Notes:AnthroMethods
From SASciWikid
To add a method to this page, select the "new note" tab above or select this |link.
Enter text, images etc. to provide a menu item for your method entry. You should make a link to a new page to actually compose the description of the new method. To do this enter text like: [[AnthroMethods:Quite a method]],
When done click on the "Save Page" button you will find on the bottom left of the edit box.
Now locate the link text (e.g. your text used like AnthroMethods:Quite a method above), and click on it. You will have a new edit screen which is yours to describe your method contribution.
Context markup of fieldnotes
This is copied from a section of my doctoral thesis (U. of Kent 2002 - available to download at: [1]). A variation of it is also available in Lyon. S. 2004. Anthropological Analysis of Local Politics and Patronage in a Pakistani Village. Lampeter: Edwin Mellen Press. pp: 47-49.[2]
To see edited fieldnotes of selected fieldnotes go to [3]
An older version of the CSAC Context Codes is available at: [4]
Fieldnotes
I used the CSAC Content Codes [Fischer et al. 1996] to create meta categories in my field
notes based on the content. I did this on a daily basis. I wrote up my field notes in the
evening and sometime the following morning I entered the content codes and wrote an
abstract for every note. At the end of every month I made an edited copy of the previous
month’s field notes available on the website [Lyon 1999: http://anthropology.ac.uk/Bhalot/fn.db.html]. While content coding is of obvious value for the post fieldwork phase
of research, it is equally valuable during the data collection phase. After allowing myself
the liberty of ‘stream of consciousness’ field note writing, I forced myself to focus on what
my notes were about. What was my field note entry actually saying? Who was involved?
Were issues of time, language or location important? All questions I was able to answer
easily in the field, but for which I would probably have no answer now. Content coding
allows cursory formal description without complicating the research in sophisticated
analysis before all the information is produced. Apart from other considerations, if I did
not understand what my field notes were saying the day after I wrote them, then I was
doing something seriously wrong and the content codes served to keep me aware of that.
The CSAC Content Codes extend what the Outline of Cultural Material (OCM) codes) do
for the Human Relations Area Files (HRAF). Where the OCM are hierarchically
organised and non-propositional, however, the CSAC CC provides a way of producing
’flat’ meta tags which can be meaningfully linked (in ways more sophisticated than simply
boolean searches). That is, tags are not hierarchically organised and may be combined in
any combination to construct contextual propositions about data. The following abstract
of a field note offers an example of how coding for social and cultural context may
48
enhance the usability of qualitative material [this is a modified version of the Appendix in
Lyon 1998]:
Abstract: {T:Thread DocProj: {{K:EthnoInt:GoodEx: {{L:MetaCon:Behav:intervu {{M:Agent:Grp: {{N:Prep:down: {{O:Role:Care:low{{H:Jur:Prot:{D:Soc:Status:[Down at the hotel and barbershop conducting some semi-formal interviews about when and why people go to zamindars for help. Most people do go to zamindars (sometimes indirectly through the elder members of their family) for everything from food to broken tractors to ill children to enemies who want to beat them up. Not all zamindars help people. Heads of households seem to take this role more seriously. People from outside Bhalot reported that they went to Bhaloti Maliks before their own village zamindars. There were logical reasons for this (neighbouring land, they do most of their work for Bhaloti Maliks, their dhok is closer to Bhalot than the official village it is attached to),]}}}}}}}
{T:Thread DocProj:
I had three major strands to my research. The first was my thesis. I created a Thread called DocProj (Doctoral Project) which could label all notes directly concerned with my thesis. I also had a Thread to identify notes related to Ethnicity, and a Thread to identify notes on Development. This allowed me to globally extract data for inclusion in different simultansously run projects.
{K:EthnoInt:GoodEx:
The Ethnographic Intent (EthnoInt) term is a meta-meta tag. It helps to isolate ethnographic incidents by their use-value to me. In this case the incidents provide me with good examples of particular types of behaviour.
{L:MetaCon:Behav:intervu
Meta Context (MetaCon) allows me to extract notes based on the conditions
in which the incident occurred. It functions best in coordination
with the Ethnographic Intent term. So here, using these
two terms together, I know that this note provides good examples
of behaviour as described in interviews. This helps me evaluate
the strength of my data by maintaining a record of whether the
behaviour examples were observed, came up spontaneously in conversation
or may have been prompted by me.
{M:Agent:Grp:
Content Codes allow the ethnographer to make a distinction between Agents and Patients. This is somewhat arbitrary as it depends on the emphasis the ethnographer chooses. I began coding my notes by trying to make Agents doers of action and Patients receivers of action. Sometimes it is as straightforward as that, while at other times this is simply inadequate. Receivers of action may have played an important and active role in ensuring that they would receive the action. In this case I chose only to use the Agent term and indicate that this note concerns Group (Grp) action. Since this note concerns behaviours displayed by members of two different groups, the individuals who actually perform the action are acting within the constraints of behaviours deemed appropriate for their group.
{O:Role:Care:low
This term allows ethnographers to make propositions. The Role Attribute term and the Agents and Patients terms is what makes Content Codes fundamentally different from the OCM codes used with HRAF files or keyword searches. Processes may be described using meta language rather than individual traits. Here I have used the role Care. One group of people in the village Cares for the other. Here this is meant very literally to look after and provide for rather than any emotional or affectionate role.
{H:Jur:Prot:
The Jural (Jur) term is used here because one of the behaviours associated with the landlord group is protecting the lower status group from the outside (police, other landlords etc).
{D:Soc:Status:
Finally, I used the Society term Status. The relationship between landlords and non-landlords is very hierarchical in the village. This fieldnote provides some examples of Status differences. The bridge between thick description and formal description (which by their nature dispense with thick description in favour of consision and precision) need not be onerous or cumbersome. Using content codes provide the tools to produce relatively chaotic field notes of disparate thick descriptions while simultaneously maintaining sufficient organisation of those notes to render them into, at the very least, semi-formal descriptions.
