Fieldwork Methods and Ethnographic Research
Fieldwork methods are the practical core of anthropology. The exam tests participant observation, interview types, sampling, emic/etic analysis and research ethics, usually through a short field scenario.
Method toolkit
- Participant observation: living with people, observing and taking part; Malinowski's Trobriand work established its centrality.
- Rapport: trust built before sensitive questions.
- Key informants: knowledgeable people, not the only voices.
- Interviews: structured, semi-structured, unstructured; genealogical method for kinship; life histories; case studies; focus groups.
- Observation and mapping: village census, transect walks, time allocation.
- Emic/etic: insider's categories versus analyst's categories.
- Triangulation: checking one source against another.
- Ethics: informed consent, confidentiality, no harm, fair return.
Worked example
A student studying Theyyam should attend performances, interview performers and sponsors, collect genealogies of the ritual roles, and compare official festival records with villagers' accounts. If one performer says the ritual is 'only entertainment' and another says it is 'worship', the student should record both as emic views and check patterns across households-not dismiss the first as ignorance.
Traps
Leading questions ('You are exploited by the festival, aren't you?'); sampling only officials or only men; treating one informant as the whole community; writing field notes months later; breaking confidentiality; confusing ethnography with survey research.