5 – Field Work

Why Should I Care?

Some of the best social science comes from field work, but many people are not convinced because it is often exploratory, or descriptive, work. 

Definitions

Field work: Research that involves studying social phenomena as they occur in the real world, naturally, without intervention.

Anthropology:  A social science discipline that studies the physical evolution and variety of humans, as well as the nature and variety of human cultures.

Usefulness

To record and analyze human activity as it happens in its natural setting. To fully understand someone else’s point of view.

Objects of Measurement

Type of Object	Yes	No	Maybe	Example
Personal Characteristic	X			Height
Socio-Demographic Characteristic	X			Age, language, religion
Opinion			X
Motivations	X
Ideology			X
Biases / Prejudice	X			No one here has ever played with Black dolls
Preferences	X
Personal History / Background	XX			I failed grade 6. It was hard to go through
Family Dynamics	X
Cultural History	X
Perception / Self-Perception	X
Aptitude /Ability	X
Behaviour	X			Hawthorne Effect
Level of Knowledge	X

 Sampling

Populations are defined by culture, civilization, society.

Sampling is usually a small group of people, however they may represent a large percentage of the population, however there are no benchmarks for percentages. Sampling is non-random, convenient and/or purposive.

Types of Field Work

1. Participant
2. Non-Participant

Instruments

Interview: typical use of personal interviews, usually informal when dealing, for example, with Indigenous Peoples.

Recordings: lots of note-taking, audio and video recordings of surroundings, landscape, objects, architecture, etc.

NOTA - Artefacts: Archeology is a big help for anthropologists trying to figure out past civilizations. It is not “Field Work”, but Unobtrusive Measurement.

Scientific Power

Exploratory: very much so when dealing with “first contact” societies.

Descriptive: very much so, as the method implies lots of description, understanding, figuring out of customs, ways and technologies.

Explanatory: not in a scientific sense of establishing cause. In such an inductive approach, you can go as far as say it can be explanatory, but you cannot be 100 percent certain of predictions.

Steps

1. Identify topic, population, sample and “loose” hypothesis
2. Operational definitions: set specific definitions of each variable, in a way you can quickly identify their occurrence, and count their frequency
3. Choose location
4. Get to know the location and population sample
5. Figure out exactly where to go and when, to see what you are looking for
6. Get to know your camera, recorder, notepad, laptop, etc. Do a trial run.
7. Do the field study: collect and record data.
8. Analyze and Report.

Advantages

1. Holism get the big picture
2. Depth detail, description
3. Complexity analysis, adding variables and relationships           
4. Meaning how people understand their own lives

Disadvantages

1. Settling-in takes time and trust
2. Ethnocentrism cultural bias
3. Talk may not equate actions walking the walk, talking the talk
4. Hawthorne Effect non-participant, participant

Reporting

Social Linkages Maps

Spatial Maps

Descriptive Text

Synthesis Tables

Recherches amérindiennes au Québec, Société Recherches amérindiennes au Québec

Anthropologica, Canadian Anthropology Society

L'Homme. Revue française d'anthropologie, Éditions de l’École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales.

American Anthropologist, American Anthropological Association

Preferred Disciplines

Anthropology, Sociology, Geography

Other Non-scientific Disciplines

Applications in Journalism, Documentary Films, Sustainable Development Consulting, Mining & Forestry, Military & Diplomacy, Translation services

Not useful for

Historians, Economists, Political Scientists, Psychologists

Think Piece

If you have ancestors from outside Montreal, how would you design a field research study to learn about their culture