While conducting fieldwork among indigenous communities belonging to other cultures, anthropologists often wrongly record and analyze their field data. This is the prime reason why our analysis many time does not correspond to the ground realities. Therefore it is extremely important for the anthropologists to validate their observations by rechecking their interpretations with the participants of the said event/incident. Under such situation, what field technique is advocated for reducing subjectivity in our analysis of the interpretations of the observation?
En una investigación de corte antropológica, emergente, la técnica de campo ( observación, en sus diferentes modalidades, notas de campos, fichas de registro de observación, focus grupo,) solo permiten registrar, anotar los fenómenos, hechos, acciones del grupo o individuos objetos de estudio, de acuerdo a una categorías prefijada, o también puede extraer las categorías después que procese la información. Necesariamente en trabajo antropológico la subjetividad es un eje fundamental. Los interpretación de la información en una investigación antropológica va a depender del grado de intersubjetividad que el investigador establezca con su objeto de estudio. Es decir, observador participante o no participante. De lo que se trata es de ampliar la intersubjetividad ( la relación dialéctica del conocer con el objeto de estudio) no de reducir la intersubjetividad.
What an interesting question Deepak Kumar Behera and great reply Junguittu Martínez - I do take your point about the value of increasing intersubjectivity. In my own ethnographic work, with an Okupa neo-rural libertarian communist/ anarchist community in Navarre (Spanish mainland territory/ Euskal Herria), I shared my methodology - Freudian interpretation of my own dreams and ethnopoetry (written mostly in Spanish) to break down the emic/etic division and interrogate the un/consciousnesses of the observer - with the participants and found their feedback very useful. Still it was not a cooperative project (they had other more pressing concerns which I helped with) and I retained overall control of the design and output. I think it is necessary for the researcher to assume responsibility for that and to ensure that it conforms to the rigorous standards of graduate work. I admit it's a difficult balance to get right. Link to blurb:
Dreaming Anarchy: A Shut-Eye View of a Utopia by Alan McManus (goodreads.com)
Appreciated Deepak Kumar Behera, the question is very interesting, not only because of the margin of subjectivity that this entails, but also because of the task of re-checking "in situ" the references obtained ..... Thank you very much.
Many thanks Dr. Alan McManus for your analytical and insightful reply. I am very pleased.
Thank you very much Dr. Juana Maria Arcelus-Ulibarrena for your brilliant meaningful reply.
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