GEOGRAPHY 5722 : Field Methods in Human Geography

Spring 2005

 

 

Introduction:

This seminar will explore qualitative methodologies in human geography research.  We will draw from other disciplines such as anthropology and sociology for methodological insights, but my goal is to focus our attention on approaches that are particularly appropriate to human geography.  Thus, one of our goals will be to explore how to translate abstract concepts like scale, region, place, spatial interaction, and mobility into viable field methods.  In addition, there will be a significant focus on the role of writing during various phases of the research process.  As writing is one of the most important things we do as scholars, it is important that we explore the nature of narrative as a methodological strategy, and a process through which our findings and ideas are communicated to others.  Toward that end, we will attempt to run the seminar as a kind of writing workshop, conducting frequent writing exercises and sharing these with each other for inspiration and criticism.  In such an environment mutual trust and respect is crucial to everyone’s success.

 

 

Readings and requirements:

Readings:

Four complete books are required for the course:

 

·         Writing the New Ethnography by H.L. Goodall (Altamira)

·         Qualitative Methods for Geographers, eds. M. Limb and C. Dwyer (Arnold)

·         The Age of Wild Ghosts by E. Mueggler (California)

·         At Home in the World, by M. Jackson (Duke)

 

All other required readings will be available on Norlin e-reserve.  It is your responsibility to access, download, and/or print all required readings in a timely manner so that required readings have been completed prior to seminar meetings.  Optional readings have not been placed on reserve and are primarily provided for your future reference.

 

Requirements:

Participation in seminar discussions (20%):  full participation in all seminar discussions goes without saying.  This seminar is really more of a workshop; its success will depend upon how much we can learn from each other.

 

Completion of writing experiments in Goodall (20%):  There are numerous writing exercises in Goodall’s text.  We will complete most of these, and share them with each other for further reflection and discussion.

 

Presentation on fieldwork method (10%):  During one of the three sessions on “doing fieldwork,” you are responsible for giving an informal presentation on a fieldwork method of your choice.   You will need to consult with me well in advance so that an appropriate variety of methods is covered in the presentations.

 

Completion of two writing assignments on Cannibal Tours (10%):  We will view this film twice in one session.  Two brief assignments focus on this film; see 2/22 for details.

 

Critique/reviews of Mueggler and Jackson (10%):  These are brief critiques of the two major ethnographic texts we’ll be reading for the class.

 

Experimental field project ethnography (30%):  Your major “product” for the class will be an ethnographic narrative based on your field project.  During the semester you will develop an experimental qualitative field research project that involves one or more of the field methods discussed in the class.  You are required to submit a written narrative (an ethnography) of this project.  This will not be a research design or a proposal, nor is it necessarily an account of how you did the research or the problems encountered therein (these being topics of discussion in class).  However, the extent of reflexivity you wish to employ in your ethnography is up to you and thus a certain amount of discussion concerning the “how” of your research is always welcome.

 

 

Schedule:

1/11         Introduction; discussion of research projects and fieldwork implications                                                

 

 

1/18         The epistemology of qualitative research – debates over the legitimacy of method                               

 

Read:

·         Goodall, Chapter 1

·         Limb and Dwyer, Chapter 1

·         Howard Becker, “The epistemology of qualitative research” – unpublished paper.

·         Norman Denzin and Yvonna Lincoln, “Introduction: the discipline and practice of qualitative research” – Handbook of Qualitiative Research, 2nd Edition, edited by Norman Denzin and Yvonna Lincoln (Thousand Oaks: Sage, 2000), pp. 1-29.

 

Optional / Additional resources:

·         John Creswell, Research Design: Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches (Thousand Oaks, Calif: Sage Publications, 1994).

·         Special Issue on “Doing Fieldwork” The Geographical Review 91:1-2 (2001).

·         John Eyles, “Interpreting the geographical world” – Qualitative Methods in Human Geography (London: Polity, 1988), pp. 1-16.

·         Martin Hammersley and Paul Atkinson, Ethnography; principles and practice (London: Tavistock, 1983), pp. 1-26, “What is ethnography?”

·         Michael Jackson, “On ethnographic truth.” In Paths Toward a Clearing: Radical Empiricism and Ethnographic Inquiry (Bloomington: University of Indiana Press, 1989), pp. 170-187.

·         Valerie Janesick, “The choreography of qualitative research design” – Handbook of Qualitative Research, 2nd Edition (Thousand Oaks: Sage, 2000), pp. 379-400.

·         Heidi Nast, “Women in the field” – Professional Geographer 46:1 (1994), 54-66.

 

Resources on writing proposals, getting funded

·         Charles Lidz and Edmund Ricci, “Funding large-scale qualitative sociology.” Qualitative Sociology 13:2 (1990), pp. 113-125.

·         Lawrence Locke, et al. Proposals that Work: A Guide for Planning Dissertations and Grant Proposals. 4th edition (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 2000).

·         University of California, Berkeley On-line Dissertation Workshop: http://globetrotter.berkeley.edu/DissPropWorkshop/

 

Assignment / Exercise

·         Goodall, Chapter 1 – Complete writing experiment #1 on your own prior to class, and bring #2 with you to class to share.  Complete #3 on your own after class (you will bring it to class on 1/25).

 

1/25         The “crisis of representation” in the social sciences                                                                                    

 

Read:

·         Limb and Dwyer, Chapters 2-4

·         James Clifford, “Introduction: partial truths” – Writing Culture: the Poetics and Politics of Ethnography, edited by J. Clifford and G. Marcus (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986), pp. 1-26).

·         George Marcus, “Imagining the whole: ethnography’s contemporary efforts to situate itself” – Critique of Anthropology 9:3 (1990), 7-30.

·         George Marcus and Michael Fischer, “A crisis of representation in the human sciences” – Anthropology as Cultural Critique (Chicago: University of Chicago Press), pp. 7-16.

 

Critical Interrogations of Fieldwork

·         Arjun Appadurai, “Putting hierarchy in its place. Cultural Anthropology  3:1 (1988): 36-49.

·         Ruth Behar, The Vulnerable Observer: Anthropology that Breaks Your Heart (Boston: Beacon Press, 1996).

·         Ruth Behar and Deborah Gordon, eds., Women Writing Culture (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995).

·         John Beverley, “Testimonio, subalternity, and narrative authority.” In Handbook of Qualitative Research, 2nd Edition, edited. by Norman Denzin and Yvonna Lincoln (Thousand Oaks: Sage, 2000), pp. 555-566.

·         James Clifford and George Marcus, eds. Writing Culture: the Poetics and Politics of Ethnography (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986)

·         Kim England, “Getting personal: reflexivity, positionality, and feminist research” – Professional Geographer 46:1 (1994), pp. 80-89.

·         Susan Heckman, “Truth and method: feminist standpoint theory revisited.” Signs 22:2 (1997), pp. 341-402 (including commentaries by Hartsock, Collins, Harding, and Smith).

·         Cindy Katz, “All the world is staged: intellectuals and the projects of ethnography.” Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 10 (1992), pp. 495-510.

·         Joe Kincheloe and Peter McLaren, “Rethinking critical theory and qualitative research.” In Handbook of Qualitative Research, 2nd Edition, edited. by Norman Denzin and Yvonna Lincoln (Thousand Oaks: Sage, 2000), pp. 279-314.

·         Audrey Kobayashi, “Coloring the field: gender, ‘race,’ and the politics of fieldwork” – Professional Geographer 46:1 (1994), pp. 73-80.

·         Georgre Marcus and Michael Fischer, Anthropology as Cultural Critique (Chicago: University of Chicago Press).

·         Donald McCloskey, The Rhetoric of Economics (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1985).

·         Sherry Ortner, “Theory in anthropology since the sixties.” Comparative Studies in Society and History 26 (1984): 126-166.

·         Sherry Ortner, “Resistance and the problem of ethnographic refusal,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 37:1 (1995), pp. 173-93.

·         Maurice Punch, “Politics and ethics in qualitative research.” In Handbook of Qualitative Research, 1st Edition, edited. by Norman Denzin and Yvonna Lincoln (Thousand Oaks: Sage, 1994), pp. 83-97.

·         Diane Rocheleau, “Participatory research and the race to save the planet: questions, critique, and lessons from the field.” Agriculture and Human Values Spring/Summer (1994), pp. 4-19.

·         Chela Sandoval, Methodology of the Oppressed (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2000).

·         Lynn Staeheli and Victoria Lawson, “A discussion of ‘women in the field’: the politics of feminist research” – Professional Geographer 46:1 (1994), pp. 96-102.

·         Linda Tuhiwai Smith, Decolonizing Methodologies: Research on Indigenous Peoples (London: Zed, 1999).

·         Diane Wolf, “Situating feminist dilemmas in fieldwork.” In Feminist Dilemmas in Fieldwork, edited by Diane Wolf (Boulder: Westview, 1996), pp. 1-55.

·         Margery Wolf, A Thrice-Told Tale : Feminism, Postmodernism, and Ethnographic Responsibility (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1992).

 

Assignment / Exercise:

·         Bring Goodall Chapter 1 writing experiment #3 with you to class for discussion.

 

 

 2/1          The object of research I – culture and identity                                                                                              

 

Read:

·         Goodall, Chapter 2

·         James Clifford, “Introduction: the pure products go crazy,” “On ethnographic authority,” and “On ethnographic self-fashioning: Conrad and Malinowski” – The Predicament of Culture (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1988).

·         Nigel Thrift. “Afterwords.” Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 18 (2000), 213-56

·         Roy Turner, “Deconstructing the field” – The Politics of Field Research, edited by Jaber Gubrium and David Silverman (London: Sage, 1989), pp. 13-29.

 

Optional / Additional resources:

·         Michel de Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Life (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984).

·         Johaness Fabian, Time and the Other: How Anthropology Makes its Object (New York: Columbia, 1983).

·         Akhil Gupta and James Ferguson, “Beyond ‘culture’: space, identity, and the politics of difference.” In Culture, Power, Place: Explorations in Critical Anthropology, edited by Akhil Gupta and James Ferguson (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1997), pp. 34-51.

·         Lila Abu-Lughod, “Writing against culture.” In Recapturing Anthropology, ed. R. Fox (Santa Fe: School of American Research, 1991), pp. 137-162.

·         Daniel Mato, “On the theory, epistemology, and politics of the social construction of ‘cultural identities’ in the age of globalization:  introductory remarks to ongoing debates.” Identities 3:1-2 (1996): 61-72.

·         Daniel Miller (ed.), Worlds Apart: Modernity Through the Prism of the Local (London and New York: Routledge, 1995).

 

Assignment / Exercise:

·         Goodall, Chapter 2 writing experiment #1 (but substitute Professional Geographer for Journal of Contemporary Ethnography).

 

 

2/8           The object of research II – place and space                                                                                                   

 

Read:

·         Michael Burawoy, “Introduction: reaching for the global” – Global Ethnography: Forces, Connections, and Imaginations in a Postmodern World (Berkeley: University of California Press), pp. 1-40.

·         Akhil Gupta and James Ferguson, “Culture, power, place: ethnography at the end of an era” – Culture, Power, Place: Explorations in Critical Anthropology, edited by Akhil Gupta and James Ferguson (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1997), pp. 1-32.

·         Cindi Katz, “Playing the field: questions of fieldwork in geography,” Professional Geographer 46:1 (1994), 67-72.

·         George Marcus, “Past, present and emergent identities: requirements for ethnographies of late twentieth-century modernity worldwide” – Modernity and Identity, edited by Scott Lash and Jonathan Friedman (Oxford: Blackwell, 1992), pp. 309-330.

 

Optional / Additional resources:

·         Michael Burawoy et al., Ethnography Unbound: Power and Resistance in the Modern Metropolis (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991).

·         George Marcus, “Contemporary problems of ethnography in the modern world system.” In Writing Culture: The Poetics and Politics of Ethnography, edited by James Clifford and George Marcus (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986), pp. 165-93.

·         Ann Oberhouser, “The home as ‘field’: households and homework in rural Appalachia.” In Thresholds in Feminist Geography, edited by John Paul Jones III, Heidi Nast, and Susan Roberts (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1997), pp. 165-182.

·         Mary Louise Pratt, “Fieldwork in common places.” In Writing Culture: The Poetics and Politics of Ethnography, eds. J. Clifford and G. Marcus (Berkeley: California, 1986), pp. 27-50.

·         Mary Louise Pratt, Imperial Eyes (London: Routledge, 1992).

 

Assignment / Exercise:

·         Goodall Chapter 2, writing experiments #2 (i.e. begin collecting relevant scholarship on your experimental field study topic and begin sketching various ways of framing the literature review – bring this sketch to class to share and discuss) and #3 bring to class to share and discuss

 

 

2/15         Doing fieldwork – writing                                                                                                                                  

 

Read:

·         Goodall, Chapters 3 and 4

·         Limb and Dwyer, Chapters 16 and 17

 

Optional / Additional resources:

·         Carolyn Ellis and Arthur Bochner, “Autoethnograpy, personal narrative, reflexivity: researcher as subject.” In Handbook of Qualitative Research, 2nd Edition, edited by Norman Denzin and Yvonna Lincoln (Thousand Oaks: Sage, 2000), pp. 733-802.

·         Roger Sanjek (ed.), Fieldnotes: The Makings of Anthropology (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1990).

 

Assignment / Exercise:

·         Begin Goodall, Chapter 3 writing experiment (keeping a professional journal and a personal diary)

·         Field methods presentations

 

 

2/22         Ethnographic film – Cannibal Tours                                                                                                               

 

Assignment / Exercise:

·         Watch Cannibal Tours (twice) in seminar.

·         Assignment #1:  immediately after viewing the film (and during the second viewing as well), write your observations in a “professional journal” as if you were actually observing the events in the film unmediated (i.e. as if “you were there in the field”).  Once you have completed your notes, write a brief “field report” that includes the following:

q       a) description of the social spaces in which the actions/practices in the film take place;

q       b) description of the social groups involved in these actions/practices;

q       c) account of the discourse within and among these groups (here, avoid summaries of discourse, but rather select specific words used);

q       d) description of additional fieldwork that you would pursue to more explicitly address questions of scale and political-economy that would help situate the events in the film.

·         Assignment #2: write a critical “reading” of the film as an ethnographic text.

·         These assignments are due in class on 3/1

 

 

 

 

3/1           Doing fieldwork – being an oxymoron: participant-observation                                                 

 

Reading

·         Limb and Dwyer, Chapters 10-12

·         Ian Cook, “Participant observation.”  In Methods in Human Geography: A Guide for Students Doing a Research Project, eds. R. Flowerdew and D. Martin (London: Sage, 1997), pp. 127-50.

·         Robin Kearns, “Being there: research through observing and participating.” In Qualitative Research Methods in Human Geography, ed. I. Hay (Melbourne: Oxford, 2000), pp. 103-121.

 

Optional / Additional resources

·                     Mel Evans, “Participant observation: the researcher as research tool.” In Qualitative Methods in Human Geography, eds. J. Eyles and D. Smith (Cambridge: Polity, 1988)

·                     Martin Hammersley and Paul Atkinson, Ethnography; principles and practice (London: Tavistock, 1983).

 

Assignment / Exercise:

·                     Continue with Goodall, Chapter 3 writing experiment (keeping a professional journal and a personal diary)

·                     Field methods presentations

 

 

3/8           Doing fieldwork – talking                                                                                                                                  

 

Read:

·         Limb and Dwyer, Chapters 5-9

·         Miranda Miles and Jonathan Crush, “Personal narratives as interactive texts: collecting and interpreting migrant life-histories” – Professional Geographer 45:1 (1993), pp. 84-94.

·         Richa Nagar, “Exploring methodological borderlands through oral narratives” – Thresholds in Feminist Geography, edited by John Paul Jones III, Heidi Nast and Susan Roberts (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1997), pp. 203-224.

·         Muhammad Anisur Rahman, “The theory and practice of participatory action research” – The Challenge of Social Change, edited by Orlanda Fals Borda (London: Sage, 1985), pp. 107-132.

 

Optional / Additional resources:

·         Andrea Fontana and James Frey, “The interview: from structured questions to negotiated text” –Handbook of Qualitative Research, 2nd Edition, edited by Norman Denzin and Yvonna Lincoln (Thousand Oaks: Sage, 2000), pp. 645-672.

·         Jon Goss, “Introduction to focus groups” – Area 28:2 (1996), pp. 113-123.

·         John Knodel , “The design and analysis of focus group studies: a practical approach” – Successful Focus Groups: Advancing the State of the Art, edited by David Morgan (Newbury Park: Sage, 1993), pp. 35-50.

·         Robin Jarrett, “Focus group interviewing with low-income minority populations.” In Handbook of Qualitative Research, 1st Edition, edited by Norman Denzin and Yvonna Lincoln (Thousand Oaks: Sage, 1994), pp. 184-201.

·         David Morgan (ed.), Successful Focus Groups: Advancing the State of the Art (Newbury Park: Sage, 1993).

·         Erica Schoenberger, “The corporate interview as a research method in economic geography” – Professional Geographer 43:2 (1991), pp. 180-89.

·         William Tierny, “Undaunted courage: life history and the postmodern challenge.” In Handbook of Qualitative Research, 2nd Edition, edited by Norman Denzin and Yvonna Lincoln (Thousand Oaks: Sage, 2000), pp. 537-554.

·         Mareena Wright, “I never did any fieldwork, but I milked an awful lot of cows! Using rural women’s experience to reconceptualize models of work” Gender and Society 9:2 (1995), pp. 216-235.

 

Assignment / Exercise:

·         Goodall Chapter 3 writing experiment – bring to class to share your journals.

·         Field methods presentations

 

3/15         Doing fieldwork – analyzing                                                                                                                             

 

Read:

·         Limb and Dwyer, Chapters 13-15

·         M A Crang, A C Hudson, S M Reimer, S J Hinchliffe, “Software for qualitative research: 1. Prospectus and overview.” Environment and Planning A 29:5 (1997), 771-787.

·         S.J. Hinchcliffe, M. Crang, S. Reimer, and A. Hudson, “Software for qualitative research 2: some thoughts on ‘aiding’ analysis.” Environment and Planning A 29:6 (1997), 1109-1124.

·         Gery Ryan and Russell Bernard, “Data management and analysis methods” – Handbook of Qualitative Research, 2nd Edition, edited by Norman Denzin and Yvonna Lincoln (Thousand Oaks: Sage, 2000), pp. 769-802.

·         David Silverman, “Analyzing talk and text” – Handbook of Qualitative Research, 2nd Edition, edited. by Norman Denzin and Yvonna Lincoln (Thousand Oaks: Sage, 2000), pp. 821-834.

 

Optional / Additional resources:

·         David Altheide and John Johnson, “Criteria for assessing interpretive validity in qualitative research” – Handbook of Qualitative Research, 1st Edition, edited by Norman Denzin and Yvonna Lincoln (Thousand Oaks: Sage, 2000), pp. 485-99.

·         Catherine Marshall and Gretchen Rossman, Designing Qualitative Research (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 1999).

·         Thomas Richards and Lyn Richards, “Using computers in qualitative research” In Handbook of Qualitative Research, 1st Edition, edited. by Norman Denzin and Yvonna Lincoln (Thousand Oaks: Sage, 1994), pp. 445-62.

·         Eben Weitzman, “Software and qualitative research” – Handbook of Qualitative Research, 2nd Edition, edited. by Norman Denzin and Yvonna Lincoln (Thousand Oaks: Sage, 2000), pp. 803-820.

 

Assignment / Exercise:

·         Come to class prepared to conduct reflexivity exercises from Goodall Chapter 4

·         Field methods presentations

·         Goodall Chapter 4 writing experiments – on your own.

 

 

3/29         Discussion of on-going work / projects                                                                                                          

 

 

4/5           Writing and reading ethnographic texts – The Age of Wild Ghosts                                                           

 

Read:

·         Goodall, Chapter 5

·         Erik Mueggler, The Age of Wild Ghosts: Memory, Violence, and Place in Southwest China (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001)

 

Optional / Additional resources:

·         Paul Atkinson, Understanding Ethnographic Texts (Newbury Park, CA: Sage, 1992).

·         Gaston Bachelard, The Poetics of Space, trans. By M. Jolas (New York: Orion, 1964).

·         Howard Becker, "Freshmen English for Graduate Students." In Writing for Social Scientists: How to Start and Finish Your Thesis, Book, or Article (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986), pp. 1-25.

·         Ann Robinson, "Thinking Straight and Writing That Way." In Writing Empirical Research Reports. A Basic Guide for Students of the Social and Behavioral Sciences, ed. by F. Pryczak and R. Bruce (Los Angeles: Pryczak Publishing, 1998), pp. 99-104.

 

Other good ethnographies

·         Keith Basso, Wisdom Sits in Places: Landscape and Language Among the Western Apache (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1996).

·         Ruth Behar, Translated Woman: Crossing the Border with Esperanza’s Story (Boston: Beacon Press, 1993).

·         Philippe Bourgois, In Search of Respect: Selling Crack in El Barrio (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995).

·         Elizabeth Dunn, The Fruits of Change: Privatization, Personhood, and the Transformation of Work in Postsocialist Poland.

·         Steven Feierman, Peasant Intellectuals: Anthropology and History in Tanzania (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1990).

·         Robert Hefner, The Political Economy of Mountain Java (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990).

·         Michael Herzfeld, A Place in History: Social and Monumental Time in a Cretan Town (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1991).

·         Michael Jackson, Paths Toward a Clearing (Bloomington: University of Indiana Press, 1989).

·         Adriana Petryna, Life Exposed: Biological Citizens after Chernobyl (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002).

·         Michael Taussig, The Devil and Commodity Fetishism in South America (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1980).

·         John Western, A Passage to England: Barbadian Londoners Speak (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1996).

·         Paul Willis, Learning to Labor: How Working Class Kids Get Working Class Jobs (Farnborough: Saxon House, 1977).

·         Edwin Wilmson, Land Filled with Flies; a Political Economy of the Kalahari. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989).

·         Margery Wolf, Women and the Family in Rural Taiwan (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1972).

 

Assignment / Exercise:

·         Write a critique of Mueggler’s The Age of Wild Ghosts – Due 4/12

 

 

4/12         Discussion of on-going work / projects                                                                                                          

 

 

4/19         Writing and reading ethnographic texts – At Home in the World                                                              

 

Read:

·         Goodall, Chapter 6

·         Michael Jackson, At Home in the World (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1995)

 

Optional / Additional resources:

·         John Berger And Our Faces, My Heart, Brief as Photos (New York: Pantheon, 1984).

·         Melissa Gilbert, “The politics of location: doing feminist research at ‘home’” – Professional Geographer 46:1 (1994), pp. 90-96.

·         David Morley and Kevin Robins, “No place like heimat: images of home(land).” In Space and Place. Theories of Identity and Location, eds. E. Carter, J. Donald, and J. Squires (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1993), pp. 3-31.

·         Elspeth Probyn, Outside Belongings (London and New York: Routledge, 1996).

·         Soile Veijola, “Heimat tourism in the countryside: paradoxical sojourns to self and place.” In Travels in Paradox: Remapping Tourism, eds. C. Minca and T. Oakes (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2005).

 

Assignment / Exercise:

·         Write a critique of Jackson, At Home in the World – Due 4/26

 

4/26         Final discussion / presentation of projects