ANTHR 102 Lecture Notes - Lecture 25: Scientific Method, Participant Observation, Culture Shock
Document Summary
Fieldwork: an extended period of close involvement with the people in whose way of life anthropologists are interested, during which anthropologists ordinarily collect most of their data. Participant observation: involves direct, face-to-face interaction between the researcher and his or her local research partners, as they go about their daily lives. Positivism: view that there is a single reality out there and a single appropriate scientific method for investigating that reality. Reflexivity: is critically thinking about the way one thinks; reflecting on one"s own experience. The positivist approach: material causes and processes that we can detect using our senses. They are committed to explaining how the material world works in terms of. Committed to a separation of facts from values as part of their scientific approach. They are also convinced that a single scientific method can be used to investigate any domain of reality, from planetary motion to chemical reactions to human life.
