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£ ANTHROPOS
jj|J 98.2003: 473-487
Vesna V. Godina
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474 Vesna V. Godina
ences are connected to the two basic dimensions of work is fieldwork per se and as such constitutes
the precise variant which is connected to anthro-
fieldwork: first, to the place of fieldwork, i. e., the
pology as a science in both the historical and
answer to the question "Where does the fieldwork
the structural senses. As Lila Abu-Lughod has
take place?"; and second, to the observer, i.e.,
the answer to the question "Who performs thepointed out, anthropology "is a discipline built
fieldwork"? on the historically constructed divide between the
Combining the different possible variables of West and the non- West. It has been and continues
place and agent gives us three typical types of to be primarily the study of the non- Western
fieldwork situation: other by the Western self (Abu-Lughod 1991:
(1) field: non-European society; observer: an an- 139).
thropologist from West Europe;2 This is the kind of fieldwork which was "in-
(2) field: non-European society; observer: a native vented" by Malinowski; this is also the kind of
anthropologist; fieldwork which is standard at both Oxford and
(3) field: West European society; observer: a West Cambridge; this variety of fieldwork is the one
European anthropologist. treated as genuine anthropological fieldwork; this
All three kinds of fieldwork situation can be is the kind of fieldwork which is connected to most
found in anthropological practise in the last cen- debates about the advantages and disadvantages of
tury. They do not, however, have the same status, fieldwork, the crises in fieldwork, and so on; this
nor are they connected with the same problems remains the kind of fieldwork which "seems to pro-
and limitations. This means, of course, that there vide anthropologists with a common grounding,"
is no longer any uniform constitution in field- and, moreover, which "provides an intellectual and
work. In each of these three settings, the crisis emotional grounding for the discipline" (Borofsky
in anthropological fieldwork takes very different 1994a: 17).
forms, for each of which anthropologists have What exactly are the characteristics of this ide-
already established some crucial conditions andal anthropological fieldwork? Frustrating, boring,
limitations. uninteresting - all these adjectives were included
In order to understand the present status of in Malinowski' s answer (Malinowski 1967; Wayne
1995/1). Gravel (1976: 121) added a more detailed
fieldwork, its problems, and its perspectives, it will
be necessary to analyse separately each of these description:
three field settings.
The substantive part of fieldwork has no glamour. It is
made up of routine matters about which it is difficult
to be expansive. Fieldwork is really made up of the
1. The Classical Setting: A West European same little administrative tasks we try to get away
Anthropologist in a Non-European Field from. It is made up of trying to make ends meet.
It is made up of wiping dishes, of sweeping floors,
of book-keeping, of keeping things and equipment in
Classical anthropological fieldwork occurs when
a West European anthropologist observes a non-shape, of filing away notes, letters and photographs or
writing endlessly and eternally trying to remember more.
European society or culture.3 This kind of field-
It is made up of attempts at disentangling the red tape
of local bureaucracies and at reviving moribund requests
2 "From West Europe" in this usage, includes those from and permissions. It is made up of constantly trying to
the West European countries, the USA, and Canada. Sim-reschedule timeless time and to fathom bottomless pits.
ilarly, the term "West European Anthropologist" includes
It is made up of supervision of assistants, or correcting
anthropologists from West European countries, the USA,
and Canada. errors, covering faux pas, and of re-instilling a sense of
purpose in your crew. It is made up of the tedium of
3 It is not our aim here to discuss the problem of relationships
daily life with suddenly no one to share it with.
between society and culture. This discussion has a long
and rocky history in social and cultural anthropology.
The American tradition of cultural anthropology has in
Neither are Salzman's (1994:35) comments
most cases oriented fieldwork towards observation of non- markedly more enthusiastic:
European culture/cultures. At the beginning of the 20th
century, the European (and especially the British) tradition
of fieldwork was also oriented towards the study of culture.American cultural anthropology towards non-European cul-
However, with Radcliffe-Brown's reorientation of Britishture/cultures and of British social anthropology towards
social anthropology towards the study of the social systemsnon-European social systems and/or societies became fixed,
of non-European societies, British social anthropology alsoa debate arose about the relationship between culture and
redefined the subject of anthropological fieldwork. This society which has continued to this day. To view some
redefinition is still in force (Kuper 1996; Stocking 1995).recent aspects of this debate, compare, for example, Goody
However, even after the above mentioned orientation of (1992) and Kuper (2000).
Anthropos 98.2003
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Anthropological Fieldwork at the Beginning of the 21st Century 475
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476 Vesna V. Godina
best I self-reflections
ever hadon his own culture"
in(Obeyesekerepr
to gauge 1990: 235). The anthropologist will then
exactly the have to p
1995/1: live for the restf.).
167 of his or her life somewhere in
This between: thus, the anthropologist lives and works
ambivalence is
an in two worlds.
anthropologist's r
ual informants, but
Additionally, there is the problem of evaluating
to his orthe results
her of such fieldwork. From the time Ma-
village
whole; helinowski's
or diary was published,
she the authority of
lov
time (cf.ethnography collapsed:
Obeyeseke
persist long after the
There The intellectual
are, authority that modern anthropology
however,
originally claimed, resting on objective reports of first-
informants. Every i
hand experience gained with exotic peoples through the
that he or she is bein
practice of fieldwork, has been seriously undermined.
he or she isn't goi
Today no-one accepts uncritically the truth claims of the
is goingclassicto exhibit
monographs. Indeed, for many ethnography has
thinks is become
expected.
a sort of creative writing rather than a scientific M
ful informant
exercise (Grimshaw and Hart 1993: 7). is (un
information given t
connection Moreover, even those authors who do not ac-
Obeyesek
effect" (Obeyeseker
cept such postmodernist relativism must admit that
the interpreter in
in the field every anthropologist sees what he or t
anthropologist is
she was "programmed to see" (Kuper 1992: 63). de
mant/interpreter,
This "programming" has much to do with the a
to knowledge of
fact that the authority of the fieldwork of a giv- th
the anthropologist
en anthropologist continues only as long as this is
more dependent
anthropologist remains the sole agenthe who has is
1990: 236).
"done" a particular field.
To the above comp
fieldwork situations
The credibility of our field reports rests mainly on their
not uniqueness,
occur that is, on the absence of any other reports
regularly,
occur, of thatextreme
might present contrary "findings" . . . Most of the
im
the cases
possibility of repeat or closely comparable
that studies, from th
Redfield and Lewis in Mexico to the Truk controversy
different roles in th
and up to the challenge to Mead's work in Samoa, have
are opened that the
resulted in gross contradiction, angry confusion, and a
enough time to
final uncertainty (Salzman 1994: 35). real
are some which can
as, for example,
Linked to this is also the well-known factor the
ables an of anthropolo
"resistance to others studying 'my people' . . ."
society which
(Obeyesekere 1990: 234). "As farthe
as I know, an- l
to high-ranking str
thropology is the only scientific discipline that
contrast, problems
discourages replication of scholarly work. No one c
uations between
wants others messing around with my people"an
mant/interpreter
(234 f.). can
for example, "if the
However, it is not only that every anthropolo- i
intelligent than
gist sees what he or she is programmed to see; the
better politician"
every anthropologist also does not see what he (O
If anthropologists
or she is supposed not to see. For example, an- in
how "unnatural" circumstances finish their field-
thropologists in most cases do not understand the
work - "if young fieldworkers do not give up basic in dimensions of their own method, the meth-
despair, go mad, ruin their health, or die," they do
od of observation with participation. Obeyesekere
"after a fashion, become anthropologists" (Mead characterised participation in the following terms
1995: 142). But neither is this the end of the story:
(1990: 227 f.):
on returning home, the anthropologist first has
to survive another identity crisis, another typeThus of investigator and subject (not object) are of the
"field shock," when "the return produces critical same essence, and as such they constitute an inter subjec-
Anthropos 98.2003
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Anthropological Fieldwork at the Beginning of the 21st Century 477
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478 Vesna V. Godina
Anthropos 98.2003
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Anthropological Fieldwork at the Beginning of the 21st Century 479
the infor-
unstructured interviews and the use of key language and cultural conventions better than
in a culturally
mants" (Burgess 1993: 16). On the other hand, distant place" (20) as a definite
"it has also involved modification of research advantage of doing fieldwork at home; moreover,
designs to meet the demands of new settings
as a general argument in favour of home field-
using different methods and different theories.work
An- he quotes Firth: "Since we can explore the
anthropological problems anywhere, we might as
thropologists have, therefore, borrowed concepts
well go to places where it is comfortable to spend
and methods from other social science disciplines,
some time" (19). Burgess adds two refinements
especially sociology" (16). Or, to put it more clear-
to the argument: first, the disappearance of social
ly, social and cultural anthropology have forged
strongly ties with sociology and its methods.distance between anthropologists and the people
who are observed; and, second, the disappear-
One further dilemma is caused, as Burgess
ance of doubts about what is going on (1993:
suggests, by the complexity of industrial societies,
23).
that is, the question of whether "to study people
superficially or to study a small number of in- Nevertheless, the home situation also brings
with it significant disadvantages, all of which
formants in depth" (1993: 15). The second option
are basically connected to the question classically
has more or less been accepted, with the result
raised by Leach (1963) in his review of Srinivas's
that anthropologists in industrial societies study
very detailed topics and themes. The problem book,of"Caste in Modern India and Other Essays"
the conflict between micro and macro levels of (1962), namely: "How can a social scientist who
research has been resolved in three ways: has no distance on his own society really under-
stand that society?" For Leach, distance is a neces-
First, holism has been sacrificed for a micro level
sary precondition for such an understanding. Some
ethnography of a segmented population. . . . Secondly,
thirty years later, Abu-Lughod (1991) - among
urban interaction networks have been traced through
others - reopens the question (Burgess 1993;
field studies. . . . Finally, macro level ethnographies of
Norman 2000; Ortner 1991). Norman's comment
entire cities have brought together survey materials,
on the problem goes as follows: "It used to be
historical data, and ethnographic evidence . . . (Burgess
1993: 15). assumed, when anthropologists started studying
in their European homelands, that they would be
In comparison, however, with classic anthro- blinded by their cultural similitude with their infor-
pological fieldwork in non-European societies, the mants and take too much for granted" (2000: 121).
basic difference is related not to the above men- Burgess adds, "The key issue is whether field
tioned redefinition of fieldwork method but to the researchers working within their own society expe-
different situation. What is of basic importancerience advantages and disadvantages that are less
here is not the complexity of the situation inlikely to be encountered by researchers working
West European societies but the disappearance of in societies and cultural settings other than their
difference between "us and them," that is, between own" (Burgess 1993: 22). He outlines the answer
anthropologists and natives. The anthropologiststhus (22, 24):
and the observed are members of the same culture
... the main problems for researchers working within
and society. The field, then, is the same place as
their own societies are recognising culture patterns in
home - a situation quite opposite to the classical familiar situations, and interpreting meanings attached to
setting where ". . . 'field' remains separate from events and problems relating to participation, observa-
the 'home' in 'real' anthropological fieldwork"tion and field relations. . . . However, there are difficul-
(Caputo 2000: 25). ties that have to be overcome in this situation: additional
This phenomenon is connected, on the one effort is required to ensure that the insider researcher
hand, with the disappearance of most of the does not take things for granted or overlook situations
troubles arising in classical fieldwork from the that at first sight appear all too familiar. Stephenson and
fact that, in principle, a different culture can beGreer (1981) suggest that researchers working within
understood only partially. However, the kinds oftheir own culture should adopt an artificial naivete by
recording as much detail as possible about the people
problems which disappear when an anthropologist
present and topics of conversation regardless of their
does fieldwork in her or his own society include
relevance. In these terms, they maintain that familiar
the following: problems of mastery of languagetopics should be given "stranger value" and seen through
or codes of behaviour, problems connected withthe eyes of the stranger.
climate, strange food and different standards of
hygiene, and so forth (cf. Eriksen 1995: 15). Erik- This means that anthropologists should "play
sen, for example, mentions the fact of "mastering the fool," that they should pretend not to under-
Anthropos 98.2003
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480 Vesna V. Godina
Anthropos 98.2003
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Anthropological Fieldwork at the Beginning of the 21st Century 481
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482 Vesna V. Godina
Tab.l
6 In East European countries during the socialist period social
and/or cultural anthropology did not exist. However, in
Field Non-European European
all countries there existed a very strong and powerful
West European classical anthropo- anthropo
tradition of ethnological and/or ethnographic research. This
research had, in most cases, taken place "at home"Researcher
- logical fieldwork home
i.e., in villages of the ethnologist's/ethnographer's own
Non- West European native anthropology fourth possibility
country. This is also the reason why many East EuropeanResearcher
ethnologists and/or ethnographers fail to see any difference
between West-anthropology - especially where West Eu-
ropean anthropology "at home" is in question - and their Most of the literature analysing fieldwork ex-
own ethnology/ethnography. I myself do insist that such an
cludes this fourth possibility (cf. Burgess 1993;
equation of terms is incorrect; however, most East European
ethnologists and/or ethnographers would not agree with myBurgess [ed.] 1994). This fourth possibility for the
position. anthropological tradition of fieldwork obviously
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Anthropological Fieldwork at the Beginning of the 21st Century 483
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484 Vesna V. Godina
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Anthropological Fieldwork at the Beginning of the 21st Century 485
10 A few steps have already been taken towards the goal Burgess, Robert G.
of institutionalisation and international network establish- 1993 In the Field. An Introduction to Field Research. London:
ment in East European anthropology. One could mention Routledge. [1984]
the Association for Balkan Anthropology, an international
Burgess, Robert G. (ed.)
organisation which has established a network for Balkan 1994 Field Research. A Sourcebook and Field Manual. Lon-
anthropological studies. Additionally, some research insti-
don: Routledge. [1982]
tutions in East European anthropology are in the process
of becoming established. For example, together with col- (Japuto, Virginia
leagues, I am currently founding an International Institute 2000 At "Home" and "Away." Reconfiguring the Field for
of East European Anthropological Studies which will be Late Twentieth-Century Anthropology. In: V. Amit
located in Slovenia. (ed.); pp. 19-31.
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486 Vesna V. Godina
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Anthropological Fieldwork at the Beginning of the 21st Century 487
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