Russel-Research-Method-in-Anthropology

Participant Observation 373
changed. It meant only that I kept the bias to myself while I was recording
their dives.
Objectivity and Indigenous Research
Objectivity gets its biggest test in indigenous research—that is, when you
study your own culture. Barbara Meyerhoff worked in Mexico when she was
a graduate student. Later, in the early 1970s, when she became interested in
ethnicity and aging, she decided to study elderly Chicanos. The people she
approached kept putting her off, asking her ‘‘Why work with us? Why don’t
you study your own kind?’’ Meyerhoff was Jewish. She had never thought
about studying her own kind, but she launched a study of poor, elderly Jews
who were on public assistance. She agonized about what she was doing and,
as she tells it, never resolved whether it was anthropology or a personal quest.
Many of the people she studied were survivors of the Holocaust. ‘‘How,
then, could anyone look at them dispassionately? How could I feel anything
but awe and appreciation for their mere presence? . . . Since neutrality was
impossible and idealization undesirable, I decided on striving for balance’’
(Meyerhoff 1989:90).
There is no final answer on whether it’s good or bad to study your own
culture. Plenty of people have done it, and plenty of people have written about
what it’s like to do it. On the plus side, you’ll know the language and you’ll
be less likely to suffer from culture shock. On the minus side, it’s harder to
recognize cultural patterns that you live every day and you’re likely to take a
lot of things for granted that an outsider would pick up right away.
If you are going to study your own culture, start by reading the experiences
of others who have done it so you’ll know what you’re facing in the field
(Messerschmidt 1981; Stephenson and Greer 1981; Fahim 1982; Altorki and
El-Solh 1988). (See the section on native ethnographies in chapter 17 for more
about indigenous research.)
Gender, Parenting, and Other Personal Characteristics
By the 1930s, Margaret Mead had already made clear the importance of
gender as a variable in data collection (see Mead 1986). Gender has at least
two consequences: (1) It limits your access to certain information; (2) It
influences how you perceive others.
In all cultures, you can’t ask people certain questions because you’re a
[woman] [man]. You can’t go into certain areas and situations because you’re
a [woman] [man]. You can’t watch this or report on that because you’re a