Russel-Research-Method-in-Anthropology

518 Chapter 17
were about manipulation (all that stroking) of endocrines that are known to
control growth. Why not, they asked, test this across species, as well as across
cultures?
The key to this research is not the data about adult height. It’s the coding
of the ethnographic, textual data about piercing, molding, scarring, circumcising,
and so on. In the end, in content analysis as in all research, you have to
make the measurements.
Over the years, as researchers have used the Human Relations Area Files,
they’ve read through the primary materials and coded variables that were germane
to their particular studies. Barry and Schlegel (1980) edited a book containing
published codes for several hundred variables on the 186-society sample
developed by Murdock and White (1969). The World Cultures Journal
(WCJ) has published most of the codes in Barry and Schlegel on disk and
continues to publish codes from cross-cultural studies (http://eclectic.ss.uci
.edu/drwhite/worldcul/world7.htm). Two journals, Ethnology and Cross-
Cultural Research (formerly Behavior Science Research), continue to publish
the variables and codes used by cross-cultural researchers who publish papers
in those journals and codes for 300 variables have been published on disk by
HRAF Press for a 60-society sample.
Coding is painstaking work. Carol and Melvin Ember (2002) were interested
in the relationship between various aspects of child rearing (If corporal
punishment is present in a society, is it usually the mother or the father who
does it? Are fathers usually present or absent in infants’ lives? How much
does the father care for infants?) and the amount of interpersonal violence in
societies by adult men. Some of the codes they used on child-rearing practices
had been published elsewhere, but it took the Embers 4 years to code the variables
for frequency of war and interpersonal aggression in the 186-society
sample, so, like most cross-cultural researchers, they published those codes
(Ember and Ember 1992).
Testing hypotheses on published codes contributes to theory in anthropology.
Using published codes, Barber (1998) found that the frequency of male
homosexual activity was low in hunting and gathering societies and increased
with the complexity of agricultural production. Ethnographic reports of male
homosexuality were also more likely for societies in which women did not
control their own sexuality—a well-known correlate of increased reliance on
complex agriculture.
Other Problems
Information is not always where you expect it to be in the Human Relations
Area Files. There is no code in the OCM for family violence, so when David