This seminar introduces students to an array of methods used by researchers, including the kinds of questions anthropologists ask, how data is collected data through observations and interactions, and then analyzed as patterns of behavior. We will consider how researchers observe, generate, and collect data, discuss contributions and limitations of various approaches, and how they intersect with race, gender, geography, class, difference, power and social organization. We also study and practice a variety of research methods during class. Finally, we discuss the ethics of ethnographic research, particularly in relationship to Anthropology’s history, and whether these methods reproduce or disrupt the colonial gaze.
- Teacher: Laurian Bowles