Russel-Research-Method-in-Anthropology

Preface
xiii
testimony. There is an example in chapter 14 of coding ethnographic film as
text; and there are examples of the use of video in continuous monitoring in
chapter 15, along with a description of labanotation, the method used by
anthropologists to record physical movements, like dance and nonverbal communication.
There is an example of content analysis on a set of films in chapter
17.
However, I don’t have a chapter on this vibrant and important set of methods.
The field of visual anthropology is developing very quickly with the
advent of easy-to-carry, easy-to-use cameras that produce high-quality still
and moving images and synchronized sound. Recently, Fadwa El Guindi
(2004) published a general text on visual anthropology that covers the whole
field: the history of the discipline, ethnographic filmmaking (which she illustrates
in detail with her own work), the use of photos as interview probes, the
use of film as native ethnography, and the use of photos and film as documentation
of culture and culture change.
Chapters 18, 19, and 20 have only minor changes, and, where appropriate,
an expanded bibliography. In chapter 21, on multivariate analysis, I’ve
updated some figures in examples, added an extended section on similarity
matrices, including tables and a figure, and have rewritten the section on multidimensional
scaling with a new example.
Acknowledgments
My debt to colleagues, students, and friends is enormous. Carole Hill, Willett
Kempton, William Loker, Kathryn Oths, Aaron Podolefsky, Paul Sabloff,
Roger Trent, Douglas Raybeck, and Alvin Wolfe provided helpful criticisms
of drafts of earlier editions. Penn Handwerker, Jeffrey Johnson, and Paula
Sabloff continue to share ideas with me about teaching research methods.
Joseph Bosco, Michael Burton, Michael Chibnik, Art Hansen, William Loker,
Kathy Oths, Scott Robinson, Jorge Rocha, Alexander Rodlach, Paula Sabloff,
and Christian Sturm were kind enough to report typos and errors in the last
edition. In one case, I had calculated incorrectly the numbers of Americans of
Chinese, Japanese, and Vietnamese ancestry. Michael Burton’s students
(Guillermo Narvaez, Allison Fish, Caroline Melly, Neha Vora, and Judith
Pajo) went to the census data and corrected my error. I’m very pleased to
know that the book is read so carefully and also that students are learning from
my mistakes.
Students at the University of Florida have been keen critics of my writing.
Domenick Dellino, Michael Evans, Camilla Harshbarger, Fred Hay, Shepherd