instructor: office hours:
Samuel Collins      Room Li-318A
x3199
          Wednesdays, 2-4 pm
                                        (e-mail) scollins@towson.edu Fridays, 1-3 pm
homepage: www.towson.edu/~scollins   or by appointment

course description
Ethnographic fieldwork has remained in dialectical tension with anthropological theory for over
100 years.  It is, therefore, the “practice of theory.”  The highly experiential world of
ethnographic research has the power to “penetrate” abstractions of social theory--illuminating,
adumbrating, undermining.  Of course, ethnography is not just naive empiricism.  It is theory that
directs the course of ethnographic fieldwork for, in the words of one anthropologist, a “way of
seeing” is simultaneously a way of “not seeing,” i.e., aspects of life selected through theory
require an anthropologist to ignore other, possibly puissant, areas of social and cultural life.
“Anthropological theory” and “ethnographic fieldwork” move together, one opening up a critical
space while another reveals a limit; one unveiling a contradiction while another engenders new
possibilities and so on,

On another level, ethnographic fieldwork is a way of knowing intimately related to everyday life, a
method that is very much an extension of our quotidian, phenomenological experience.  Whenever
we travel, begin a new job or attend a new school, we engage in something very much like
ethnographic research.  So although fieldwork is very much imbricated by questions of
anthropological theory, it is also part of the everyday aesthetics of living.  In Paul Willis’s words,
art is “a defining and irreducible quality at the heart of everyday human practices and interactions”
(3).  In our interpretations of everyday life, we will need to tap into our artistic sensibilities of the
everyday.

This course will, fittingly, adopt multiple perspectives on ethnographic research.  On the one
hand, we will consider ethnography’s relationship--historical and theoretical--to cultural
anthropology.  We will consider the historical development of ethnography from early
experiments in the mid-nineteenth century up to the present and link those putatively
methodological developments to theoretical debates (then and now) in cultural anthropology.
We will also review experimentation in ethnographic methods as sometimes oblique challenges to
anthropology’s status quo.

But we will also engage a great deal in the practice of ethnographic research, structuring class
activities that bridge the gaps between everyday understanding and experiential, ethnographic
knowledge.  Additionally, students will take the first steps towards their own ethnography,
following the building blocks of ethnographic research from the initial proposal through the initial
site survey.

course objectives

1). Students will understand ethnographic methodology as arising in a context of anthropological
theory.
2). Students will study contemporary (and even experimental) methodologies through careful
readings of ethnographies.
3). Students will become familiar with qualitative methods germane to the anthropological
encounter: participant observation, interviews, life stories and visual anthropology.
4). Students will design an ethnographic project, set up research instruments and attempt
nonintrusive observations.

required reading: The following books are available in the Towson University bookstore.

Fordham, Signithia.  Blacked Out: Dilemmas of Race, Identity and Success at Capital High.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996.

Redfield, Peter.  Space in the Tropics: From Convicts to Rockets in French Guiana.  Berkeley:
University of California Press, 2000.

Willis, Paul.  The Ethnographic Imagination.  Malden, MA: Polity Press, 2000.

recommended reading: The following is available at the Towson University bookstore.

Crane, Julia and Michael V. Angrosino.  Field Projects in Anthropology: A Student Handbook.
Prospect Heights, Ill.: Waveland Press, Inc., 1992 [1984].

graded assignments

In-Class Assignments (Due on assigned days) Students will each complete two, in-class
“projects” over the course of the semester.  Projects will include 1) books reports; 2) acting as an
informant for “in-class” ethnographies; 3) engaging in and reporting on truncated instances of
“fieldwork” inside or outside the class.  We’ll begin in-class assignments during week 3.

Research Proposals (Due February 15) Students must write a one-page description of their
proposed ethnographic research project.  Proposals should answer the journalistic 4 Ws and 1 H
(Who, What, Where, When, Why and How).

Historical/Background Research (Due April 8) Students must complete a five (5) page
background report on their research site.  Essays should both contextualize and historicize the
site, using relevant historical and archival sources.  Students should show how their particular
research question arises out of problems germane to the research site.

Ethnographic Reports (Due May 13) Using a modified (and less intrusive) form of participant
observation, students will spend between 2-4 weeks engaged in ethnographic research, after
which they will write a report summarizing method and analyzing data (however perfunctory) in
the light of the aforementioned Historical/Background Research.  I will be handing out more
precise research guides later in the semester.

Final Examination (May 16) Students will demonstrate their knowledge of class themes and
readings by answering a battery of true-false, multiple choice and short answer questions.

class schedule:
          1st Week  Introduction to the course and explanation of syllabus.
               (1/28-1/30)    Class Interviews
          Assigned Reading: Willis, viii-13

          2nd Week  Varieties of Ethnographic Research.
          (2/4-2/8) Assigned Reading: Willis, 14-33
  Redfield, pp. xiii-48
  February 4: Change of Schedule Period Ends

          3rd Week  The History of Anthropological Fieldwork
               (2/11-2/15)    Assigned Reading: Willis, 34-66
  Redfield, 49-75
  February 15: Research Proposals Due
  In-class assignments begin

          4th Week  Contemporary Anthropological Fieldwork
               (2/18-2/22)    Assigned Reading: Willis, 67-84
  Redfield, 76-148

                                                       5th Week  Challenges to the Anthropological Episteme
               (2/25-3/1)     Assigned Reading: Willis, 85-105
  Redfield, 149-244

          6th Week  Foundations of Ethnographic Research: Global histories in situ
          Library Research Methods
          Assigned Reading: Willis, 106-124
          Redfield, 245-262
 
          (3/4-3/8) Assigned Reading: Willis, 125-130
          Fordham, 1-38
 
                    7th Week  Fieldwork: AA Predicament Turned Into a Method.@
                         (3/11-3/15)    Assigned Reading: Fordham, 39-66
 
                    8th Week
                         (3/18-3/22)    Assigned Reading: Fordham, 67-146
 
                              9th Week  Spring Break
                         (3/25-3/29)
 
                    10th Week The Secret Lives of Informants
                    (4/1-4/5) Assigned Reading: Fordham, 147-234
          April 5: Last Day to Withdraw with a Grade of “W”
 
                    11th Week Participant Observation
                         (4/8-4/12)     Assigned Reading: Fordham, 235-325
          April 8: Historical Background Essays Due
 
                    12th Week Scratchnotes, Fieldnotes and Journals
                         (4/15-4/19)    Assigned Reading: Fordham, 326-344
 
                    13th Week Varieties of Interviews
                         (4/22-4/26)
 
                    14th Week Building Ethnographic Theory
                         (4/29-5/3)
 
                    15th Week Building Ethnographic Theory redux
                         (5/6-5/10)
 
                    16th Week Semester Review
          (5/13) May 13: Last Day of Classes
          May 13: Ethnographic Reports Due
          May 16: Final Examination, 12:30 p.m. -2:30 p.m.

grading

                              In-class assignments:    30%
                    Research proposal:  10%
                         Background paper:   20%
                         Ethnographic report:     30%
                    Final examination:  10%
 

notes
1.  Although exams and graded work will remain as stated above, I may have to change
different readings or films on the syllabus throughout the semester.  I will, in any case, try to give
you ample warning of any syllabus changes.

2. Each student should be familiar with the University’s rules regarding cheating and
plagiarism (Towson University Undergraduate Catalog, Appendix F).  Neither will be tolerated in
my class and will result in a flunking grade.

3. Students with learning disabilities should register at the Disability Support Services
Office.

explanation of grading
Following department policy, students will be assigned a letter grade without a qualifying “+” or
“-“.
A: A superior performance surpassing assigned work in unique and novel ways and
integrating diverse ideas from a wide range of sources in addition to those discussed in
class.

B: Excellent work surpassing the expectations of the assignment and demonstrating initiative
and a willingness to move beyond the basic requirements of the assigned work.

C: Satisfactory work meeting all basic requirements of the assignment.

D: Work in some way less than satisfactory.  Although conforming to basic requirements in
some way, the completed work is nevertheless not a coherent response to the
assignment.

F: A profoundly unsatisfactory performance which doesn't meet
the intent of the assignment at any level.