Presentation of appropriate methods for conducting field research in cultural anthropology. This includes: research design, sampling strategies, participant-observation, questionnaire formulation, interviewing techniques, and report writing.

Objectives

This course is designed to introduce you to some of the research methods available for use in cultural anthropology. The course has two interrelated aims: 1) to examine some of the numerous practical and conceptual problems involved in field research and 2) to demonstrate specific data gathering techniques. Each student is required to complete an independent ethnographic project demonstrating a reasonable grasp of the research methods covered in class.

• Michael V. Angrosino,  Doing Cultural Anthropology: Projects for Ethnographic Data Collection. 2002. Prospect Heights, Illinois: Waveland Press.
• Michael V. Angrosino, Projects in Ethnographic Research. 2005. Prospect Heights, Illinois: Waveland Press.
• Frances Berdan; Edward A. Stark and Carey van Loon. EthnoQuest: an Interactive Multimedia Simulation for Cultural Anthropology Fieldwork.  Version 3.0. 2005. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Prentice Hall. 
• David McCurdy, James Spradley and Dianna Shandy, The Cultural Experience: Ethnography in Complex Society. 2005. Prospect Heights, Illinois: Waveland Press.
• Assigned on-line articles indicated below – available either through the American Anthropological Association webpage, the full-text database JSTOR. or Public Anthropology at Penn. Go to on-line syllabus and click on link for each.

Requirements/Evaluation Standards

This is a 400-level, upper division course. It’s a serious undertaking that will require a lot of work from you and me. If you have serious doubts regarding the amount of time you can commit to this class then you may want to reconsider taking it.

Attendance: As adults, this is totally up to you. However, if you don’t attend class it will hurt you. Regular absence sends me a negative signal regarding your attitude. I don’t take it as a personal affront; instead I see it as an indication that you don’t care about anthropology and this makes me sad. ;

Readings: Do the readings before coming to class because you’ll be quizzed on them and expected to discuss them as well.

Quizzes: The good news is no exams (. The bad news is I will quiz you each and every week ;. This will keep you honest. Quizzes will be: 1) worth 10 points each; 2) short answer format; 3) based on the readings. Collectively they will comprise 25% of your grade. In case you’ve never had me for a night class before, the only offense I consider worse than missing class altogether is coming just to take the quiz and then leaving during the halftime break or even before. That really perturbs me. So, the policy is this: if you leave early and don’t have a tremendously important reason (splitting to watch CSI or something similar is not!) for doing so, your quiz will be shredded and recycled!

Participation: It’s not my imagination that MSUM students are highly averse to opening their mouths in class. Witness some comments from previous upper-level course evaluations in response to the question "what aspects of the course could be improved?"

• "More class participation and discussion."
• "Try to get group discussion a little more wide spread. Have discussion assignments for the class, maybe to create more opinion."
• "More discussion. I realize this would take more time but maybe it could be made into a two semester course."
• "Class discussion is difficult but I’m not sure how an instructor could improve on that."
• "More discussion with group. Maybe more quizzes which would involve more people in topics at hand."
• "More discussion! Cattle prods if necessary."

You get the idea. I asked about cattle prods. Unfortunately the answer was no and hence the quizzes. Again do the reading, think about it and be ready to talk about it in class – I expect it (clear enough?). When students participate in thoughtful classroom discussions makes me very happy. (

Assignments: Throughout the semester you’ll do four assignments that are designed to give you practice using specific techniques or methods for data collection. Think of them as "mini-projects" because each is worth 25 points. They must be typed (it's the 21st century for God's sake) and are due in class on the date specified. Late assignments will be penalized 10 points per half day late.

Final project: Now take a deep breath and count to ten. You will be doing an ethnography and it will comprise half your grade. The only questions are what and where? The exact venue and subject for this project must be decided upon in close consultation with me quickly because it must go through an internal departmental review based on the University's Institutional Research Board policies before any research can commence. Rather than view this as a large pain in the buttocks I encourage you to see it as a necessary preliminary step that further illustrates the various stages involved in the conduct of all ethnographic research. The final project must be typed and is due in class on May 3rd.  Late projects will be penalized 20 points per half day late.

Presentation: Everyone is required to give a 15 minute in-class oral presentation based upon their project during the last 2 weeks of the semester. On January 28^th in class we will decide by random drawing who goes on the 21st and who goes on the 28th of April. Failure to do an in-class presentation will entail an automatic deduction of 25 points off the 200 you could possibly receive on this project.