Field Studies in Social and Cultural Anthropology I
Code: 101263 ECTS Credits: 12| Degree | Type | Year | Semester |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2500256 Social and Cultural Anthropology | OB | 2 | 1 |
Contact
- Name:
- Virginia Fons Renaudón
- Email:
- Virginia.Fons@uab.cat
Use of Languages
- Principal working language:
- catalan (cat)
- Some groups entirely in English:
- No
- Some groups entirely in Catalan:
- Yes
- Some groups entirely in Spanish:
- Yes
Teachers
- Anna Maria Piella Vila
- Pepi Soto Marata
- Andrea Garcia-Santesmases Fernandez
Prerequisites
In accordance with the 2009 Plan of Studies, approved by the Ministry, you must take the following subjects in this established order:
Second year, first semester: Field Practices in Social and Cultural Anthropology I; second semester: Epistemology and Research Methodology in Social and Cultural Anthropology; Third year, first semester: Research Techniques in Social and Cultural Anthropology; second semester: Field Practices in Social and Cultural Anthropology II.
Objectives and Contextualisation
The Field Practices in Social and Cultural Anthropology I (hereafter, Field Practices I), is the first step of a five courses itinerary that is developed throughout two years of studies (BA second and third years), and that concludes in the first semester of fourth year with the Bachelor’s Degree Final Project.
The objectives of Field Practices I are:
- To achieve a direct knowledge of the advantages, potentialities, limitations and risks posed by classical fieldwork in ethnography through the supervision of a supervised fieldwork.
- To learn basic fieldwork techniques as the participant observation or the elaboration of a fieldwork diary.
- To formulate adequate research problems and hypotheses about a specific human group.
Competences
- Apprehending cultural diversity through ethnography and critically assessing ethnographic materials as knowledge of local contexts and as a proposal of theoretical models.
- Producing cultural diversity materials that could have a critical impact on the common sense conceptions.
- Respecting the diversity and plurality of ideas, people and situations.
- Students must be capable of applying their knowledge to their work or vocation in a professional way and they should have building arguments and problem resolution skills within their area of study.
- Students must be capable of collecting and interpreting relevant data (usually within their area of study) in order to make statements that reflect social, scientific or ethical relevant issues.
- Students must be capable of communicating information, ideas, problems and solutions to both specialised and non-specialised audiences.
- Students must develop the necessary learning skills to undertake further training with a high degree of autonomy.
- Using the procedures, techniques and instrumental resources to the fulfilment of ethnographic fieldwork.
Learning Outcomes
- Ability to maintain an appropriate conversation.
- Adopting a holistic perspective to the research problem's statement and analysing human institutions within wider cultural configurations.
- Analysing a contemporary fact from an anthropological perspective.
- Analysing data critically from anthropological investigations and reports.
- Applying the current ethical codes to the ethnographic fieldwork.
- Applying the knowledge of cultural variability and its genesis to avoid ethnocentric projections.
- Assessing critically the explicit and implicit theoretical models in the ethnographic materials.
- Carrying out an individual work that specifies the work plan and timing of activities.
- Critically assessing ethnographic materials as a proposal for theoretical models.
- Engaging in debates about historical and contemporary facts and respecting the other participants' opinions.
- Establishing reliable ethnological relationships with subjects that encourage the production and trustworthiness of data.
- Explaining the work's results narratively in accordance with the critical standards of discipline and bearing in mind the different target audiences.
- Obtaining and recording ethnographic data by applying the different collection and analysis techniques, specially by using qualitative procedures and the practice of the participant observation.
- Operationalizing theoretical concepts and testing explanations of the sociocultural phenomena.
- Relating elements and factors involved in the development of scientific processes.
- Selecting the appropriate techniques for each research design.
- Solving problems autonomously.
- Using suitable terminology when drawing up an academic text.
Content
The objectives of the course will be achieved gradually and until the end there will be no clear awareness of what has been done, to a large extent, thanks to the reflexive work that is required to evaluate the subject. This lack of awareness over what is being done may entail certain insecurity at some point during the course (which is inherent to the participant observation technique, and at the same time necessary in the initiation to the technique that concerns us).
Content (except lectures and initial readings) will not be advanced but will be introduced as the different moments of the process of entering the field will be achieved.
The following aspects will be considered:
- Participant observation (fieldwork access, ethnological relationships, ethical and methodological issues, perspective of gender, class and race, etc.).
- Elaboration of the fieldwork diary.
- Organization of the information and further data systematization.
- Identification of relevant topics of theoretical interest.
- How to approach and deal with research questions.
- Enunciation of hypothetical statements.
Methodology
In the time frame assigned to this subject, there’ll be about seven group sessions throughout the semester, addressed to the whole group, of approximately one hour and a half-length, in accordance with a calendar which is established at the beginning of the course. In these plenary sessions, apart from contents, common work guidelines will be given, depending on the moment of the process of the practice in which we are. The first collective session is held the first week of class.
The rest of the workload will be individually supervised according to a schedule agreed between the student and the lecturer (specific day and hour). This individual monitoring will dive into those issues which have been reported collectively in the plenary sessions, in order to adequate them to the specific context of the practice of each student. These tutorials will help the students to know the required abilities and specific difficulties in the ethnological relationship, as well as the characteristics of his/her perception. Also they will be of great importance to raise awareness of concrete and specific issues related to the type of situations and population which the student is working with and will provide the context where all those doubts, insecurities, problems and other questions related to the course of the practice can be clarified.
Activities
| Title | Hours | ECTS | Learning Outcomes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Type: Directed | |||
| Plenary sessions | 10 | 0.4 | 4, 9, 7, 1, 10, 15, 17 |
| Type: Supervised | |||
| Individual tutorial sessions | 10 | 0.4 | 3, 6, 5, 8, 1, 13, 14, 17 |
| Type: Autonomous | |||
| Drafting of the final paper | 20 | 0.8 | 4, 3, 2, 8, 12, 18, 15 |
| Participant observation during fieldwork | 36 | 1.44 | 5, 2, 11, 1, 13, 14, 17, 16 |
| Reading and reviews of required articles | 14 | 0.56 | 4, 9, 7, 12 |
| Registry, systematization and analysis of the fieldwork diary | 60 | 2.4 | 4, 13, 14, 16 |
Assessment
This subject is evaluated throughout the semester with the permanent supervision of the course lecturers. It consists of three parts:
- Reading and reviews (10%). Attendance and participation in the plenary sessions (10%).
- Monitoring of the student’s work and tutorial attendance (40%).
- The process of analysis and elaboration of the final report (40%).
The enrolled students must complete all the field tasks planned for the development of the subject in order to be entitled to present the final work and to be evaluated. Therefore, the students who do not properly attend the schedules tutorials and satisfactorily complete the tutorial process will be considered as NOT EVALUABLE.
In order, to be evaluable in this course it is necessary to have passed 2/3 of the subject through the tutoring of the follow-up of the work and the process of analysis.
Please, notice that the process of evaluation does not contemplate a re-evaluation system, given the eminently practical character of the course (as specified in article 112.1 Doc. Adaptation of the evaluation regulations, UAB).
Throughout the course, the lecturing staff will inform the students of the date and procedure of the grade reviewing.
In the event that tests or exams cannot be taken onsite, they will be adapted to an online format made available through the UAB’s virtual tools (original weighting will be maintained). Homework, activities and class participation will be carried out through forums, wikis and/or discussion on Teams, etc. Lecturers will ensure that students are able to access these virtual tools, or will offer them feasible alternatives.
In the event of a student committing any irregularity that may lead to a significant variation in the grade awarded to an assessment activity, the student will be given a zero for this activity, regardless of any disciplinary process that may take place. In the event of several irregularities in assessment activities of the same subject, the student will be given a zero as the final grade for this subject.
Assessment Activities
| Title | Weighting | Hours | ECTS | Learning Outcomes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1a. Reading and corresponding reviews | 10% | 14 | 0.56 | 4, 9, 7, 12 |
| 1b. Assistance and participation in collective sessions | 10% | 10 | 0.4 | 4, 9, 7, 1, 10, 15, 17 |
| 2. The process of work and follow-up of tutorials | 40% | 82 | 3.28 | 3, 6, 5, 2, 11, 18, 1, 13, 14, 10, 15, 17, 16 |
| 3. The analysis process and the final work | 40% | 44 | 1.76 | 4, 3, 6, 5, 2, 8, 11, 12, 18, 13, 14, 15, 17, 16 |
Bibliography
Required reading dossier
San Román, Teresa. 2000 “El mundo que compartimos. Una alternativa”. Revista Antropología, 9.
Taylor, S.J. i R. Bogdan 1986 "La observación participante en el campo" a Introducción a los métodos cualitativos de investigación. Barcelona: Paidos, pp. 50-91.
Cardoso de Oliveira, Roberto 2004 “El trabajo del antropólogo: mirar, escuchar, escribir”, AVÁ, 5, pp. 55-68.
Malinowski, Bronislaw. 1975 [1939] “Confesiones de ignorancia y fracaso” a J.R. Llobera (ed) La antropología como ciencia. Barcelona: Anagrama, pp.129-139.
Recommended bibliography
Hammersley, M. i P. Atkinson (1994) Etnografía. Métodos de Investigación. Barcelona: Paidós.
Guasch, O. (1997) Observación Participante. Madrid: CIS (Centro de Investigaciones Sociológicas), Cuadernos Metodológicos, 20.
Lawrence Neuman, W. (1997) Social Research Methods. Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches. Boston, London: Allyn and Bacon.
San Román, T. (1996) “De la intuición a la contrastación: el trabajo de campo en antropología en la formación de los nuevos antropólogos”, a Aurora González Echevarría (coord.), Simposio VIII Epistemología y método, Actas del VII Congreso de Antropología Social. Zaragoza, pp.167-178.