ANTH 411 Winter 2025 Midterm Study Guide PDF

Study Guide – ANTH 411, Mid-term One Short answer questions 1. Drawing on your readings and lectures discuss the notion of reflexivity. Your answer should outline how to reconcile reflexivity and realism, and note the relationship between reflexivity and the political character of research. 2. Wha...

Study Guide – ANTH 411, Mid-term One Short answer questions 1. Drawing on your readings and lectures discuss the notion of reflexivity. Your answer should outline how to reconcile reflexivity and realism, and note the relationship between reflexivity and the political character of research. 2. What do Hammersley and Atkinson mean by the concept “anthropologically strange”? 3. Drawing from lecture and your text, outline the differences between topical and generic research problems. 4. Discuss the sorts of impact the personal characteristics of the researcher can have on field relations. You will want to identify the primary characteristics your text discusses, and examples will help clarify your ideas. 5. What are the possible benefits and detriments of having someone vouchsafe for you in the field? The best answers to this question will use examples from the text. 6. What ideas do naturalism and positivism hold in common? 7. Review the issues that your textbook raises when discussing “leaving the field”. 8. Discuss the challenges researchers face when they try to access groups that may be available in public settings, but are not necessarily welcome to researchers, or outsiders of any kind. Again, examples will make for a better answer Concepts Foreshadowed problem Post-structuralism Social situation Procedural objectivity Theoretical sampling Positivism Cases and settings Member-identified people Sampling Major tenets of positivism Naturalism Realism Critiques of naturalism Complete observer Participant scrutiny Chicago school Observer-identified people Vouchsafing Backspace and frontspace Gatekeepers Covert vs overt Obstructive and facilitative relationships Natural settings Passing Complete participant Civil inattention Participant reactivity Penetrating informant’s fronts Managing marginality Politics of ethnography