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Week 3 · Module overview

Week 3 — Fieldwork and Ethnographic Methods

Cultural Anthropology Free sample edition

Welcome to your Week 3 Start Here page.

Why this matters

A nursing student listening to how a person in their care describes a problem and a business major watching how customers move through a store are both doing a small piece of fieldwork.

In plain language

Anthropologists learn a way of life by joining it, watching it closely, and writing down what they see. This week you will meet participant observation (taking part in daily life over a long time while recording it) and field notes (a written record that keeps what you saw apart from what you think it means). You will also learn the difference between emic terms (the words insiders use) and etic terms (the words an outside analyst uses to compare). Finally, you will learn the rules that protect the people you study, starting with doing no harm and asking permission. By the end, you will be ready to take your own first notes in a public place.

  • Already covered: Week 1 introduced fieldwork and the market; Week 2 defined culture and describing before judging.
  • This week: participant observation, two-column field notes, interviews, emic and etic, thick description, reflexivity, and fieldwork ethics.
  • How they connect: Week 2 said what to look for; this week shows how to look and record it fairly.
  • Where we're going next: Week 4, Language and Communication.

Focus

How does an anthropologist learn a way of life from the inside, and how do you write down what you see fairly?

By the end of this module, you should be able to:

  • [ ] explain participant observation and why one visit is only a first look
  • [ ] write a field note in two columns that names people by role only
  • [ ] tell an emic term from an etic term, and use thick description
  • [ ] apply consent and the course's fieldwork rules to an observation plan

To-do

Plan your week

  1. Read Chapter 3 (about 30 minutes), then the lecture and slides.
  2. Work the lecture tutorial (60–90 minutes) and the practice set (about 20 minutes).
  3. Do the Ethnography Workshop (about 90 minutes), the discussion, and the assignment.
  4. Take the quiz.

This week's checkpoint: write one field note with what you saw in one column and what it might mean in the other.

You've got this

Take it in order, and ask your instructor if a step snags.

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