ANTH 513 (01) - Ethnographic Methods

Durham Liberal Arts :: Anthropology

Credits: 4.0
Term: Fall 2017 - Full Term (08/28/2017 - 12/08/2017)
Grade Mode: Letter Grading

Class Size: 15
CRN: 13911

The course introduces students to social science research and differences between quantitative and qualitative research methods, and provides a hands-on experience to develop skills in interviewing, participant-observation, life-history, surveying, socio-linguistics, fieldnotes, and ethics of the research.

Only listed campus in section: Durham

Classes not allowed in section: Freshman

Attributes: Inquiry (Discovery)

Instructors: STAFF

Times & Locations

Start Date	End Date	Days	Time	Location
8/28/2017	12/8/2017	MW	2:10pm - 3:30pm	HUDD G16

Additional Course Details:

Learn from experience: learn from feeling, touching, talking, observing, discovering, and imagining. This is the most effective way to understand abstract ideas such as society and culture, politics and economics, law and power. Learn with each other and from others. This inquiry course introduces students to social science research and provides hands-on experiences to develop skills in interviewing, participant-observation, life-history, surveying, socio-linguistics, note-taking, and ethics of research, both as technology of conducting ethnographic research and as theory of ethnographic practice. This course is not limited to anthropology majors; the methods we explore are often used by various disciplines, including history, political science, public health, business and economics, and jurisprudence/law enforcement, and by every one of us during the course of daily life. A broader goal of the course is to encourage students’ experimental inquiry into cultures and societies prior to assuming knowledge about and ability to judge them.

Booklist

Ethnographic Methods is my favorite class! It is an experience based class where students learn the tools of the trade – I call it, “an ethnographic toolbox” – which they can take anywhere with them, be that a corporate world, NGO, court room, or personal relationships. In this class students discover and learn how to think differently, to listen to the world (not only humans) around you, to feel it (including your hands), to start not with assumptions but with questions, and to build your research and worldview from ground up – from empirical evidences. There are no quizzes or exams but in and out of class rigorous exercises and experiments and conducting research in your own backyard (at and around UNH) and thus learning about yourselves first and foremost.