Long-Term Field Research in Social Anthropology

Colson, Elizabeth; Foster, George M.; Scudder, Thayer; Kemper, Robert V.

doi:10.1086/201766

Cited by 20 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 0 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…The described model's underlying social structure, the structure's purpose, and the reason it exists is closely tied to a system of exchange prevalent in Tzintzuntzan. Exchange of services and goods are modelled as dyadic contracts (Foster et al 1979 ). "Each person is the centre of his private and unique network of contractual ties, a network whose overlap with other networks has no functional significance.…”

Section: Dyadic Exchange In the Modelmentioning

confidence: 99%

Modelling Contextualized Reasoning in Complex Societies with "Endorsements"

Alam¹,

Geller²,

Meyer³

et al. 2010

JASSS

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In many computational social simulation models only cursory reference to the foundations of the agent cognition used is made and computational expenses let many modellers chose simplistic agent cognition architectures. Both choices run counter to expectations framed by scholars active in the domain of rich cognitive modelling that see agent reasoning as socially inherently contextualized. The Manchester school of social simulation proposed a particular kind of a socially contextualized reasoning mechanism, so called endorsements, to implement the cognitive processes underlying agent action selection that eventually causes agent interaction. Its usefulness lies in its lightweight architecture and in taking into account folk psychological conceptions of how reasoning works. These and other advantages make endorsements an amenable tool in everyday social simulation modelling. A yet outstanding comprehensive introduction to the concept of endorsements is provided and its theoretical basis is extended and extant research is critically reviewed. Improvements to endorsements regarding memory and perception are suggested and tested against a case-study.

show abstract

Section: Dyadic Exchange In the Modelmentioning

confidence: 99%

Modelling Contextualized Reasoning in Complex Societies with "Endorsements"

Alam¹,

Geller²,

Meyer³

et al. 2010

JASSS

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Still, remember that this field-in-flux can be grasped only through theoretical lenses and through the ethnographer's interactions with those he or she studies. Foster et al (1979) have advanced the idea of long-term field research in which ethnographers, either as individuals or as a team, revisit a field site regularly over many years (they arbitrarily say more than 10) with a view to understanding historical change and continuity.F Their collection of cases of long-term field research ranges from Lamphere's (1979) overview of the dense thicket of Navajo ethnographies to Vogt's (1979) account of the Harvard Chiapas Project (1957-1975.…”

Section: Field Work-the Rolling Revisitmentioning

confidence: 99%

Revisits: An Outline of a Theory of reflexive ethnography

Burawoy

2003

Am Sociol Rev

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This paper explores the ethnographic technique of the focused revisit—rare in sociology but common in anthropology—when an ethnographer returns to the site of a previous study. Discrepancies between earlier and later accounts can be attributed to differences in: (1) the relation of observer to participant, (2) theory brought to the field by the ethnographer, (3) internal processes within the field site itself, or (4) forces external to the field site. Focused revisits tend to settle on one or another of these four explanations, giving rise to four types of focused revisits. Using examples, the limits of each type of focused revisit are explored with a view to developing a reflexive ethnography that combines all four approaches. The principles of the focused revisit are then extended to rolling, punctuated, heuristic, archeological, and valedictory revisits. In centering attention on ethnography-as-revisit sociologists directly confront the dilemmas of participating in the world they study—a world that undergoes (real) historical change that can only be grasped using a (constructed) theoretical lens.

show abstract

“…It is also important to observe that such findings, generated through the confrontation of both ethnographic examples, were made more visible particularly through to our long-term ethnographic approach (e.g. Colson et al 1976;Taggart, Sandstrom 2011). If our ethnographic fieldworks were short in time, we probably wouldn't notice changes on the experiences of settling, neither new forms of agency in the neighbourhood, including public forms of resistance.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%