ANSO 262, Ethnographic Field Methods, Spring 2004

Abstract

Participant-observation and ethnography, as every beginning student of anthropology comes to learn, is the methodological core of anthropology. Yet, participant-observation is a critical qualitative method that should be exercised across all disciplines and professions that address the human condition. This course will help us explore this assertion in practice and in discussion around the seminar table. This course will focus on the “doing” of ethnography by asking you to respectfully, socially, meaningfully, and sensuously engage with a moment in another’s world. One way to describe ethnography is as a compelling descriptive pause to appreciate another way of being in and giving meaning to the world before one begins sustained and systematic social analysis and theorizing.