Field Studies in Anthropology
Curriculum guideline
Lecture: 2 hours/week and
Field Experience: 2 hours/week
The learning activities for this course will include some or all of the following:
- Study abroad and field trips (both extended ...) and/or local day trips
- Experiential and land-based learning
- Lectures and guest lectures
- Small and large group discussions
- Readings, audio-visual materials, and case study analysis
- Overview relevant to the field setting: major fields of anthropology, including physical/biological anthropology, linguistic anthropology, archaeology, and cultural anthropology.
- Examine the historical and socio-cultural context of the field setting
- Situate ethics protocols in the field
- Guided field experiences and reflective learning
- Review and expand knowledge of anthropological theories and methods
Upon successful completion of the course, students will be able to:
- Identify and demonstrate an understanding of key concepts, theories, and perspectives in anthropology
- Apply anthropological and ethnographic concepts, theories, and perspectives to a field setting
- Connect specific methods in anthropology to the analysis of human occupations and activities at various time-scales
- Locate peer-reviewed anthropological research and apply it to the understanding of a field setting and
- Demonstrate cross-cultural awareness informed by cultural relativism and reflexive praxis
Assessment will be based on course objectives and will be carried out in accordance with the Douglas College Evaluation Policy. The instructor will provide a written course outline containing specific criteria during the beginning of semester and this will vary according to the instructor’s assessment of appropriate evaluation methods, the selected global experience, and theme of the course. Instructors will use a balance of assignments to assess learning, such as journal writing, participating in class and group discussion, essays, research papers, oral presentations (individual and/or group), written or oral tests or quizzes, and/or essay-type exams.
Instructors may use a student’s record of attendance and/or level of active participation in the course as part of the student’s graded performance. Where this occurs, expectations and grade calculations regarding class attendance and participation will be clearly defined in the Instructor Course Outline.
An example of a possible assessment scheme:
Participation: 15%
Writing Assignment: 15%
Reflective Journal: 40%
Final Project: 30%
Students may conduct research with human participants as part of their coursework in this class. Instructors for the course are responsible for ensuring that student research projects comply with College policies on ethical conduct for research involving human subjects.
A list of required texts and reading materials is provided on the instructor's course outline, which is available to students at the beginning of each semester. An instructor's course reader may be required.
Examples of methods textbooks in ethnographic and anthropological research include:
Ballestero, Andrea, and Brit Ross Winthereik. Experimenting with Ethnography: A Companion to Analysis. Durham: Duke University Press, 2021.
Bernard, H. Russell. Research Methods in Anthropology, Fifth Edition. Lanham: Altamira, 2011.
Mannik, Lynda, and Karen McGarry. Practicing Ethnography: A Student Guide to Method and Methodology. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2017.
Vivanco, Luis A. Field Notes: A Guided Journal for Doing Anthropology. New York: Oxford University Press, 2017.
Examples of regional anthropological and ethnographic material for a field school in Ireland:
Aretxaga, Begoña. 1995. “Dirty Protest: Symbolic Overdetermination and Gender in Northern Ireland Ethnic Violence.” Ethos 23(3):123-148.
Brubaker, Rogers. 2002. “Ethnicity Without Groups.” Archives européennes de sociologie 43(2):163–189.
Bryan, Dominic “Between the national and the civic: Flagging peace in, or a piece of, Northern Ireland?” in Eriksen, Thomas H. and Richard Jenkins. 2007. Flag, Nation and Symbolism in Europe and America. London: Taylor and Francis.
Cooney, Gabriel. 2023. Death in Irish Prehistory. Dublin: Royal Irish Academy.
Herr, Cheryl. 1990. “The Erotics of Irishness.” Critical Inquiry 17(1):1-34.
Ignatiev, Noel. 1996. How the Irish Became White. New York: Routledge.
Inglis, Tom 1991. “The Struggle for Control of the Irish Body: State, Church and Society in Nineteenth-Century Ireland.” Pp. 55-72 in Religious Regimes and State Formation: Perspectives from European Ethnology, edited by Eric R. Wolf. Albany, State University of New York Press.
Jarman, Neil 1996. “Material of Culture, Fabric of Identity.” Pp. 121-146 in Material Cultures: Why Some Things Matter. Chicago: University Of Chicago Press.
Jenkins, Richard P. 2008. Rethinking Ethnicity: Arguments and Explorations. London: Sage Publications Ltd.
Kelleher, William F. 2004. The Troubles in Ballybogoin: Memory and Identity in Northern Ireland. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press.
King, Helena ed. 2024. Knowth. Dublin: Royal Irish Academy.
Scheper-Hughes, Nancy. 2001. Saints, Scholars, and Schizophrenics: Mental Illness in Rural Ireland. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.
Taylor, Lawrence J. 1995. Occasions of Faith: An Anthropology of Irish Catholics. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Wilson, Thomas M. and Donnan Hastings. 2006. The Anthropology of Ireland. New York: Berg Publishers.
Wulff, Helena. 2008. Dancing at the Crossroads: Memory and Mobility in Ireland. Oxford: Berghahn Books.
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