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Teaching at the Center
"Ethnographic Methods"
Using material from the Dorothy Eggan
Papers, the Fred Eggan Papers, and the Sol Tax Papers, Nicole
Couture asked her students to use the University Archives to probe
the ethnographic methods employed by an important generation of
anthropologists. On the day the assignment was distributed, class
met in Special Collections for an overview of the collections and a
discussion of the nature of archival research.
Assignment: Field Notes and
Archives
In your written assessment of the research materials in
question, you should consider such issues as the nature and
organization of the notes (scratch notes, field notes, records,
texts, indexes, collateral documentation, etc.), the relationship
between the type of data and the genre of field notes, the use of
informants/consultants, explicit statements about his or her
advisors or predecessors at this field site. Of course, these are
only a few of the possible issues you might address; try to develop
your own additional topics for analysis based on the nature of the
material and issues covered in course readings and class
discussion. For example, do these archived materials relate in any
way to some of the assigned class readings from Sanjek's
Fieldnotes: The Makings of Anthropology? Who are the
intended readers of the notes and other materials? Does the
ethnographer distinguish between the collection of raw data and
interpretation?
Recognizing that the archival process attempts to preserve the
original order and logic of a researcher's professional papers, you
should also briefly contextualize the material you have examined
within the researcher's collection as a whole. In your chosen case,
what, if anything, does an overview of the complete finding aid
reveal about the researcher's methodology?
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