by Robert F. Murphy (Holt 1987)

A Coincidence of Desires: Anthropology, Queer Studies, Indonesia by Tom Boellstorff (Duke University Press, 2007)

Veiled sentiments: honor and poetry in a Bedouin society, by Lila Abu-Lughod. (University of California Press 1986).

High Tech and High Heels: Women, Work, and Pink-Collar Identities in the Caribbean by Carla Freeman. (Duke University Press, 2000).

Encounters with Aging: mythologies of menopause in Japan and North America. Margaret Lock. (University of California Press 1993)

Citizen Outsider Children of North African Immigrants in France by Jean Beaman (University of California Press 2017)

Burning at Europe’s Borders: An Ethnography on the African Migrant Experience in Morocco by Isabella Alexander-Nathani. (Oxford University Press 2021)

Borders of Belonging: Struggle and Solidarity in Mixed-Status Immigrant Families by Heidi Catañeda. (Stanford University Press: 2019)

Decolonizing Extinction: The Work of Care in Orangutan Rehabilitation by Juno Salazar Parreñas (Duke University Press 2018)

Out of roughly 3,000 students I have taught fieldwork to (including some 400 anthropology majors), only 4 have pursued postgraduate training in anthropology. The rest are employed as social workers, activists, doctors, lawyers, and professionals of various stripes. But, nearly all retain a strong sense of the anthropological method, and look back to their fieldwork classes as turning points in their understanding of key concepts: how to listen well, how to attend to authentic voice, how to situate meaning in cultural context, and so forth.

Many of my former students mentioned their experience with the various skills learned in fieldwork in job applications and interviews, and some of them continue to use these skills in their work environment. Qualitative research methods are poorly understood by the general public, as well as by employers. Nonetheless, savvy employers can be convinced of the benefits of hiring someone with field methods skills. I won’t go so far as to say that having field methods skills will land you a job, but having them is another arrow in your quiver.

At minimum, training in anthropological field methods develops a way of observing and interacting with the world in general – all the time. Of course, it will be up to you to assimilate the lessons learned in field methods into your life as a whole. This process should not be difficult because intensive and analytic engagement with people is potentially life altering anyway. On the other side of the coin, it is important to bear in mind – always – that intense engagement with people carries a moral and ethical burden. I take up this issue in a subsequent chapter on ethics which is mandatory reading before you begin any of the projects (Chapter 3).

Most of the projects in this book are self-contained, but a few rely on methods developed in others, and, where this is the case, I cross-reference the projects. I will be giving examples of projects that my students developed to give you ideas; you might find some of them worth emulating. But I also encourage you to be creative in your choice of field situations. When I taught a methods course I always had one class per project that was a practicum in which I walked my students through an example project, and usually involved them in some form of observation and documentation so that they had a little practical experience of the method before they embarked on their own projects. From time to time in the project instructions in this book I discuss salient practicums I used as additional aids in your learning process. Your instructors will undoubtedly have experiences of their own to share with you in a similar vein. You should use their knowledge as you proceed, and be guided by their preferences for the precise execution of projects and their presentation. The projects proposed here may be used as is, or they can be tailored to various instructional needs. Fieldwork is, by nature, a disciplined process that, while rigorous, allows for spontaneous flexibility.