Russel-Research-Method-in-Anthropology

Participant Observation 367
Maintaining your naiveté will come naturally in a culture that’s unfamiliar
to you, but it’s a bit harder to do in your own culture. Most of what you do
‘‘naturally’’ is so automatic that you don’t know how to intellectualize it.
If you are like many middle-class Americans, your eating habits can be
characterized by the word ‘‘grazing’’—that is, eating small amounts of food
at many, irregular times during the course of a typical day, rather than sitting
down for meals at fixed times. Would you have used that kind of word to
describe your own eating behavior? Other members of your own culture are
often better informants than you are about that culture, and if you really let
people teach you, they will.
If you look carefully, though, you’ll be surprised at how heterogeneous
your culture is and how many parts of it you really know nothing about. Find
some part of your own culture that you don’t control—an occupational culture,
like long-haul trucking, or a hobby culture, like amateur radio—and try
to learn it. That’s what you did as a child, of course. Only this time, try to
intellectualize the experience. Take notes on what you learn about how to
learn, on what it’s like being a novice, and how you think you can best take
advantage of the learner’s role. Your imagination will suggest a lot of other
nooks and crannies of our culture that you can explore as a thoroughly untutored
novice.
When Not to Be Naive
The role of naive novice is not always the best one to play. Humility is
inappropriate when you are dealing with a culture whose members have a lot
to lose by your incompetence. Michael Agar (1973, 1980a) did field research
on the life of heroin addicts in New York City. His informants made it plain
that Agar’s ignorance of their lives wasn’t cute or interesting to them.
Even with the best of intentions, Agar could have given his informants away
to the police by just by being stupid. Under such circumstances, you shouldn’t
expect your informants to take you under their wing and teach you how to
appreciate their customs. Agar had to learn a lot, and very quickly, to gain
credibility with his informants.
There are situations where your expertise is just what’s required to build
rapport with people. Anthropologists have typed documents for illiterate people
in the field and have used other skills (from coaching basketball to dispensing
antibiotics) to help people and to gain their confidence and respect. If you
are studying highly educated people, you may have to prove that you know
a fair amount about research methods before they will deal with you. Agar
(1980b:58) once studied an alternative lifestyle commune and was asked by a
biochemist who was living there: ‘‘Who are you going to use as a control