Ethnography Studying Culture Verified Test Bank Chapter 3

Chapter 3: Ethnography: Studying Culture

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 03 Question 01

1) Cultural anthropologists do research by

Feedback: Anthropologists call long-term immersion in a community anthropological fieldwork. During fieldwork, anthropologists become involved in people’s daily lives, make observations and ask questions about what people are doing, and take notes on those observations and interactions. Being involved in people’s lives for an extended period of time is critical to the method, generating insights we would not have if we simply visited the community a few hours a day, to administer a survey or questionnaire, or to conduct a brief interview.
Page reference: What Distinguishes Ethnographic Fieldwork from Other Types of Social Research?

a. building rapport and relationships with people over a long period of time.

b. gathering data to produce statistical models.

c. focusing on single dimensions of people's lives.

d. studying economic data.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 03 Question 02

2) Which of the following is the defining methodology of the discipline of anthropology?

Feedback: Participant observation is a key element of anthropological fieldwork. It is a systematic re-search strategy that is, in some respects, a matter of just hanging out. One of the things that distinguishes anthropologists from college students—who also do a lot of hanging out—is that anthropologists record much of what transpires while we are hanging out.
Page reference: What Distinguishes Ethnographic Fieldwork from Other Types of Social Research?

a. Fieldnotes

b. Fieldwork

c. Observation

d. Interviews

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 03 Question 03

3) “Going native” refers to a process whereby the anthropologist

Feedback: Participant observation makes the anthropologist a professional stranger. Neither pure observation nor pure participation, it has been compared to living on the edge of a razor (Delaney 1988). As observers, anthropologists cannot remove themselves from the action. Yet giving in to participation too easily prevents one from noticing subtleties of behavior and learning to intuit their significance. Too much participation is sometimes referred to as “going native,” because the researcher stops being an engaged observer and starts to become a member of the community.

Page reference: What Distinguishes Ethnographic Fieldwork from Other Types of Social Research?

a. buys only local products.

b. loses the ability to be an engaged observer.

c. starts a nongovernmental organization.

d. learns the local language.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 03 Question 04

4) The people anthropologists gather data from are called

Feedback: The traditional term for a fieldworker’s subjects is informants, which generally refers to the people an anthropologist gets data from. But this term does not necessarily capture the subtle-ty of Fabian’s point, because it may describe only one kind of relationship an anthropologist has in a community. Some anthropologists find other terms more appropriate to describe people with whom they have these relationships, including “collaborators” (evoking a shared enterprise in exploring culture), “interlocutors” (evoking ongoing conversations), and “consultants” (evoking ad-vice shared by experts).

Page reference: How Do Anthropologists Actually Do Ethnographic Fieldwork?

a. partners.

b. employees.

c. informants.

d. subjects.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 03 Question 05

5) Which term refers to the knowledge about other people that emerges from relationships?

Feedback: Intersubjectivity is the realization that knowledge about other people emerges out of relationships and perceptions individuals have with each other.
Page reference: How Do Anthropologists Actually Do Ethnographic Fieldwork?

a. Objective

b. Subjective

c. Intersubjective

d. Ethnographic

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 03 Question 06

6) An anthropologist interested in a cultural insider’s perspective on that insider’s culture is seeking

Feedback: The emic perspective is a cultural insider’s perspective on his or her culture.
Page reference: What Distinguishes Ethnographic Fieldwork from Other Types of Social Research?

a. an emic perspective.

b. tunnel vision.

c. an etic perspective.

d. primary sources.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 03 Question 07

7) The comparative method

Feedback: The comparative method is a research method that involves making a systematic comparison of aspects of two or more societies.

Page reference: How Do Anthropologists Actually Do Ethnographic Fieldwork?

a. compares cognate words in different languages.

b. focuses on one society over a long period of time.

c. uses data from many different societies.

d. emphasizes statistical regressions.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 03 Question 08

8) Multi-sited ethnography is an example of which method?

Feedback: Anthropologists studying globalization and migration use a version of the comparative method called “multi-sited ethnography” which involves conducting participant observation research in many different social settings to track geographically dispersed phenomena

Page reference: What Other Methods Do Cultural Anthropologists Use?

a. Action research

b. Geographical method

c. Comparative method

d. Ethnohistory

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 03 Question 09

9) Which method is an extended conversation that can shed light on how social institutions change over time?

Feedback: Life history is any survey of an informant’s life, including such topics as residence, occupation, marriage, family, and difficulties, usually collected to reveal patterns that cannot be observed today.

Page reference: What Other Methods Do Cultural Anthropologists Use?

a. Ethnohistory

b. Genealogy

c. Participant observation

d. Life histories

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 03 Question 10

10) Research committed to making social change and improving the lives of marginalized people is called

Feedback: Action anthropology is an approach to anthropological research that seeks to study and, at the same time, improve community welfare

Page reference: What Other Methods Do Cultural Anthropologists Use?

a. rapid appraisal.

b. development anthropology.

c. action anthropology.

d. participant observation.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 03 Question 11

11) Secondary materials include

Feedback: Secondary materials include sources such as censuses, regional surveys, or historical reports that are compiled from data collected by someone other than the field researcher.

Page reference: What Other Methods Do Cultural Anthropologists Use?

a. interview transcripts.

b. fieldnotes.

c. newspaper clippings.

d. voice recordings.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 03 Question 12

12) An important ethical concern for anthropologists is to

Feedback: In order to do no harm, anthropologists need to conceal the identities of everyone they have interviewed, and sometimes they must also conceal content. Typically we use pseudonyms for informants in published accounts, but we might also change details to further disguise an informant’s identity.
Page reference: What Unique Ethical Dilemmas Do Ethnographers Face?

a. protect their informants.

b. protect the ethnographic data.

c. protect the community at large.

d. protect themselves.

Type: True/False

Title: Chapter 03 Question 13

13) In order to study culture one must travel to distant, far-off places.

Feedback: An important reason anthropologists can understand other cultures is that, when we go overseas or work with a community different from our own, the differences between our culture and theirs are immediately obvious. The effect of being a proverbial “fish out of water,” struggling to make sense of seemingly senseless actions, heightens our sensitivities to the other society’s culture. These sensitivities allow us to ask questions and eventually understand what seems obvious to members of the other community. When we understand the language and already have well-formed views about people’s behavior and attitudes, being a “professional stranger” becomes more difficult. We are more likely to think we know what is going on and miss the local particularities that make people’s actions sensible. A common technique to overcome these limitations is to study social conflicts, because when people are complaining or making allegations against others, their informal logic emerges quite clearly.

Page reference: What Other Methods Do Cultural Anthropologists Use?

a. True

b. False

Type: True/False

Title: Chapter 03 Question 14

14) Cultural anthropology is one of the most quantitative of the social sciences.

Feedback: Quantitative methods classify features of a phenomenon, count or measure them, and construct mathematical and statistical models to explain what is observed.
Page reference: What Distinguishes Ethnographic Fieldwork from Other Types of Social Research?

a. True

b. False

Type: True/False

Title: Chapter 03 Question 15

15) Anthropologists do not consider unstructured, casual conversations to be data.

Feedback: Scribbles are shorthand notes made in small, unobtrusive notebooks and often referred to as “jot notes” that remind us of a conversation or observation we can document more fully later.
Page reference: How Do Anthropologists Actually Do Ethnographic Fieldwork?

a. True

b. False

Type: True/False

Title: Chapter 03 Question 16

16) Fieldnotes are usually written on the spot, not after the fact.

Feedback: Fieldnotes include the information the anthropologist collects or transcribes during fieldwork. They include scribbles. Scribbles are shorthand notes made in small, unobtrusive notebooks and often referred to as “jot notes” that remind us of a conversation or observation we can document more fully later.
Page reference: How Do Anthropologists Actually Do Ethnographic Fieldwork?

a. True

b. False

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 03 Question 17

17) Anthropology is a discipline that relies solely on

Feedback: Although participant observation and unstructured, open-ended interviews are the core research methods for cultural anthropologists, some projects require additional strategies to understand social complexity and the native’s point of view. Some of the most important of these methods include the ones we review here: the comparative method, the genealogical method, life histories, ethnohistory, rapid appraisals, action research, anthropology at a distance, and analysis of secondary materials.

Page reference: What Other Methods Do Cultural Anthropologists Use?

a. primary materials.

b. secondary materials.

c. both primary and secondary materials.

d. primary and secondary materials are widely disregarded by anthropologists.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 03 Question 18

18) The difference between a survey and a structured interview is

Feedback: An interview is any systematic conversation with an informant to collect field research data, ranging from a highly structured set of questions to the most open-ended ones. Anthropologists might also conduct systematic surveys, such as a village census or a survey of attitudes about an event, using carefully structured interviews so that all informants are asked the same questions and their responses are thus comparable.

Page reference: What Other Methods Do Cultural Anthropologists Use?

a. survey questions are asked orally; in a structured interview they are written.

b. survey questions are closed-ended; structured interviews are not.

c. the goal of using survey questions is typically to produce qualitative data, while for structured interviews it is to produce quantitative data.

d. there is no difference between surveys and structured interviews.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 03 Question 19

19) This type of interaction may include playing basketball, cooking, dining, or having coffee with informants

Feedback: Participant observation is a key element of anthropological fieldwork. It is a systematic re-search strategy that is, in some respects, a matter of just hanging out. One of the things that distinguishes anthropologists from college students—who also do a lot of hanging out—is that anthropologists record much of what transpires while we are hanging out.
Page reference: What Distinguishes Ethnographic Fieldwork from Other Types of Social Research?

a. unstructured interviewing.

b. structured interviewing.

c. open-ended interviewing

d. participant observation.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 03 Question 20

20) A central technique involved in an informal, open-ended interview is to

Feedback: Open-ended interview is any conversation with an informant in which the researcher allows the informant to take the conversation to related topics that the informant rather than the researcher feels are important.

Page reference: What Other Methods Do Cultural Anthropologists Use?

a. make sure you ask questions from the printed script exactly as they are written.

b. figure out the main goal of the interview ahead of time.

c. allow questions to emerge in the course of the interview.

d. hang out.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 03 Question 21

21) Using life history interviews, researchers are able to

Feedback: Life history is any survey of an informant’s life, including such topics as residence, occupation, marriage, family, and difficulties, usually collected to reveal patterns that cannot be observed today.

Page reference: What Other Methods Do Cultural Anthropologists Use?

a. detect genetic traits linked to disease.

b. what myths society tells its members.

c. what plants are used for.

d. understand how a person's age affects his or her role in the community.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 03 Question 22

22) An important element required for successful “rapid appraisal” data collection is

Feedback: The only solution is to use a focused research strategy known as a rapid appraisal, some-times jocularly referred to as “parachute ethnography” because the researcher drops in for a few weeks to collect data. Such focused fieldwork requires a general knowledge of both the region and the topic under investigation. This kind of research requires that the anthropologist have considerable field experience to begin with, so she or he knows to focus on the features that distinguish the community under study from other, similar ones.

Page reference: What Other Methods Do Cultural Anthropologists Use?

a. a parachute.

b. a good translator.

c. good general knowledge of the area/topic being studied.

d. a comfortable armchair.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 03 Question 23

23) The purpose of fieldnotes is to

Feedback: Much of the time in the field is spent scribbling fieldnotes, which are written records of information that the anthropologist collects. Some of this scribbling happens in the ebb and flow of everyday life, as we jot down notes in conversation with others, or when a festival, ritual, or some other structured activity is taking place. Usually these scribbles are only shorthand notes made in small, unobtrusive notebooks and often referred to as “jot notes” that remind us of a conversation or observation we can document more fully later. Unlike your professors, most people are not comfortable when somebody opens a notebook and starts writing notes about what they are saying or doing. But with time and plenty of explanation about what we plan to do with the information, people become accustomed to it. Anthropologists have an ethical commitment to share our reasons for doing research with our informants openly, and explaining our goals often helps build rapport with informants.

Page reference: How Do Anthropologists Actually Do Ethnographic Fieldwork?

a. provide written records of information that an anthropologist collects.

b. avoid collecting personal information about informants.

c. engage in deep analysis of the data.

d. record results from blood samples.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 03 Question 24

24) When anthropologists go into the field, they

Feedback: In cultural anthropology, fieldwork is more than a matter of simply collecting data. It is a core practice that integrates the primary philosophical elements of the discipline—especially a commitment to holism, cultural relativism, and ethical behavior—into a single frame of inquiry. One’s experience and success in it, as well as where it is actually done, can strongly shape one’s anthropological career and identity, by defining one’s expertise in the anthropological community. Fieldwork relies less on a set of prescribed technical procedures or formulas than it does on a range of skills and techniques an anthropologist can draw on, depending on the context. At the heart of this approach to creating data and knowledge are participant observation, interviews, and note-taking.

Page reference: Type relevant section heading here

a. go as a completely clean slate, without reading anything about the topic beforehand.

b. never change the focus of their question to fit what they are seeing.

c. seek to interrupt the flow of everyday life.

d. go with a set of questions they want to ask and have answered.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 03 Question 25

25) An anthropologist might consider doing “anthropology at a distance” because

Feedback: In cultural anthropology, fieldwork is more than a matter of simply collecting data. It is a core practice that integrates the primary philosophical elements of the discipline—especially a commitment to holism, cultural relativism, and ethical behavior—into a single frame of inquiry. One’s experience and success in it, as well as where it is actually done, can strongly shape one’s anthropological career and identity, by defining one’s expertise in the anthropological community. Fieldwork relies less on a set of prescribed technical procedures or formulas than it does on a range of skills and techniques an anthropologist can draw on, depending on the context. At the heart of this approach to creating data and knowledge are participant observation, interviews, and note-taking.

Page reference: How Do Anthropologists Actually Do Ethnographic Fieldwork?

a. he or she has ample research funding to go into other field sites.

b. statistical evidence suggests that participant observation is unnecessary.

c. there is little data about the field site produced by others.

d. there is conflict or violence in the field site.

Type: True/False

Title: Chapter 03 Question 26

26) Anthropologists believe that the “native point of view” is better than their own.

Feedback: Living for a long period of time as a researcher—a year or more—in an unfamiliar community in order to observe and record cultural differences emerged as a standard field methodology after 1914 and led to profoundly new kinds of understandings of native peoples. It had become clear that living in the community did not by itself guarantee cultural relativism—that is, understanding a native culture on its own terms—nor did it promise that the researcher could overcome his or her ethnocentrism and cultural bias. But it increased the likelihood that the anthropologist could get some sense of the world in terms that local people themselves understood.

Page reference: What Distinguishes Ethnographic Fieldwork from Other Types of Social Research?

a. True

b. False

Type: True/False

Title: Chapter 03 Question 27

27) Anthropologists use just three methods—interviews, fieldnotes, and participant observation.

Feedback: Although participant observation and unstructured, open-ended interviews are the core research methods for cultural anthropologists, some projects require additional strategies to understand social complexity and the native’s point of view. Some of the most important of these methods include the ones we review here: the comparative method, the genealogical method, life histories, ethnohistory, rapid appraisals, action research, anthropology at a distance, and analysis of secondary materials.

Page reference: What Other Methods Do Cultural Anthropologists Use?

a. True

b. False

Type: True/False

Title: Chapter 03 Question 28

28) A critical reason for taking fieldnotes is that there may be a long lag time between fieldwork and writing and publishing about it.

Feedback: Much of the time in the field is spent scribbling fieldnotes, which are written records of information that the anthropologist collects. Some of this scribbling happens in the ebb and flow of everyday life, as we jot down notes in conversation with others, or when a festival, ritual, or some other structured activity is taking place. Usually these scribbles are only shorthand notes made in small, unobtrusive notebooks and often referred to as “jot notes” that remind us of a conversation or observation we can document more fully later. Unlike your professors, most people are not comfortable when somebody opens a notebook and starts writing notes about what they are saying or doing. But with time and plenty of explanation about what we plan to do with the information, people become accustomed to it. Anthropologists have an ethical commitment to share our reasons for doing research with our informants openly, and explaining our goals often helps build rapport with informants.

Page reference: How Do Anthropologists Actually Do Ethnographic Fieldwork?

a. True

b. False

Type: True/False

Title: Chapter 03 Question 29

29) Anthropology is different from journalism because journalists' data are protected by law.

Feedback: In some respects, anthropological fieldwork resembles the work of journalists in that we inter-view people to learn what is happening in a community. But anthropologists differ from journalists in several important ways. First, anthropologists tend to stay in a community gathering field data for a long time, and most anthropological data come directly from participant observation and interviews with informants. In contrast, journalists often get their information secondhand and rarely stay on assignment for more than a few days or weeks.
Page reference: What Distinguishes Ethnographic Fieldwork from Other Types of Social Research?

a. True

b. False

Type: True/False

Title: Chapter 03 Question 30

30) Ethical issues facing ethnographers include ensuring informant confidentiality, protecting informants' blood samples and other biological information, and being open about their research.

Feedback: Anthropologists ask prying questions and seem to stick their noses into many aspects of people’s lives, which has led many anthropologists to be accused of spying. Anthropological research does bear some similarities to the work of spies, since spying is often a kind of participant observation. When anthropologists conduct participant observation, however, we are ethically obligated to let our informants know from the outset that we are researchers.
Page reference: What Other Methods Do Cultural Anthropologists Use?

a. True

b. False

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 03 Question 31

31) Which method would be best when doing a study on the genetic propensity for cancer in a given population?

Feedback: Genealogical method is a systematic methodology for recording kinship relations and how kin terms are used in different societies.

Page reference: What Other Methods Do Cultural Anthropologists Use?

a. Ethnohistory

b. Ethnoscience

c. Comparative method

d. Genealogical method

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 03 Question 32

32) If you wanted to have consistent responses, what kind of interview would you use?

Feedback: A formal or structured interviewer has a clear goal for the interview and writes down the informant’s answers or tape-records the interview. Often used for survey data collection. Researcher has decided ahead of time what is important to ask.

Page reference: What Other Methods Do Cultural Anthropologists Use?

a. Open-ended, unstructured interview

b. Survey interview

c. Casual interview

d. Structured interview

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 03 Question 33

33) Which project would be best suited for rapid appraisal?

Feedback: Rapid appraisal is short-term, focused ethnographic research, typically lasting no more than a few weeks, about narrow research questions or problems.

Page reference: What Other Methods Do Cultural Anthropologists Use?

a. A study of landscape change

b. A study of community response to a disaster

c. A study of how people become religious leaders

d. A study of marriage practices

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 03 Question 34

34) If you wanted to study patterns of kin relations in a community, which method would you use?

Feedback: Genealogical method is a systematic methodology for recording kinship relations and how kin terms are used in different societies.

Page reference: What Other Methods Do Cultural Anthropologists Use?

a. Comparative method

b. Genealogical method

c. Ethnohistory

d. Participant observation

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 03 Question 35

35) If you studied sex workers in your city, you might find that

Feedback: Anthropologists ask prying questions and seem to stick their noses into many aspects of people’s lives, which has led many anthropologists to be accused of spying. Anthropological research does bear some similarities to the work of spies, since spying is often a kind of participant observation. When anthropologists conduct participant observation, however, we are ethically obligated to let our informants know from the outset that we are researchers.
Page reference: What Other Methods Do Cultural Anthropologists Use?

a. people threaten you when you witness illegal activities.

b. you would get little respect from colleagues.

c. people are comfortable with you except when you take fieldnotes.

d. maintaining confidentiality is an ongoing challenge.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 03 Question 36

36) An anthropologist who practices participatory-action research would most likely use this method in a study of

Feedback: Participatory action research is a research method in which the research questions, data collection, and data analysis are defined through collaboration between the researcher and the subjects of research. A major goal is for the research subjects to develop the capacity to investigate and take action on their primary political, economic, or social problems.

Page reference: What Other Methods Do Cultural Anthropologists Use?

a. top managers at General Motors.

b. medical practitioners in a hospital.

c. kinship relations among middle-class families in India.

d. a low-income neighborhood where a toxic waste dump is located.

Type: Short Answer

Title: Chapter 03 Question 37

37) What are the primary benefits of using the comparative method? Give an example of a project in which you might employ it.

Feedback: The comparative method is a research method that involves making a systematic comparison of aspects of two or more societies.

Page reference: How Do Anthropologists Actually Do Ethnographic Fieldwork?

Type: Short Answer

Title: Chapter 03 Question 38

38) Of all the research techniques anthropologists have at their disposal, which one(s) might you use to study how politicians make decisions in Washington, DC?

Feedback: Although participant observation and unstructured, open-ended interviews are the core research methods for cultural anthropologists, some projects require additional strategies to understand social complexity and the native’s point of view. Some of the most important of these methods include the ones we review here: the comparative method, the genealogical method, life histories, ethnohistory, rapid appraisals, action research, anthropology at a distance, and analysis of secondary materials.

Page reference: What Other Methods Do Cultural Anthropologists Use?

Type: Short Answer

Title: Chapter 03 Question 39

39) If you wanted to conduct ethical research on a vulnerable population, such as undocumented migrant workers, what issues would you be especially concerned about?

Feedback: In order to do no harm, anthropologists need to conceal the identities of everyone they have interviewed, and sometimes they must also conceal content. Typically we use pseudonyms for informants in published accounts, but we might also change details to further disguise an informant’s identity.
Page reference: What Unique Ethical Dilemmas Do Ethnographers Face?

Type: essay/short answer question

Title: Chapter 03 Question 40

40) Why is using different methodologies to collect different types of data important for anthropologists?

Feedback: Although participant observation and unstructured, open-ended interviews are the core research methods for cultural anthropologists, some projects require additional strategies to understand social complexity and the native’s point of view. Some of the most important of these methods include the ones we review here: the comparative method, the genealogical method, life histories, ethnohistory, rapid appraisals, action research, anthropology at a distance, and analysis of secondary materials.

Page reference: What Other Methods Do Cultural Anthropologists Use?

Type: essay/short answer question

Title: Chapter 03 Question 41

41) How do you think a researcher might combine ethnographic research techniques with quantitative research techniques?

Feedback: Although participant observation and unstructured, open-ended interviews are the core research methods for cultural anthropologists, some projects require additional strategies to understand social complexity and the native’s point of view. Some of the most important of these methods include the ones we review here: the comparative method, the genealogical method, life histories, ethnohistory, rapid appraisals, action research, anthropology at a distance, and analysis of secondary materials.

Page reference: What Other Methods Do Cultural Anthropologists Use?

Type: essay/short answer question

Title: Chapter 03 Question 42

42) Are there some projects that are better suited to ethnographic research methods than others? If so, give an example and explain why. If not, why not?

Feedback: Although participant observation and unstructured, open-ended interviews are the core research methods for cultural anthropologists, some projects require additional strategies to understand social complexity and the native’s point of view. Some of the most important of these methods include the ones we review here: the comparative method, the genealogical method, life histories, ethnohistory, rapid appraisals, action research, anthropology at a distance, and analysis of secondary materials.

Page reference: What Other Methods Do Cultural Anthropologists Use?

Type: essay/short answer question

Title: Chapter 03 Question 43

43) What are some of the dilemmas facing anthropologist of their own society, and how do they deal with those dilemmas?

Feedback: The effect of being a proverbial “fish out of water,” struggling to make sense of seemingly sense-less actions, heightens our sensitivities to the other society’s culture. These sensitivities allow us to ask questions and eventually understand what seems obvious to members of the other community and do research “at home.”
Page reference: What Other Methods Do Cultural Anthropologists Use?

Type: essay/short answer question

Title: Chapter 03 Question 44

44) How does fieldwork help anthropologists decipher the “informal logic of everyday life”?

Feedback: Fieldwork also helps us achieve one of our discipline’s central goals, which Clifford Geertz once described as deciphering “the informal logic of everyday life,” which is to say, trying to gain access to the implicit assumptions people make and the tacit rules they live by. Most law-abiding Americans, for example, might assume that internet hacktivists are criminals with a set of values that differs from their own, but Coleman’s long-term involvement with them suggests a more complicated picture, such as a willingness to stand up for the weak by challenging unjust laws and institutions. By immersing ourselves directly in community activities, we can observe what is important to the community, what community members discuss among them-selves, and how these matters are intertwined with social institutions. This approach can yield rich insights about people’s behaviors, actions, and ideas, insights that the people themselves might not notice or understand.

Page reference: What Distinguishes Ethnographic Fieldwork from Other Types of Social Research?

Type: essay/short answer question

Title: Chapter 03 Question 45

45) Discuss the advantages and dilemmas of using the ethnographic method.

Feedback: Most anthropologists do not set out to study illegal activities, in part because of the risks both to themselves and to their informants. But all anthropologists, nevertheless, face certain common ethical dilemmas, no matter where they conduct their research. These dilemmas arise in relation to anthropologists’ commitment to do no harm, considerations about to whom anthropologists are responsible, and questions about who should control anthropology’s findings. Here we explore how such issues play out in the specific context of ethnographic research.

Page reference: What Unique Ethical Dilemmas Do Ethnographers Face?

Type: essay/short answer question

Title: Chapter 03 Question 46

46) What are the ethical concerns that anthropologists have to face when doing their research?

Feedback: In order to do no harm, anthropologists need to conceal the identities of everyone they have interviewed, and sometimes they must also conceal content. Typically we use pseudonyms for informants in published accounts, but we might also change details to further disguise an informant’s identity.
Page reference: What Unique Ethical Dilemmas Do Ethnographers Face?