Ethnography to me seem to be about learning about a society through a long study that usually involves participation in the group. Typically they person recording the data needs to live among the others as if they belong to the society.
This seems to be a difficult task to accomplish. The person has to do what they can to learn as much about the society as possible while living with them. This can often lead to biased data. Whether biased for the society or against it.
I found these articles to be interesting. The way that Margaret Mead recorded her ethnographic data is neat. Ethnographers have to practically live with the community that they are studying. This Can take time and be a difficult transition for people to switch from one lifestyle to another. The fact that she was able to is a cool accomplishment in the field of ethnography.
The debacle with Freeman seems to be a pointless one to me. Derek Freeman challenged many of Mead's finding. He just so happen to wait several years later before actually going to the Samoa tribe. So much has changed. Most of the Samoans converted to Christianity. The women that Mead interviewed were old and changed a lot as well. With Freeman being an older man, it also probably made some of the Samoan women uncomfortable sharing secrets and tribal practices with him.
Whatever gave Freeman the confidence that he can properly challenge Mead's finding I will probably never know. The amount of time to me is what lead to Freeman's demise in his challenging of Mead's findings. The Samoan tribe has changed too much for him to gather data on the Samoan tribe and compare that data with Mead's findings. To me, it seems obvious that Freeman has no ground in refuting Mead's findings.
No comments:
Post a Comment