Peace Corps Ethnography Essay

Culture can be described in two different perspectives, emic and etic. When a culture is described from an emic point of view, that means that the culture is being described in a way that a person that belongs to said culture would see it. Ethnography in an etic perspective on the other hand will describe a culture from an outsider’s point of view.
In Alverson’s study on the Peace Corps, an etic perspective was used. By attacking the research question from an etic perspective, he was able to determine what and why the Peace Corps volunteers were so different from the Tswana people. In order to do this, he used participant observation to find his answers; Alverson observed and interviewed people about the interactions between the two different groups. When he did this, he found that the Americans came to Botswana with naive realism; they assumed that the Tswana would go about life the way they do. Once they realized that this was not the case, they went through a culture shock because of
For example, the volunteers and the people of Botswana did not perceive time in the same way. The Americans would be very specific about timing, and would be upset at the loss of time. On the other hand, the Tswana would behave opposite; to them there really is no such thing as time loss because they can always find the time to do a certain task later. An instance where these two different views clash would be if a Peace Corp volunteer requests to meet one of the Tswana at a specific time to discuss some sort of matter. To the American’s astonishment, the Tswana may show up at a time much later than the designated time and think no different of it. This is because to the Tswana, the main importance is the discussion itself, the moment it is discussed is of little matter to the Tswana because it can be discussed at any