Anthropology: of the observation to the theory

Teacher(s)

Servais Olivier ;

Language

Français

Main themes

Through an initiation with the questions of method in anthropology and the epistemological problems which are dependent for them, the course will focus on the tools for ethnographic investigation and particularly on the production of the data, the organization of a fieldwork, but also on the interpretation of the data and the ethnographic writing, including the passage from description to the conceptualization and the theorization. The course will illustrate these various dimensions of the ethnographic method on basis of great contemporary sets of themes of anthropological work.

Aims

Initiation with the ethnographic process. To understand the process of production of the data and especially the participating observation and ethnographic interview; To plan the organization of a fieldwork.

The contribution of this Teaching Unit to the development and command of the skills and learning outcomes of the programme(s) can be accessed at the end of this sheet, in the section entitled “Programmes/courses offering this Teaching Unit”.

Content

Contents: 1. The participating observation? 2. Production and statute of the data. 3. The ethnographer as a participant. 4. Evolution of the debate around the reflexive position in the ethnographic production. 5. Systematic of the approaches of field (how to observe and carry out an ethnographic interview, but also what to draw from the investigations in the archives files). 6. Rupture, restitution, ethical questions, and policies of the field. 7. Methods of the writing 8. Description by the control of the glance and the work of writing. 9. Conditions of the "ethnographic translation". 10. The construction of problems starting from the ethnographic data. 11. Reflexions around the analysis and the interpretation of the data. Methods: The course is conceived on the basis of preliminary readings, synthetic talks led by the professor and visioning and discussing of support videos. For the first time, the students are brought to think of the process of fieldwork.

Other information

Written examination on the basis of syllabus and notes Syllabus, (books at the disposal via collective purchases);

Faculty or entity<

> ESPO