Russel-Research-Method-in-Anthropology

Qualitative Data Analysis I: Text Analysis 481
analyzing narratives. Willett Kempton (1987), for example, asked people to
tell him about how they adjusted the thermostats for the furnaces in their
homes. He found that Americans have two quite different schemas for how
thermostats work. Some people hold to a feedback theory: the thermostat
senses the temperature and turns the furnace on or off in order to keep the
room at some desired temperature. This theory produces set-it-and-forget-it
behavior. You set the thermostat at some temperature and let the system do its
job. Other people hold to a valve theory. You set the thermostat at some much
higher temperature than what you really want. This forces the furnace to pour
out lots of heat, fast. When the temperature is where you want it, you turn the
dial down. The first theory is etically correct, but the second is widely held
and is responsible for a lot of wasted energy. (People who push the elevator
button over and over again probably subscribe to a valve theory. We could test
that.)
Three Examples of Schema Analysis
The Trobriand land dispute schema. Edwin Hutchins (1980) recorded and
transcribed a formal dispute in the Trobriand Islands, in which two men,
Motobasi and Kailimila, make speeches to an open court in their village. In
these speeches, both men claim the right to cultivate a particular garden plot.
Motobasi, it seems, has sent one of his followers to cut a garden. Kailimila
disputes Motobasi’s right to cut the garden. Motobasi says:
It is easy for me to take up this garden and cut it. I was cutting it when my
younger brothers said ‘‘you have recently come. You shall not touch these things.
These are our things because we pokala’ed previously.’’ But as you know, this
was a woman’s garden, Ilawokuvamalasi’s garden. My older brother cut it by
himself. When he died, he gave it to his sister. (ibid.:68)
To win the case, Motobasi will have to refute the statements of his younger
brothers who tell him ‘‘You shall not touch these things.’’ To understand Motobasi’s
logic, we need to know that pokala is the giving of something by someone
of inferior status to someone of superior status ‘‘in the hope, but without
the promise, that something will be returned’’ (ibid.:25–26) and we need to
know that Trobriand society is divided into matrilineal descent groups.
Motobasi’s claim on the garden depends on his listeners filling in around
the edges. He hopes that his matrilineal claim, through his sister, will trump
his younger brothers’ claim through pokala. Eventually, the fact that Motobasi
could not specify the person whom the brothers had pokala’ed will prejudice
his case.