You will be doing a Participant Observation Project for class.
Overview Participant Observation Project
You will be doing a Participant Observation Project for class.
You will be observing humans and writing, in great detail, what you witness and then formulating questions and ideas for continued research based on these observations. This is NOT an experiment. You are NOT testing a hypothesis or trying to answer a question. Instead, you are trying to get an overall feeling and understanding for a particular event, activity, or ritual.
Participant Observation is one of the hallmark fieldwork methodologies used by anthropologists. When doing participant observation, the anthropologist joins those he or she is studying to experience and witness their lives. For example, Bourgois and Schonberg, in their research on homeless heroin addicts, hung out with them on the streets. Colin Turnbull lived with a band of BaMbuti Pygmies in the Ituri Forest. Clair Sterk stood on the street corners with prostitutes. And in my own research on blindness in Malawi, I joined people during countless visits to medical clinics, sat in on eye surgeries, and hung out with people in their homes and villages. All of us took detailed notes, asked questions, sometimes photographed or filmed people, and sometimes participated in activities.
Participant observation is often the first fieldwork activity conducted by an anthropologist. The data we gain from our observations is used to construct logical interviews, surveys, questionnaires, and to develop unique research methodologies suitable to the specific research endeavor.
The purposes of this project are to:
Improve your understanding of one of the most important fieldwork methodologies used by anthropologists.
Develop and hone your critical observation and analytical skills.
Enable you to delve into an issue of interest to you.
Get you out of the books and off the computer, into the real world, utilizing skills and concepts you have learned in class. For example, you will need to practice cultural relativism when doing your observation in order to see what people are doing, not what you think people are doing.
This module explains the project and its requirements and contains the two assignments for the project:
Participant Observation Project Part 1: This assignment requires you to answer a few questions about your plan for your project.
Participant Observation Project Part 2: This is your actual report on your observation.
participant_observation_project (2)
Answer preview You will be doing a Participant Observation Project for class.
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