Spring 2003
TTh 9-10:15 Pannell 203

Deborah Durham
Pannell 202
381-6229
durham@sbc.edu
Office hours: TTh 2:30-4:00; by appt.

This course explores the processes by which anthropologists learn about other cultures and societies, and the ways in which they represent them. Our exploration will be organized around both reading about, reading, and practicing ourselves various anthropological methods. We will discuss the nature of “the site” of study, and new trends of multi-sited research. We will work on the process of observation, on anthropology’s most characteristic method of participant-observation, and on note-taking. We will discuss ethical issues in anthropological research. We will explore techniques of interviewing as appropriate to the goals of anthropology, collecting life histories, mapping, photographic and other documentation, and self-examination as a field research tool. We will also work intensively on the choices anthropologists make as they construct representations of their research and of the cultures/societies they study. We will consider various writing strategies: objectivist, realist, reflexive, dialogic, the extended case-study, analytical polemic, political economic and world system, and postmodernist options such as pastiche and decentering. We will ask how individual lives (biography and autobiography) can be used as anthropological lenses, and we will examine fiction as an anthropological option.

While the course involves significant amounts of reading of ethnographic writing and discussions of ethnographic methods, a second emphasis of the course will be on trying out various projects and approaches. The course is a writing course, and students will present their writing to the class for critique and suggestions. In critiquing others’ works we will respect each other - remembering that such respect involves an expectation that each of us could write better and could benefit by constructive critique and friendly suggestion, and not just that we want frivolous flattery.

Course work and grade: Each student will choose a field site that will be the center of her ethnographic experiments throughout the course. We will discuss these sites during the second week of class, and discuss ethical research methods. Students should take careful fieldnotes on their sites, and expect these notes to be reviewed periodically by the instructor. Students will write a series of ethnographies that experiment with different methods; some of these will be discussed by the class, all will be graded by the instructor. At the end of the course, students will turn in a portfolio of four of their ethnographic writings - these should have been revised in the wake of class discussion (of their own or others’ work), instructor comment, and student effort at improvement. The portfolio will be accompanied by an essay explaining the goals and strategies of the various forms of ethnographic writing in the portfolio.
The portfolio will comprise 40% of the final grade. Assignments due during the semester comprise another 40%; and student participation in class discussion (of materials read, and of student writing efforts) will comprise 20% of the final grade.

The following books are available for purchase at the Bookstore:
Vincent Crapanzano, Tuhami
E.E. Evans-Pritchard, The Nuer
Clifford Geertz, Works and Lives
Margery Wolf, A Thrice-Told Tale

A reading packet will be available. Students must sign up to purchase it, and packets will then be made available at the bookstore (so as not to waste copies).

Syllabus

Week 1 Course Introduction
January 14 Introduction to the course
We look at some colonial office ethnographies from Africa
In-class writing assignment: write observations of the classroom. After the class, write up an “ethnographic description” of the classroom. You will hand in both your in-class writing, and your ethnography on THURSDAY, 16 January.

January 16 Ethnography as “Thick Description”: what is thickness? what is description?

Read: Clifford Geertz, “Thick Description.” In The Interpretation of Cultures.

Week 2 The Experimental Moment and A Crisis of Representation
January 21 Being There

Read: Bronislaw Malinowski, Argonauts of the Western Pacific, pp. 2-25, 49-58.
Dorinne Kondo, Crafting Selves, pp. 3-26 (top), 43 (middle)-48.

January 23 Why is there a sense that this is an “experimental moment” in anthropological studies, and that there is a “crisis in representation”?
Fieldsites and multi-sites.
A brief review of anthropological theory.

Read: George Marcus and Michael MJ Fischer, Anthropology as Cultural Critique, pp. 7-44.

Write: Choose a field site (or multi-site) in which you will do some fieldwork, and about which you will experiment with forms of representation. Write a proposal - about 2 pages long - to do research on your ‘site.’ Describe the site briefly, and set out some goals about what it is you want to learn about the site. Explain why it is an interesting site/project. Bring your proposal to class on TUESDAY, 28 January. We will discuss them in class.

Week 3 Experiment in Writing
January 28 Ways of writing: Marjorie Wolf’s experiments.
Discussion of fieldsites chosen by students.

Read: Margery Wolf, A Thrice-Told Tale, pp. 1-60.

January 30 Ways of writing: Marjorie Wolf’s experiments

Read: Margery Wolf, A Thrice-Told Tale, pp. 61-139.

Week 4 Field Protocols: Ethics and Maps
February 4 Ethics in fieldwork and in writing

Read: Go to the American Anthropological Association’s website on Ethics in Anthropology and look over the entire site: http://www.aaanet.org/committees/ethics/ethics.htm
Do look over the materials in the Handbook on Ethical Issues in Anthropology: http://www.aaanet.org/committees/ethics/toc.htm
Print and Read VERY Carefully:
a) Anthropological Code of Ethics: http://www.aaanet.org/committees/ethics/ethcode.htm
b) Statements on Ethics (precede Code, some overlap): http://www.aaanet.org/stmts/ethstmnt.htm
c) Briefing Paper on Informed Consent: http://www.aaanet.org/committees/ethics/bp5.htm

Write: Write up a consent form for your fieldwork. It should include a very short description of your project and your goals, a description of various field techniques you are using (look through the syllabus!) and how the subjects’ rights will be guaranteed, a description of how and where results will be disseminated (including in the classroom discussions) and how subjects’ rights will be guaranteed in these. Bring this consent form to class TODAY (TUESDAY, February 4).
After class, put together your project statement (now revised) and Consent Form and bring them to class THURSDAY, February 6. They will be sent to the Human Subjects Committee at Sweet Briar for review.

February 6 Places and Spaces, Tours and Maps

Read: Michel de Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Life, pp. 115-130
Pierre Bourdieu, “The Kabyle House, or the World Reversed” in Algeria 1960, pp. 133-153.
Review: Malinowski, from Week 2.

Write: For next TUESDAY, February 11: Draw a sketch of your fieldsite. Write a description of your fieldsite, a scene-setting ethnography (as Dorinne Kondo describes it). Think about the choices you make for this “ethnography of place” and be prepared to discuss those choices in terms of your own work, and the work of others - is it a tour or map? does it unveil some underlying logic? whose view is it and how does the reader know?

Week 5 Fieldnotes and Fieldwork
February 11 Fieldnotes

Read: Robert Emerson, Rachel Fretz and Linda Shaw, Writing Ethnographic Fieldnotes, pp. 68-74
Rena Lederman, “Pretexts for Ethnography: On Reading Fieldnotes” in Roger Sanjek, ed.,
Fieldnotes, pp. 71-90
Review: Margery Wolf, A Thrice-Told Tale, pp. 61-92 (the fieldnotes section)

February 13 Fieldnotes and field frustrations

Read: Jean Jackson, “‘I am a fieldnote’: Fieldnotes as a Symbol of Professional Identity,” in Roger Sanjek, Fieldnotes, pp. 3-33.
E.E. Evans-Pritchard, The Nuer, pp. 1-15
Clifford Geertz, Works and Lives, pp. 1-24.

Week 6 Classic Ethnography: The Nuer
February 18 Evans-Pritchard: Style and the Substance from the Master

Read: E.E. Evans-Pritchard, The Nuer, pp. 14-93.

Write: (If your field project has been approved) Start spending time at your fieldsite and take fieldnotes. Bring fieldnotes covering at least three different observation periods to class next week (TUESDAY, February 25).

February 20 The Bridge: Time and Space, Ecology and...

Read: E.E. Evans Pritchard, The Nuer, pp. 94-138.
Clifford Geertz, “Slide Show: Evans-Pritchard’s African Transparencies” in Works
and Lives, pp. 49-72

Week 7 Diagrams and Photographs
February 25 The System beneath The Nuer

Read: E.E. Evans-Pritchard, The Nuer, pp. 139-236, 248 (diagram), 261-266

Plan to take photographs for your ethnographic project. Get hold of a camera. Take photos, but with awareness of the material read on photography in anthropology. Have your portfolio of photographs ready to show the class on TUESDAY, March 8.

February 27 Photography and Ethnography

Read: Catherine Lutz and Jane Collins, Reading National Geographic, pp. 89-117, 187-216.
E.E. Evans-Pritchard, The Nuer. Look at the pictures.

***Spring Break***

Continue to do fieldwork and take fieldnotes. Be prepared to turn fieldnotes in for review upon request.

Week 8 Objects and Cultures
March 10 Photographs and Films

Bring your photographic representation of your fieldsite to class and be prepared to discuss it.

Watch: Cannibal Tours (on reserve at Cochran Library)

March 12 Museums: Objects and Cultures: “field trip” to the Sweet Briar museum

Read: Ivan Karp et al., eds. Exhibiting Cultures, pp. 11-41, 191-203.

Write: Write a catalogue of an exhibit for your fieldsite. This is due in class next TUESDAY, March 18.

Week 9 Interviews and Dialogues
March 18 Interviewing as Strategy?

Read: Michael Agar, Professional Stranger, chapter 5, “Beginning Fieldwork,” pp. 83-117.
James Clifford, “Power and Dialogue in Ethnography” in Clifford, The Predicament of
Culture, pp. 55-91.

March 20 Transcribing taped dialogue; writing dialogue in ethnographies

Read: Kathleen Stewart, The Place by the Side of the Road, pp. 32-40, 81-89.

Week 10 Dialogic Anthropology
March 25 Tuhami

Read: Vincent Crapanzano, Tuhami

March 27 Crapanzano or Tuhami?

Read: Vincent Crapanzano, Tuhami

Write: Write a dialogic piece for your field project. Be prepared to discuss what your goals of representation were in composing the piece, what strategies you chose, what other strategies you could think of, and how well you think you succeeded, what shortcomings you feel may be there. This is due in class next THURSDAY, April 3.

Week 11 Whose Anthropology
April 1 The Eye and the I of Anthropology

Read: Clifford Geertz, “I-Witnessing: Malinowski’s Children,” Chapter 4 in Works and Lives, pp. 73-101.
Paul Rabinow, Reflections on Fieldwork in Morocco, pp. 40-69.

April 3 Postmodernism’s many possibilities

No Reading Assigned

Write: Write a reflexive ethnography of your site. This is due in class next THURSDAY, April 10.

Week 12 Life Histories
April 8 Life Histories

Read: Lawrence Watson, “Understanding a Life History as a Subjective Document.”
Ethos 4 (1976): 95-131.

April 10 Nisa’s Life

Read: Marjorie Shostak, Nisa, pp. 45-63, 81-102

Write: Write a life history for your fieldsite. How are you using life history to illuminate something about the environment, culture, or social life of your fieldsite? What is your life history saying anthropologically? Bring your life history to class next THURSDAY, April 17.

Week 13 Postmodern possibilities 2: Pastiche and Fiction
April 15 Decentering authority in Palestine

Read: Smadar Lavie, The Poetics of Military Occupation, Chapter 5 “The Ex-Smuggler,” pp. 151-84.

April 17 Fiction: Taking Total Control

Read: Margery Wolf, A Thrice Told Tale, review pp. 15-49 (fictional account).

Write: Write a fictional account or pastiche for your site. (Or write both, if you wish.) Bring this to class next THURSDAY, April 24. Be prepared to discuss your goals in undertaking this writing strategy.

Week 14 Remembering Anthropology
April 22 Anthropological Questions and Classic Analysis Revisited

Read: Margery Wolf, A Thrice Told Tale, pp. 91-116.

Write: Write an abstract of Margery Wolf’s scholarly piece.
Here are the instructions that American Ethnologist (where the article was originally published) gives authors when they submit a manuscript:
Each article-length manuscript must begin with an abstract - a 50- to 75-word summary of the essential points and findings of the paper.
Your abstract should highlight the anthropological point of the article, and give some indication of the specific ethnography that makes the point. You may want to look at a few abstracts to see what they look like: you can consult The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute in the library for some examples. (You can try to get a hold of the original American Ethnologist with Wolf’s own abstract, but I will tell you now that it is not a good model of an abstract, and I hope you will do better.)
This abstract is due in class THURSDAY, April 24.

April 24 Discussion of the various ethnographic projects: which did you like the most? which did you feel was the most difficult - why? of which are you most proud? if you were to start over, what would you do differently - from choosing a fieldsite, to entry into the site and fieldwork, to writing?
Is there a crisis of representation? Is that a good thing?

Writing: Prepare your portfolio. This is due by WEDNESDAY APRIL 30 at 5:00 pm.