Doing Field Projects: Methods and Practice for Social and Anthropological Research

JOHN FORREST is Professor Emeritus of Anthropology at Purchase College, State University of New York, USA. His anthropological research interests include dance, music, aesthetics, ritual, and Biblical studies. He has conducted extensive fieldwork projects in the United States (North Carolina and New Mexico), Argentina, and England. He currently resides in Cambodia, where he teaches and conducts field research. KATIE NELSON is Instructor of Anthropology and Sociology at Inver Hills Community College, USA. Her research interests include teaching and learning in anthropology, and migration, identity, belonging, and citizenship in human history and in the contemporary United States, Mexico, and Morocco.

Preface (Including a Word to Instructors) vi Foreword (Including a Word to Student Readers) ix 1 Introduction 1 2 Getting Started 22 3 Ethics of Fieldwork 27 4 Research Design 33 5 Self-Study 39 6 Proxemics 52 7 Mapping 59 8 Recorded Interviews 77 9 Participant Observation 94 10 Engaged Anthropology 100 11 Process Documentation 111 12 Visual Anthropology 117 13 Sensory Observation 129 14 Performance 138 15 Life Histories (and Oral History) 147 16 Charting Kinship 158 17 Digital Ethnography (1) Social Media 167 18 Digital Ethnography (2) Online Gaming 182 19 Digital Ethnography (3) Human-Computer Interaction 186 20 Digital Ethnography (4) Online Meetings/Classes 192 21 Winding Down and Gearing Up 197 References Cited 205 Index 212