Russel-Research-Method-in-Anthropology

Structured Interviewing II: Cultural Domain Analysis 305
experiment on many different American populations. We could then test the
saliency of English kin terms on the many subpopulations.
Finally, free listing can be used to find out where to concentrate effort in
applied research, and especially in rapid assessment. Researchers interested in
high-risk sexual behavior, for example, use the free-list technique to understand
domains like ‘‘ways to have sex’’ (Schensul et al. 1994) and ‘‘reasons to
have sex’’ (Flores et al. 1998).
Monárrez-Espino et al. (2004) worked on a food aid program for at-risk
Tarahumara infants in Mexico. A government agency had developed a basket
of nutritional foods for distribution to Tarahumara mothers, but many of the
foods (like canned sardines) were culturally unacceptable. Free listing of
foods helped set things right.
In a project on which I consulted, interviewers asked people on the North
Carolina coast how they viewed the possibility of offshore oil drilling. One of
the questions was: ‘‘What are the things that make life good around here?’’
This question cropped up after some informal interviews in seven small, seaside
towns. People kept saying ‘‘What a nice little town this is’’ and ‘‘What a
shame it would be if things changed around here.’’ Informants had no difficulty
with the question, and after just 20 interviews, the researchers had a list
of over 50 ‘‘things that make life good around here.’’ The researchers chose
the 20 items mentioned by at least 12 informants and explored the meaning of
those items further (ICMR et al. 1993).
The humble free list has many uses. Use it a lot.
The True-False/Yes-No and Sentence Frame Techniques
Another common technique in cultural domain analysis is called the sentence
frame or frame elicitation method. Linda Garro (1986) used the frame
elicitation method to compare the knowledge of curers and noncurers in
Pichátaro, Mexico. She used a list of 18 illness terms and 22 causes, based
on prior research in Pichátaro (Young 1978). The frames were questions, like
‘‘can come from ?’’ Garro substituted names of illnesses in
the first blank, and things like ‘‘anger,’’ ‘‘cold,’’ ‘‘overeating,’’ and so on in
the second blank. (Anthropac has a routine for building questionnaires of this
type.) This produced an 18 22 yes-no matrix for each of the informants.
The matrices could then be added together and submitted to analysis by multidimensional
scaling (see chapter 21).
James Boster and Jeffrey Johnson (1989) used the frame-substitution
method in their study of how recreational fishermen in the United States categorize
ocean fish. They asked 120 fishermen to consider 62 belief frames, scan