Week 3 6 March

Ethnographic Fieldwork: participant observation and sensuous scholarship

As an inductive, rather than deductive, discipline anthropological insights into human behaviour
come from praxis/practise. What does that practise refer to? Research, and more specifically in
Anthropology, ethnographic fieldwork.

Fieldwork is a broad area of discussion, debate and conversation, and given our limited time
together I can merely give you a taste of what anthropological research is. So starting this week,
as you engage with the ethnographic or methodological material provided you will not only think
about research, you will also start to do research. You have been doing research all your life – it
just hasn’t been called research. Those around you might have referred to it as ‘growing up’, or
in anthropological terms, enculturation. So don’t fear what’s coming. Move slowly and
systematically, and keep asking questions.

In this week we start working towards your FINAL assessment FOR THIS UNIT.

In the next three weeks you will do fieldwork, focusing on participant observation and sensuous
scholarship, and use your journal to take (field)notes. You’ve already started doing so (remember
your notes on Maselspoort?). Don’t delay the inscription of your fieldnotes. Do them as soon as
possible. If you leave your note-taking to the following day, the details you pay attention to fade
and you won’t remember what happened from day to day. Scribble notes during ‘events’, and
take an hour at the end of the day to expand those notes – fill in more detail including what you
saw, felt, heard, tasted, smelt etc.

LECTURE READINGS

Readings Lite

 Clifford, J. 2013. “Notes on (Field)Notes” in H. Callan, B. Street and S. Underdown (Eds.)

Introductory Readings in Anthropology. New York: Berghahn Books (pp 328 – 333)

 Lareau, A and Schultz, J. 2013. “Journeys through Ethnography” in Hilary Callan, Brian Street
and
Simon Underdown (Eds). Introductory Readings in Anthropology. New York: Berghahn
pages
311 – 315 (core reading)

 Leach, E. 2013. “My kind of Anthropology”. Hilary Callan, Brian Street and Simon Underdown
(Eds). Introductory Readings in Anthropology. New York: Berghahn pages 341 – 345 (core
reading)
 MacClancy, J. 2013. “Fieldwork styles: Bohannan, Barley and Gardner” in in Hilary Callan,
Brian
Street and Simon Underdown (Eds). Introductory Readings in Anthropology. New York:
Berghahn pages 315 – 326 (core reading)

 Stoller, P. 1989. The taste of ethnographic things: the senses in anthropology. Philadelphia:
University of Pennsylvania Press. Pp 15 – 36 (for sensuous scholarship specifically)

Deep Dive Reading

ONLY DIVE INTO THE READINGS THAT FOLLOW (SAVED AS ONE TEXT -- HOW DO WE KNOW
WHAT WE KNOW) – IF YOU FEEL COMFORTABLE WITH THE MATERIAL THUS FAR. THESE
READINGS ARE NOT USUALLY PRESCRIBED FOR FIRST YEARS …

 Da Col, G. 2014. “A note from the editor: Turns and Returns”. HAU: Journal of Ethnographic
Theory Vol 4(1): i – v

 Fabian, J. 2014. “Ethnography and intersubjectivity: Loose ends”. HAU: Journal of

Ethnographic Theory Vol 4(1): 199 – 209

 Gable, E. 2014. “The anthropology of guilt and rapport: moral mutuality in ethnographic
fieldwork”. HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory Vol 4(1): 237 – 258

 Ingold, T. 2014. “That’s enough about ethnography!”. HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory
Vol 4(1): 383 – 395

 Pels, P. 2014. “After objectivity: An historical approach to the intersubjective in

ethnography”. HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory Vol 4(1): 211 – 236

 White, B. and Strohm, K. 2014. “Preface: ethnographic knowledge and the aporias of
intersubjectivity”. HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory Vol 4(1): 189 – 197

TUTORIAL

Preparation for the tutorial

1. During the week make further rough notes on the Maselspoort incident. Make them as
detailed as possible. The notes are based on your further research of the incident.
2. Choose a space on campus, and spend 30 minutes in it. Even if you share those 30 minutes
with friends, or others, note as much as you can during that period. Consider the
interactions between individuals – who meets up with who? Who talks to who? What
 kind of interactions, other than verbal, occur in this space? Note them, and flesh them
out at the end of the day.
3. Read ‘Owen, J. 2018. “Sade – ‘By your Side’. Suomen Antropologi Vol 43 (2): 114 – 117’
for the tutorial.

In the tutorial

1. In the tutorial, you will discuss the Owen (2018) reading (it’s a short article ) by
answering ‘How does Owen (2018) know what she knows?’ [think about this BEFORE the
tutorial!!!]

FIELD JOURNAL PROMPTS

Instructions

2. Consider your notes of the various videos and other social media of the
Maselspoort incident. Compare your Maselspoort notes to your 30 minute
observations notes. Based on your assessment of them, and in relation to
Owen’s (2018) article, could you produce a similar kind of narrative? How?

In trying to understand why you focused on certain aspects of the event,

consider how you positioned yourself in South Africa and the world (week 1).

Further questions to consider during the tutorial

a) Define anthropological fieldwork?

b) Why is it important to be aware of your positionality in the society you study?

Consider your race, gender, age, sexuality, class etc.

c) What did you focus on in your fieldnotes? Sounds, sights, feelings

demonstrated by the ‘actors’ etc.

JOURNAL ENTRY SUBMISSION: Select a section of your fieldnotes (500 words

minimum) and share it with your tutor. Your tutor will grade your submission
based on the detail of your fieldnotes; half of it has to be related to the
Maselspoort incident, and the other half to your 30 minutes of observation.