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ANTHROPOLOGICAL FIELDWORK (3 credits)

Anthropological fieldwork is practical summer training for Anthropology students which gives an opportunity for them to design and conduct their own field research projects under supervision of department professors. During the field work students will get a practice of doing participant observation, keeping field notes and writing ethnography.  Anthropological field work is AUCA sponsored summer course.  

FIELDWORK REQUIREMENTS:

Fieldwork proposal:

A research topic proposal must be written and approved by the department before leaving for the course.  The proposal must include a full statement of the research problem or question, a brief discussion of people whose lives and cultural activities are related to this issue, how the student will identify people and social settings for the student works during the fieldwork, and the relevance of the problem to the field of cultural anthropology.  In the proposal the student should give a short discussion of three important ethnographic research articles or books that are connected to their project and describe how the student’s research relates to these books.

Any changes to the research topic and methods have to be approved by the instructor during the fieldwork course.

Fieldwork projects will involve participant observation and interviews 

The goal of fieldwork is to get precise and detailed information of what people actually do and say.  Try to avoid generalizations in observations and interviews: always seek to describe individuals and what they do, and ask people to give specific examples of cultural events, not only generalizations about practices. 

Each student will be required to do participant observation during the research.  This means students have to find a social setting in which they can spend time with people in daily activities relevant to their project.  On each day the student will be required to turn in to the instructor a minimum of four pages of field notes (if handwritten, or 2 pages if typed, single-spaced.)

In addition students will be expected to carry out interviews with notes and transcriptions during their research.  The interview notes and transcription will have to be turned in to the instructor at the end of the course.  

GROUP ACTIVITIES

Students will be required to participate in  evening group  discussions of their research during the course.  They will be expected to present a careful 10-15 minute discussion of their own work and to provide feedback and suggestions to others on their research.

FINAL PAPER

Within three weeks after the course finishes, the student will have to write a minimum 2500 word paper, double-spaced, presenting and analyzing their fieldwork results.  This paper should include a presentation of the research issue, a review of the literature (that careful analyzes at least 4 relevant sources), presentation of research findings, and analysis.  The analysis has to be carefully connected both to relevant literature and to the ethnographic findings.

FIELD RESEARCH REPORT

 - Field journal (reporting your research schedule for each day and how your research was   progressed through that schedule) 

- Transcriptions of the interviews

- Descriptions of the observation

- Questionnaire and its analysis

- Photo-video Documentation   

- Research Paper

Anthropological fieldworks:

2011. Karakol. Advisor: Z. Inogamova…..

2010. Karakol. Advisor: M. Toktogulova

2009. Osh. Jalal Abad. Advisors: A. Dyikanbaeva, E. Nasiridinov

2009. Talas. Advisor. R. Rahimov



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