Russel-Research-Method-in-Anthropology

290 Chapter 10
(Edgerton and Bercovici 1976) and 15 members of the sample in 1982 (Edgerton
et al. 1984). Edgerton last interviewed ‘‘Richard’’ in 1988, just before
Richard died at age 68 (Edgerton and Ward 1991). As a result, we know more
about how the mildly retarded get through life—how they make ends meet,
how they deal (or don’t deal) with personal hygiene; how they get people to
do things for them, like write letters; how people take advantage of them
financially—than we could learn from any cross-sectional study.
Two of the best-known longitudinal studies in anthropology are the Tzintzuntzán
project in Mexico and the Gwembe Tonga project in Zambia.
George Foster first went to Tzintzuntzán in 1945 to train some anthropology
students from ENAH, Mexico’s National School of Anthropology and History
(Foster 2002:254). Since then, either he or some other anthropologist has visited
the community of 3,600 people almost every year. Foster’s students, Robert
Van Kemper and Stanley Brandes, began going to Tzintzuntzán in 1967
and a third generation of students has already completed two doctoral dissertations
there (Cahn 2002; Kemper and Royce 2002:192). Six comprehensive
censuses have been taken in Tzintzuntzán from 1945 to 2000, and the files
now include data on over 3,000 migrants who left Tzintzuntzán and live in the
United States (Kemper 2002:303). (For more on this project and on data
sources, see http://www.santafe.edu/tarasco/.)
The Gwembe Tonga Project began with visits in 1956 by Elizabeth Colson
and Thayer Scudder. Some 57,000 Gwembe Tonga were being resettled to
make way for the lake that would form in back of the Kariba dam on the Zambezi
River, and Scudder and Colson were studying the effects of that resettlement.
In 1962–1963, they realized the ‘‘long-term possibilities involved in a
study of continuity and change among a people who, having been forcibly
resettled in connection with a major dam, were soon to be incorporated with
the independent nation of Zambia,’’ as the colonial period came to an end
(Scudder and Colson 2002:200). Colson and Scudder continued their work
and began recruiting colleagues into the project, including Lisa Cliggett, Sam
Clark, and Rhonda Gillett-Netting, the three anthropologists who now manage
the project (Cliggett 2002; Kemper and Royce 2002:192). Like the Tzintzuntzán
project, the Gwembe project has incorporated indigenous members on the
team.
Neither of these important projects started out as longitudinal studies. They
just went on and on and on. The field notes and other data from these projects
grow in importance every year, as more information is added to the corpus.
All cross-sectional studies, including Master’s and Ph.D. projects, should be
designed as if they were the start of a lifetime of research. You never know.
(For more on panel studies, see Halaby 2004.)