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ETHNOGRAPHIC INTERVIEW: RESEARCH BASICS
Ashley Bumgardner
Prof. Karunakara Meesala
GLST 290
11/07/2022
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Anthropology Perspective focuses on the study of the full scope of human diversity and
the application of all that knowledge to help people of different backgrounds. Some say it is the
study of what makes us human. Anthropologists take an approach to understanding the manyAls
different aspects of human experiences and human life, which we call holism. Social or cultural
anthropology is the specialization most likely to deal with concepts of self, although linguistic
and archaeology anthropology might also discover clues about the diversity of human ideas
about ones self. In some cultures, other beings besides humans have a “self” and indeed are
“persons.” Some cultures and religions also teach that the human self is composed to various
detachable parts and is not an integral whole like the Western self. Some believe that the self or a
part of it leaven the body and travles around in dreams.
Ethnographic interviews can help a researcher seize opportunities to lean more about a
certain or specific practice. They can help make sense of rituals and practices, seeing as the
researcher may ask someone to explain a practice in which the person is currently engaged. To
move from observer to participant the researcher is when you stand back and take a good look
around that is most often the way an anthropologist begins, detached observation has good
insight, but the anthropologist moves more towards participation because that’s means you live,
socialize, and worship instead of siting back and observing it you are participating. The role that
rapport can have on the researcher and the research can be much greater than being and observer.
What that means to me is that you make good relationships where you are able to talk more open
and honestly about lives, religion, faith, and community. Which makes a great and grand finding
on research. It is important to the ethnographic interview process because rapport is a trust
building mechanism that can help with your research. Different types of ethnographic interviews
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could be focus groups, a type of interview in which small groups of people are asked to discuss a
particular topic while the anthropologist takes notes. Other methods can be mapping, which is
diagramming geographical space or human interpretation and use of space, recording a life
history or conducting a survey.
REAP is a package of ethnographic methods that systematically combines interview,
observation, and documentary search techniques to describe fully the way of life common to a
group of people, including their knowledge, customs, beliefs, social habits, technology, arts,
values, and institutions. (Lindsay,Everett) On beneficial of using REAP is that you can learn so
much in such a deep concept of it. One challenge of using REAP could be that when trying to
learn more into the customs and beliefs of a different culture some may take great offence to that,
not all cultures, but some do.
Worldviews is the way you look at the world. It can be your beliefs or anything else.
Worldview can impact a researcher and research in a different couple of ways. For instance, if a
researcher was to go to a different culture that othey knew nothing about to get research about it
that culture may have a different worldview in beliefs that they do not like to share and refuse. It
all depends really I think on who, when, and where you would conduct your research. When going
to a culture with a completely different worldview can also be a good thing as well seeing as how
the person may share that worldview with you.
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References
American Anthropological Association. “What Is Anthropology? - Advance Your
Career.” American Anthropological Association, 2022,
https://www.americananthro.org/AdvanceYourCareer/Content.aspx?ItemNumber
=2150.
Howell, Brian M., and Jenell Paris. Introducing Cultural Anthropology. Baker
Academic, 2019.
Brian M. Howell and Jenell Paris, Introducing Cultural Anthropology: A
Christian Perspective, Second Edition. (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic: A
Division of Baker Publishing Group, 2019), 13.
Lindsay, Everett. “NPS Ethnography: Ethnography in the Parks.” NPS.Gov
Homepage (U.S. National Park Service),
https://www.nps.gov/ethnography/training/elcamino/phase1.htm#:~:text=REAP%
20is%20a%20package%20of,arts%2C%20values%2C%20and%20institutions.
Accessed 7 Nov. 2022.
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