Russel-Research-Method-in-Anthropology

Preface
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sampling: why we do it and how samples of individual data and cultural data
are different. Chapter 7 is about sampling theory—where we deal with the
question ‘‘How big should my sample be?’’ If you’ve had a course in statistics,
the concepts in chapter 7 will be familiar to you. If you haven’t had any stats
before, read the chapter anyway. Trust me. There is almost no math in chapter
7. The formula for calculating the standard error of the mean has a square root
sign. That’s as hard as it gets. If you don’t understand what the standard error
is, you have two choices. You can ignore it and concentrate on the concepts
that underlie good sampling or you can study chapter 19 on univariate statistics
and return to chapter 7 later.
Chapter 8 is about nonprobability sampling and about choosing informants.
I introduce the cultural consensus model in this chapter as a way to identify
experts in particular cultural domains.
I’ve placed the sampling chapters early in the book because the concepts in
these chapters are so important for research design. The validity of research
findings depends crucially on measurement; but your ability to generalize
from valid findings depends crucially on sampling.
Chapters 9 through 15 are about methods for collecting data. Chapter 9 is
titled ‘‘Interviewing: Unstructured and Semistructured.’’ All data gathering in
fieldwork boils down to two broad kinds of activities: watching and listening.
You can observe people and the environment and you can talk to people and
get them to tell you things. Most data collection in anthropology is done by
just talking to people. This chapter is about how to do that effectively.
Chapter 10 is devoted entirely to questionnaires—how to write good questions,
how to train interviewers, the merits of face-to-face interviews vs. selfadministered
and telephone interviews, minimizing response effects, and so
on.
Chapter 11 is about interviewing methods for cultural domain analysis: pile
sorts, triad tests, free listing, frame eliciting, ratings, rankings, and paired
comparisons—that is, everything but questionnaires.
One topic not covered in chapters 10 and 11 is how to build and use scales
to measure concepts. Chapter 12 deals with this topic in depth, including sections
on Likert scales and semantic differential scales, two of the most common
scaling devices in social research.
Chapter 13 is about participant observation, the core method in cultural
anthropology. Participant observation is what produces rapport, and rapport
is what makes it possible for anthropologists to do all kinds of otherwise
unthinkably intrusive things—watch people bury their dead, accompany fishermen
for weeks at a time at sea, ask women how long they breast-feed, go
into people’s homes at random times and weigh their food, watch people apply
poultices to open sores. . . .