ANTH 023E. Ethnographic Research Methods (M)

This course introduces students to the theory and practice of ethnographic research. Ethnography is the bread and butter of sociocultural anthropology, both as a research method and genre of writing. Ethnographic research methods are also gaining in popularity as a research methodology beyond the discipline as well as beyond the academy. Ethnographic research can be used to explore a range of scales, from the minutia of everyday experience-what Bronislaw Malinowski called the “imponderabilia of actual life”-to broad brushstroke analyses of social structure and symbolic meaning. But how do anthropologists practice their craft? What exactly do they do “out there” in the field and what is unique about their modes of studying human experience? This course offers students an opportunity to explore and gain practice using a variety of methods used in ethnographic research. We will pay particular attention to questions of knowledge, location, evidence, ethics, power, translation, experience, and the way theoretical problems can be framed in terms of ethnographic research. This course is in large part a workshop in which students will learn and mobilize various ethnographic methods and techniques, engage in ethnographic writing, and actively evaluate and guide one another’s work. Students will apply what they learn during the course toward designing their own ethnographic research project.
Methods Course.
Social sciences.
1 credit.
Catalog chapter: Sociology and Anthropology
Department website: https://www.swarthmore.edu/sociology-anthropology

Access the class schedule to search for sections.