This article explores how researchers adapt to disruptions that cost them access to their field sites, advancing a uniquely sociological perspective on the dynamics of flexibility and adaptation in qualitative methods. Through interviews with 31 ethnographers whose access was preempted or eliminated, I find that adaptation varied systematically…

The Alien Worlds project teaches ethnographic skills using the societies of dystopian, postapocalyptic, and science fiction texts as imagined field sites and targets for analysis. These exercises and assignments, which illustrate principles of qualitative fieldwork, were developed when COVID-19 precautions made it impossible to assign tasks that…

The history of relationships between Roma/Sinti and non-Roma/non-Sinti is marked and crossed by negative features and trails: anti-ziganismus, asymmetric power relationships within institutions and the absence of social justice in the school toward Romani minorities. This article--starting from the negative aspects of the inter-ethnic relations…

This article puts forward an experiential teaching method for becoming aware of, getting access to, and giving meaning to the sensory experiences that constitute and shape learning processes during social anthropological fieldwork. While social anthropologists use all their senses in the field, the preparation and processing of fieldwork are…

Ethnographers are particularly interested in writing. They have paid particular attention to the practices of making field notes and to the ways in which their public texts represent those that they have encountered and studied. To date there has been less attention paid to the kinds of writing that used to make sense of experiences in the field.…

The challenge of bringing research-based learning to undergraduate development studies and anthropology students has led to convening a fieldschool in Indonesia. The fieldschool has been vital in introducing students to fieldwork methodology and in developing a deeper understanding of the relation of research data to development theory. In…

Describes a course in ethnographic field methods/qualitative research methods. Discusses concepts and learning opportunities provided by the various texts utilized and by the experiences of several pioneers in field research. (GC)

Describes the structure of one anthropology field program and discusses some of the things students learn. The program, an ethnographic field school in Barbados, is offered during the academic year as a term abroad for undergraduates. (SLD)

Anthropological fieldwork is characterized as the most human methodology of the social sciences. Fieldwork brings the researcher into intimate relationships with the host people and facilitates perception of the unexpected activity of general social processes and understanding the initially perplexing conduct of the hosts. Fieldwork also has…

Over 100 entries are compiled in this bibliography which identify sources helpful in contemplating or carrying out a fieldwork approach to research in formal educational settings. The bibliography emphasizes, but is not restricted to, contributions by anthropologists. Thus, there is a preference for using the terminology of that discipline, such…

Discusses the curriculum design and instructional goals of an undergraduate urban anthropology service course with a heterogeneous student composition. Compares the pedagogical techniques used with Bruner's theory of instruction. (CJM)

Reviews the "risks" and "benefits" inherent in the field-oriented urban anthropology courses described in the preceding articles and recommends the development of more long-term large-scale research projects within such courses. (CJM)

Describes the anthropology field school or structured cultural-immersion experience held in the summer at a castle in German-speaking Italy. Students from the United States experience culture shock but usually learn new social and survival skills. (SLD)

Concepts and methods intended to enhance the relationship between psychoanalytic theory and psychological anthropology are proposed and illustrations of the application of these concepts and methods are given based on ethnographic data on the Gusii of Kenya. Using five minimum assumptions about the universality of personality, an ethnographic…

The anthropological field study approach is said to provide a means of breaking through the present conceptual framework that purports to understand complex phenomena by breaking them up into separate variables. (AM)