What are the major methodological approaches?. Anthropology

• 1. Deductive:

- Ie) Quantitative inquiry

• 2. Inductive:

- Process includes:

• 1. Comprehending

• 2. Synthesizing

• 3. Theorizing

• 4. Re-contextualizing

- Ie) Qualitative inquiry

• Abductive:

- Ie) Qualitative inquiry

- Three modes of ethnographic fieldwork:

• 1. Positivist approach: relies specifically on scientific evidence to reveal a true na­ture of how society operates; experiments and statistics

• 2. Reflexive approach: researcher's awareness of an analytic focus on his or her relationship to the field of study

• 3. Multi-sited ethnographic fieldwork: the practice of pursuing ethnographic field­work in more than one geographical location

- Positivist approach:

• Explains the material world in terms of material causes and the processes detected through human senses

• Committed to a separation of facts from values

• Reductionist view: a single scientific method used to investigate almost everything to produce objective knowledge

• Limitations: doesn't adequately consider human relationships/interactions, invisible social structural influences on human lives may not be captured, humans are con­sidered as objects, impersonal

- Reflexive approach:

• The intersubjective meanings on which participants rely are public

• Critical reflections on both anthropologists' and participants' experience, values, and beliefs; both anthropologist and informant are active agents, each party tries to figure out what the other is saying

• Both the collection of detailed, accurate information and consideration a broader range of contextual information is significant

- Multi-sited ethnographic fieldwork:

• Conducted in more than one location to understand the culture of dispersed mem­bers of the culture or relationships among different levels of culture

• Ethnographer follows the process from site to site, often doing fieldwork at sites with persons who traditionally were never subjected to ethnographic analysis

• Allows anthropologists to discover the complex social, cultural, and the global politi­cal-economic structural relationships in many cultures and societies

- Ethnographic fieldwork: an extended period of close involvement with the people whose way of life interests an anthropologist

- Participant observation: gathering data while living for an extended period in close contact with members of another social group

• residing in a community for a long period of time, ranging from 6 months to 2 years

• learning and speaking the language of the study community

• being an active participant observer in the lives of the study subjects

• participating in daily life as a member of that community

• building rapport with community members to ease ethnographic data collection