Module ANTH54730: Fieldwork and Interpretation

Department: Anthropology

ANTH54730: Fieldwork and Interpretation

Prerequisites

• None

Corequisites

• None.

Excluded Combination of Modules

• None.

Aims

• To give students a comprehensive view of anthropological field methods and the interpretation of ethnographic data.

Content

• Relation of explanatory theories to methods of research.
• Learning and interpreting everyday life: participant observation (everyday life as field research), noticing, querying, note-taking.
• Eliciting and interpreting texts: life histories, narratives, myths and religious texts.
• Eliciting and interpreting accounts of social life: semi-structured and unstructured interviews, questionnaires, geneologies, family histories, participatory social research.
• Eliciting and interpreting categories and symbols: participatory mapping, semantic domains, indigenous knowledge, kinship terminologies.
• Using qualitative software tools.
• Using IT resources to source methods and explinations and to create new sources.

Learning Outcomes

• A comprehensive overview of anthropological field methods.
• A thorough understanding of the ways in which anthropologists have interpreted fieldwork data.

• To be able to conduct, at a reasonable level of competence various methods of collecting anthropological data. nnaire techniques;
• To learn how to employ these data collection methods in researching for the Dissertation.

• Communication: students will be taught how to communicate clearly (both orally and in writing) their understanding of the material they have read.
• Improving own learning and performance: students will learn to use a variety of web tools for searching the primary and secondary literature.
• Use of IT programmes for collating data.

Modes of Teaching, Learning and Assessment and how these contribute to the learning outcomes of the module

• Lectures, practicals and project work.

Teaching Methods and Learning Hours

Summative Assessment

Formative Assessment:

1000 word document on an exercise to be determined by the Michaelmas term convenor of the module

■ Attendance at all activities marked with this symbol will be monitored. Students who fail to attend these activities, or to complete the summative or formative assessment specified above, will be subject to the procedures defined in the University's General Regulation V, and may be required to leave the University