Field Research

A Sourcebook and Field Manual

Robert G. Burgess

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2003
• ISBN:
  9781134897506
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Sciences sociales
• Subtopic: Sociologie

For this the fourth volume in the successful Contemporary Social Research series, Robert Burgess has provided a new resource text which will prove invaluable to those engaged in field research. The material he has chosen is drawn both from sociology and social anthropology; and the readings come from experienced researchers both in the USA and Europe. In addition, Burgess draws upon the work of historians for a special section on the use of historical materials in field research. The focus is upon the strategies, processes and problems of work in the field. Chapters by distinguished social scientists cover gaining entry, note-taking, interviewing and observing. Material on data collection is complemented by discussion of data analysis and theorising. The readings themselves are subdivided into nine sections. The first essay in each section is written by Burgess himself in order to locate the articles in a broader context and to highlight the key issues and the important questions. Burgess has also provided a review of some of the major traditions in field research and a series of brief guides to further reading on the major topics covered in each of the sections. Particular attention has been paid to the use of annotated reading lists and the preparation of a very full bibliography. Field Research: A Sourcebook and Field Manual will be an essential textbook for students of social research or field research at both the undergraduate and post-graduate levels. In addition, it will provide valuable guidance for workers in the social sciences engaged in research in the field.

1
Approaches to Field Research

ROBERT G.BURGESS

One of the main styles of social research used by empirically oriented social scientists is field research; a style of investigation that is also referred to as ‘fieldwork’, ‘qualitative method’, ‘interpretative research’, ‘case study method’ and ‘ethnography’. This approach to social investigation has traditionally been associated with social anthropologists, whose ‘field’ consisted of a small-scale society where it was possible to do ‘research’ by living and working among the people. Gulick indicates that:

When the anthropologist is in the field, field work is his total life. He copes with it by using his whole body and personality in the same way that he copes with life when he is not in the field… Life in the field involves the same emotions as life at home: elation, boredom, embarrassment, contentment, anger, joy, anxiety and so on. To these are added, however, the necessity of being continually on the alert (of not taking one’s surroundings and relationships for granted), and the necessity of learning new routines and cues. These necessities are likely to force a heightened awareness of facets of one’s personality of which one had not been aware before. This can be an emotionally devastating experience, but it is by no means inevitably so. (Gulick, 1977, p. 90; emphasis in original)

In this respect, field research is a learning situation in which researchers have to understand their own actions and activities as well as those of the people they are studying. The main instrument of social investigation is the researcher, who has to learn the local language, live among the people and participate in their activities over relatively long periods of time in order to acquire a detailed understanding of the situation under study. Such a strategy has been adopted and adapted by sociologists; especially in studies of education, medicine, deviance, institutions (schools, factories, prisons and hospitals) and rural and urban localities. Yet sociologists have argued that we still lack basic ethnographic data on the social processes involved in many areas of everyday life (cf. Delamont, 1978). Indeed, in the field of deviance, Becker (1963) has remarked that we do not have enough studies where the researcher has been in close contact with those individuals who are studied. Accordingly, he suggests that if the researcher

is to get an accurate and complete account of what deviants do, what their patterns of association are, and so on, he must spend at least some time observing them in their natural habitat as they go about their ordinary activities. But this means that the student must, for the time being, keep what are for him unusual hours and penetrate what are for him unknown and possibly dangerous areas of the society. He may find himself staying up nights and sleeping days, because that is what the people he studies do, and this may be difficult because of his commitments to family and work. Furthermore, the process of gaining the confidence of those one studies may be very time consuming so that months may have to be spent in relatively fruitless attempts to gain access. (Becker, 1963, p. 170; emphasis in original)

These accounts by Gulick and by Becker begin to address the question ‘what is field research?’ It would appear that field research involves observing and analysing real-life situations, of studying actions and activities as they occur. The field researcher, therefore, relies upon learning firsthand about a people, and a culture. However, if the researcher is to obtain an insider’s view of situations, it is vital to maintain an outsider’s perspective (cf. Powdermaker, 1966a). Field researchers therefore have to develop self-criticism and self-awareness, if involvement and detachment are to be achieved in social situations. In this respect, researchers maintain membership in the culture in which they were reared while establishing membership in the groups which they are studying; they are socialised into another culture. This has been commented upon by Evans-Pritchard, who remarks:

Perhaps it would be better to say that one lives in two different worlds of thought at the same time, in categories and concepts and values which often cannot easily be reconciled. One becomes a sort of double marginal man, alienated from both worlds. (Evans-Pritchard, 1973, pp. 2–3)

This is the situation for anthropologists studying other cultures and for sociologists studying their own society. The social and cultural diversity that exists within any society means that the researcher has to learn a language and establish a role. The field researcher is, therefore, an outsider; a stranger who lives among the people for the purposes of study (Srinivas, 1979).

The method of social investigation that is most often referred to in field research is participant observation which allows the researcher to work with individuals in their natural settings. However, this emphasis upon observational techniques is somewhat narrow as field researchers may complement their observations by conversations, informal/unstructured interviews, formal interviews, by surveys and by collecting personal documents (written, oral and photographic evidence). These methods can be used in different combinations depending on the focus of the social investigation and the strategies that need to be adopted. Indeed, Schatzman and Strauss (1973) consider that the strategies used in field research depend upon the questions posed with the result that the field researcher becomes a methodological strategist who engages in problem oriented methodology. For them:

Field method is not an exclusive method in the same sense, say that experimentation is. Field method is more like an umbrella of activity beneath which any technique may be used for gaining the desired information, and for processes of thinking about this information. (Schatzman and Strauss, 1973, p. 14)

Field research involves the activities of the researcher, the influence of the researcher on the researched, the practices and procedures of doing research and the methods of data collection and data analysis. However, various writers have emphasised different aspects of field research; a situation that may be attributed to the trends and developments that have taken place in this area of study.

Some Major Approaches to Field Research

The origins of field research have been identified by Wax (1971) and by Douglas (1976) in the fifth century BC, when ‘on the spot’ reports were provided of foreign peoples and of the Peloponnesian wars. Wax traces developments in descriptive reporting among the Romans and the traders and ambassadors of the Islamic empires. She considers that the first Europeans to report ethnographic data were missionaries of the Catholic Church and travellers and merchants. However, she maintains that it is essential to look at developments that took place in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when field reports began to be used in academic study.

THE ANTHROPOLOGICAL APPROACH: THE INFLUENCE OF MALINOWSKI

It is usual for nineteenth-century analysis to be seen to have rested on material that was collected by missionaries, travellers and government officials all of whom were unqualified in anthropology. As a consequence, the use of field methods is often regarded as a twentieth-century innovation which can be attributed to Malinowski. Such a position, as Urry (1972) has shown, oversimplifies the situation. In particular, he examines the period 1870–1920, when four editions of the volume Notes and Queries on Anthropology were prepared. It is, he argues, the content of these volumes that reveal changing attitudes, fields of interest, materials that were considered to be ethnographic ‘facts’ and the development of field methods.

The first edition of Notes and Queries, prepared in 1874, pointed to the deficiencies of earlier questionnaires that had been prepared for travellers. These questionnaires, it was argued, lacked attention to the detail required by anthropologists. Accordingly, this new volume was prepared so that non-anthropologists could make more precise observations and supply the anthropologist with information. However, in this volume, and in the second and third editions, there was only information on those aspects of social life that had to be observed, but no advice on methods of observation and the collection of data.

The accounts that were provided by travellers, missionaries and administrators raised certain methodological problems. First, they often focused on what, in their terms, was exotic and romantic. Secondly, their accounts were often acquired through interpreters. Finally, as their work was concerned with change, missionaries and administrators tended to produce accounts that reflected the perspectives from which they observed the people. Numerous reports, therefore, concerned savagery and barbarity among the people. Furthermore, the reports were often based on anonymous informants. In these circumstances, Haddon, Seligman and Rivers suggested that anthropologists should bypass these accounts and collect their own data. Accordingly, in 1898 a British expedition was led by Haddon to the islands of the Torres Strait, where experts were to collect ethnographic material from the people. Meanwhile, in North America, Boas made similar trips to the North-West Coast. As few attempts were made to learn the local language, much time was spent in obtaining and keeping good informants. On these trips anthropologists confronted a series of methodological problems as they had to deal with real people and question them about their lives, avoid bias in their reporting and deal with the problems surrounding the transference of meaning from one culture to another. Indeed, Rivers argued that such expeditions containing groups of experts could interfere with the people’s way of life. However, such trips which were poorly funded and short in duration did have the advantage of collecting data firsthand.

In a report to the Carnegie Institute on ‘Anthropological work outside America’, Rivers argued the case for intensive fieldwork. He considered this involved living with the people and studying their culture, getting to know them and using the vernacular language. In these terms, he argued it was possible to overcome the bias and inaccuracy of survey work and the superficial knowledge provided by missionaries and administrators. In short, he laid emphasis on understanding native terms and native language, obtaining and paying good informants, collecting texts, genealogies and life histories and keeping systematic notes. Some of this advice was incorporated into the fourth edition of Notes and Queries, which Urry considers was ‘not so much a guide for travellers as a manual of advice for more highly trained observers; a handbook for a new era of anthropological research to be based on more exact methods’ (Urry, 1972, pp. 51–2). Malinowski used Notes and Queries on his early field trips (Malinowski, 1967, p. 30). Furthermore, Malinowski’s position, as outlined in Argonauts of the Western Pacific (Malinowski, 1922), is very similar to that of Rivers. However, it is Malinowski who is usually credited with being the originator of intensive anthropological field research as Argonauts contains a detailed discussion of method (Malinowski, 1922, pp. 4–25), but as we shall see it was more an ideal that Malinowski had, rather than what he actually did.

Malinowski was critical of earlier writers who had not provided sufficient detail about their methods. He considered that ethnographic material was only of value when it was possible to distinguish between direct observation native statements and interpretations, and the inferences of the author. It was vital that some assessment could be made concerning an author’s acquaintance with facts and the conditions under which observations were made. It was Malinowski who raised the question about how an ethnographer should work. He considered that ethnographers needed to know the aims of their studies, to live among the natives without other Europeans and to collect data by means of specific methods. In particular, he argued that ethnographers should cut themselves off from other Europeans and live among the natives as this was the only way to gain some appreciation of the social processes involved in everyday life, and to get to know individuals, their customs and their beliefs. Malinowski also considered that studying natives in their natural setting was preferable to using paid informants. This was basic to all field research.

In Argonauts, Malinowski also showed that he was aware of some of the problems associated with field research. In particular, the questions surrounding the impact of the observer on the observed and the influence of the observer upon village life were examined. However, these issues were considered unproblematic as Malinowski claimed that the constant presence of the anthropologist ceased to be a disturbing influence upon tribal life. Indeed, Malinowski advocated participation on the part of the researcher, as he remarked:

in this type of work, it is good for the Ethnographer sometimes to put aside camera, note book and pencil, and to join in himself in what is going on. He can take part in the natives’ games, he can follow them on their visits and walks, sit down and listen and share in their conversations. (Malinowski, 1922, p. 21)

Such participation, it was argued, allowed the researcher to obtain an understanding of the lives of the people studied.

However, questions can be raised about Malinowski’s own research and the extent to which he achieved these ideals. Certainly, his ideas concerning the collection of statistical data, detailed observations and ethnographic statements revolutionised field research, whose ultimate goal he thought should be ‘to grasp the native’s point of view, his relation to life, to realise his vision of his world’ (Malinowski, 1922, p. 25; emphasis in original). However, when Malinowski’s private diaries were published by his widow in the late 1960s, a different view of the great anthropologist was revealed. Here, we find that Malinowski had much in common with other researchers as his diary records periods of loneliness and boredom, periods when he hated the natives and periods of deep depression. In short, rather than the idealised picture of field research that he presented in the opening pages of Argonauts, we are given a clear view of the difficulties involved in doing ethnographic work. Malinowski reveals that there were several problems surrounding data collection as one entry, in common with several others, records:

The rest of day ethnographic work, but it didn’t go well. I began ‘Kabitam’ —copied a few lagims and tabuyors, and began to ask names: they did not know the names. I asked about megwa—they had no megwa, no personal kabitam, nor any megwa used during making of waga or gardens. This irritated me, I went away and began to work with Tom and Topola; it didn’t go well either. I felt like stopping an reading a novel. (Malinowski, 1967, p. 240; emphasis in original)

Here, it is not only the difficulties of data collection, but his relationships with the natives that can be questioned (cf. Wax, 1972). This and other diary entries reveal hatred and dislike of the people. He writes about his work one morning in the following terms:

On this occasion I made one or two coarse jokes, and one bloody nigger made a disapproving remark, whereupon I cursed them and was highly irritated. I managed to control myself on the spot, but I was terribly vexed by the fact that this nigger had dared to speak to me in such a manner. (Malinowski, 1967, p. 272; emphasis in original)

On other occasions the native women are reduced to objects of Malinowski’s sexual fantasy, as he remarks:

I met women at the spring, watched how they drew water. One of them very attractive, aroused me sensually. I thought how easily I could have a connection with her. (Malinowski, 1967, p. 273; emphasis in original)

Such accounts raise problems about the relationship between the observer and the observed, levels of participation and the influence this has upon data collection and analysis.

While it can be argued that these entries in Malinowski’s diary do not provide the kind of detail on field methodology that is given in his research monographs, they do nevertheless provide a detailed, candid account of the researcher in the field during the colonial period. (For critical commentaries on work in this period see Asad, 1973.) Although living among the people, he was aware that he could not join in everything they did. In turn, he could not remain completely separate from Europeans and European culture, as his meetings with missionaries, travellers and traders, and long periods spent reading novels, hint at attempts to get ‘outside’ the society that he studied. In short, the diary provides episodes from his personal life that can complement his more idealised picture of anthropological field research. Nevertheless, even if Malinowski did not live up to the high standards that he set himself, it is evident that he did ‘revolutionise’ the work of the anthropologist, for as Urry remarks:

Malinowski’s contribution was not only to make clearer the type of information to be collected, but more importantly, he had differentiated between the type of materia...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Series Editor’s Preface
• Preface
• 1: Approaches to Field Research
• Section One: Starting Field Research
• Section Two: Field Roles and Field Problems
• Section Three: Sampling Strategies in Field Research
• Section Four: Conversations in Field Research
• Section Five: Historical Sources and Field Research
• Section Six: Combining Strategies in Field Research
• Section Seven: Recording Field Data
• Section Eight: Theorising in Field Research
• Section Nine: Analysing and Reporting Field Research
• References