Dr. Jane Granskog	Office Hours:
Office: DDH/CC206 Phone: 664-3117	T-Th: 4:30 - 6:30
Dept.: DDH/AA209 Phone: 664-2368	W: 4:00 - 5:00
e-mail: unknown://mailto:jgranskog@csub.edu/	Web: http://runner.csub.edu/Redirect/www.csub.edu/~jgranskog

"...our empirical world is a temporal sequence of complex events, so unrepeatable by the laws of probability and so irreversible by principles of thermodynamics, that everything interesting happens only once in its meaningful details." Stephen Jay Gould

"Ethnography is about discovery. Skillful ethnography is about making some room for the creative imagination and some discipline intuition. It is about entering the field wlthout totally predefining the domain of interest and without presuming that you already know what is universal, because most of the time those presumptive universals are generated out of one’s own perspective-dependent, context-dependent, and hence local world." Richard Shweder

"What I want to show in my work is the idea that hides itself behind so-called reality. I am seeking the bridge that leads from the visible . . . . It may sound paradoxical, but it is, in fact, reality which forms the mystery of our existence." Max Beckmann 1884-1950

Required Texts:

Bolin, Anne and Jane Granskog eds., 2003. Athletic Intruders: Ethnographic Research on Women Culture and Exercise. SUNY Press.

Emerson, Robert, Rachel Fretz and Linda Shaw, 1995. Writing Ethnographic Fieldnotes. U. of Chicago Press.

Kutsche, Paul. 1998. Field Ethnography: A Manual for Doing Cultural Anthropology. Prentice Hall.

Lofland, John and Lyn H., 1995. Analyzing Social Settings: A Guide to Qualitative Observation and Analysis. Third Edition. Wadsworth Publishing Co.

Recommended and Required Readings on Reserve: (Required readings designated by an asterisk * in schedule)

*Granskog, Jane, 1992. "Tri-ing Together: An Exploratory Analysis of the Social Networks of Female and Male Triathletes." Play and Culture 5 (1) 76-91

*Spradley, James P. and David W. McCurdy. The Cultural Experience: Ethnography in Complex Society.

*Spradley, James P., 1980. Participant Observation.

Spradley, James P., 1979. The Ethnographic Interview.

Additional required selected articles may be placed on reserve along with other recommended readings to be discussed during the quarter.

Goals of the Course:

The focus of this course is to learn how to collect, analyze, and report qualitative data from social settings in everyday life. The qualitative methods that we cover include, but are not limited to, participant observation and interviewing techniques. We also emphasize the ethics of qualitative research. You will learn how to formulate a research problem and how to use conceptual and theoretical materials in your analysis of qualitative data. Each student completes a fieldwork project

The primary goal of the course is to carry out an ethnographic research project in the Bakersfield area based on data collected in public places, organizations, or other community settings. During our initial class periods the variety of social settings or "cultural scenes" in which the project can be undertaken will be discussed. Our goal is to have each of you committed to a particular setting by the end of the first week. A broad conceptual framework will be provided to facilitate your getting down to the nuts and bolts of the data collection. Anyone is free to develop other theoretical perspectives that prove to be more appropriate to the particular setting in which you will each work.

We attempt to break down your task into a series of manageable steps that you can build on from week to week. Each of you will be expected to spend a minimum of five hours per week in your setting or interviewing key informants. This does not include the time required to record your field notes. Lab sessions will be devoted to practicing and honing field research techniques that may be incorporated within your setting. I will attempt to visit all of you in your setting if my presence will not negatively effect the rapport you have established.

The format of the course will be seminar style. Part of each session will require you to provide information on the progress made and the problems encountered in your setting. Our focus will be the constant need to translate raw, descriptive data into concepts, schemata, and relationships that further our understanding of human behavior. All are expected to contribute by providing criticism and encouragement to one another's effort. For any seminar style course to be successful, it is absolutely incumbent upon everyone to attend all class sessions.

The culmination of the course is the writing of an ethnography based on the data collected in your cultural setting. It is surely a monumental task to perform within the constraints of one academic quarter. But it is possible and often provides one with a peak research experience. Surely you will get a taste of what it is like to confront the richness (and confounding chaos!) of social life. Welcome aboard! It will probably be a bumpy ride.

Interim Reports

1. An overview of your cultural scene. This will be based on the categories of Handout #2. Although it may not exhaust the material you will need in your final report, it will provide a reference point for further data collection. This will be due by the end of the fifth week of the quarter.

2. A preliminary analytic framework and/or a cultural taxonomy. The analytic framework will be based on one of the approaches to analysis in the Kutsche and Lofland/Lofland volumes. The cultural taxonomy is based on the approach of the Spradley book. Both will be discussed in class. This will be due by the end of the eighth week.

Evaluation procedure:

Your final grade will be based on the following:

Final report: ethnography of a cultural scene 50%

Two interim reports 20%

Class contributions: including critique of peers 15%

Final exam 15%

Course Outline and Readings:

Week 1: Choosing a research setting for participant observation:

Week 9: - Writing final report and Class presentations

Week 10: - Class presentation of ethnographies (cont.'d.)

Review of selected readings for final exam

Plagiarism is an extremely serious offense. Using published or unpublished material without citing the source is plagiarism. You may use someone else’s material if you enclose it in quotation marks and reference precisely its source. Such material, however, should be used sparingly, if at all. Simply paraphrasing someone else’s material by minimal re-arrangement of the wording is also plagiarism. It is an equally serious offense if you write a paper for someone else, or copy someone else’s work, or allow someone to copy your work. In all cases, this is cheating. Plagiarism and cheating result automatically in a grade of F. College regulations also require that a letter be entered into the student’s file regarding the infraction, and any second offense will lead to dismissal from the university.
 
 

A. Statement of Purpose -- This should include the reasons for selecting the particular social setting (cultural scene) you are studying and the problems and/or questions you are investigating. If you have any generalizations or hypotheses with which you are working, state them here.

B. Statement of Theory -- Discuss any theoretical formulations, such as Bell’s theory of the post-industrial society, or Turner's concept of the liminal zone in our culture, or any concepts relevant to your study. Here you can include an overview of any reading you have done that has contributed to conceptualizing your investigation. It is also possible to include this section as an integral part of the Analysis section (see below).

C. Statement of Methods -- State how you gathered your data, what your role was in the setting, frequency of contact, problems of rapport or understanding. This section can include a self-reflexive component in which you indicate how your background, values, or personality may have conditioned the information you gathered and how you interpreted it.

D. General Description of the Setting -- This provides information on the overall context within which your observations took place. It includes a description of the physical setting, the social positions of all actors in the setting, and the important activities that take place. This section is basically an updating and, where necessary, an elaboration of the first report due at the end of the fifth week.

E. Analysis of the Data -- The content of this section depends on which analytic technique you have used. It may be based on the alternatives provided in the Wolcott (A) text, the taxonomic schema provided by the Spradley text, or some other framework discussed in class. This section is an extension of the second report due at the end of the eighth week.

F. Interpretation and Conclusion -- This section is not merely a summary (even though it may include such), but it should draw together your main findings and attempt to see what general conclusions, no matter how tentative, are possible regarding the problems you have investigated. This section allows you to speculate beyond the scope of the data you have gathered, but can be considered reasonable extensions. You should also suggest ways in which future research in this problem area could improve upon what you have accomplished.

G. References. All bibliographic material that you have drawn upon for your paper should be included. Guidelines for the appropriate anthropological style for citations and references can be found on the web at http://runner.csub.edu/Redirect/www.aaanet.org/pubs/style_guide.htm

H. Appendix -- Fieldnotes and any other relevant material (photographs, maps, charts, documents, census material, etc.)