ANTH210

This course is designed to introduce students to ethnographic research methods and ethics. Student begin with a review of early ethnographic "fieldwork" methods-a defining feature of anthropology that includes conducting research in situ to create an in-depth and complex understanding of cultural practices, social processes, and the human condition. While drawing on a variety of interdisciplinary sources, students critically examine cultural anthropology’s primary methods: participant observation, qualitative interviewing, archival research, writing fieldnotes, visual media (photography, drawing, film) and apply some of these tools to ethnographic projects over the course of the semester. This course also builds from decolonial methods from a wide-range of historically marginalized perspectives and, as such, will interrogate the politics of knowledge production, which include research collection, analysis, and representation. Throughout the course, students reflect on the ethical dimensions of conducting research with human subjects, considering how social issues impact a diversity of communities within and outside of the U.S., as well as how communities make sense of and develop responses to social issues. Ultimately, this course seeks not just to provide students with a toolkit of ethnographic methods, but also to enable them to think expansively about the politics of those methods and the conditions in which those methods are used.