Anthropology Essay

Ethnographic fieldwork is another way of using the term ethnography. Ethnographic fieldwork, or ethnography, usually consists of “spending a year or more in another society, living with the local people and learning about their way of life” (Gezon and Kottak 2). There are at least three different methods that anthropologists use when it comes to how they execute their fieldwork.
First, there is the Participation-Observation method which can be described as, “taking park in the events one is observing, describing, and analyzing” (Gezon and Kottak 40). In this method, anthropologists observe the culture they are studying through means of participation in the lives of the local people, which is where the term ‘participation-observation’ comes in. The next method anthropologists use in their field work is interviews. In order to understand the locals and their everyday lives, anthropologists must talk and ask questions with the people. According to the authors of Culture, Gezon and Kottak, “as our knowledge of the native language and culture increases, we understand more.” This can only be done through means of interviews with the people of that specific culture. In this method, anthropologists start by asking locals for interviews and through these interviews, it gives the interviewee a chance to talk. This helps broaden the anthropologists understanding of the language. Lastly, another method is by having an informant who is a consultant that the anthropologists can rely on for data. They are also known as a “cultural consultant”. An informant is “someone the ethnographer gets to know in the field, who reaches him or her about their society and culture” (Gezon and Kottak 45). By having an informant, anthropologists are able to have an emic perspective of the culture.
An emic perspective can be described as the native’s point of view or an internal source for an anthropologist’s research. By conducting interviews with the local people and having an informant,