Ethnography in Educational Research

Ethnography in Educational Research: The Dynamics of Diffusion
David M. Fetterman
Educational Researcher, Vol. 11, No. 3. (Mar., 1982), pp. 17-22+29.

The article can be found at http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0013-189X%28198203%2911%3A3%3C17%3AEIERTD%3E2.0.CO%3B2-0

Indigenous Knowledge: The Way to Sustainable Development.

Attended and read a paper on INDIGENOUS KNOWLEDGE: THE WAY TO SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT? COMMUNITY PARTICIPATION IN ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES at the 1st International Conference on "Energy, Environment & Sustainable Development for Growing Economies (ESSD 2009)".

ABSTRACT:
The ‘Top Down’ intervention approaches to development have been highly critiqued in the recent past by many academics let to a growing interest in ‘Indigenous Knowledge’. The way to sustainable development and usage of the remaining natural resources are now increasingly being sort and utilised with the consent and understanding of ‘Indigenous People’s Knowledge’ around the world with little or no damage to the natural world. Scientists and Development practitioners have realized that in order to have sustainability within development projects, the knowledge of the local people cannot be ignored.
The indigenous people of the world, whom earlier the colonists and later the big Pharmaceutical & Multinational Oil Corporations (MNC’s) of the West considered ‘Savages’ and hindrance to development are now increasingly being acknowledged and considered a key resource in maximizing the enhancement of knowledge because of their understanding of the natural flora & fauna and the environment.
This paper with the help of secondary data looks at the emergence and importance of indigenous knowledge and highlights with the help of examples that indeed the future of sustainable development is through the recognition and adoption of Indigenous Knowledge and its practices in current development practices.

Conference organized by:
Institute of Environmental Engineering & Managment, Mehran University of Engineering & Technology, Jamshoro Pakistan in collaboration with HEC and Sindh EPA.

The Mystery of the Persian Mummy

Happened to watch the BBC documentary on one of the biggest pseudo archaelogical find of Pakistan in recent history. Asma Ibrahim, has done a great job in exposing the truth behind the persian mummy.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/horizon/2001/persianmummy.shtml

Anthropology and Sociology link with Environmentalism

Environmental anthropology assists policy-making and program planning by combining expertise in ecology with methods and tools for understanding of the social and cultural dynamics of communities potentially affected by policy decisions. The extensive body of relevant scientific knowledge included in environmental anthropology includes: understanding and building on the social organization of communities in larger social systems for use in identifying and solving environmental problems, recognizing and addressing differences in culturally diverse perceptions, categories, linguistic terms, values and behaviors related to the environment in order to confront differences and improve communication among specific cultural/ethnic groups with respect to addressing environmental concerns identifying and utilizing culturally specific styles of communication and rhetoric typical of designated groups to enhance communication and mutual understanding among groups
The methods and tools of environmental and other domains of applied anthropology are far-ranging. Prominent among them are observation techniques, qualitative and survey interviews, systematic data collection techniques for accessing core values or areas of cultural consensus, ways of identifying and interpreting social networks and a variety of participatory cultural, social and environmental assessment techniques designed to improve intersect oral understanding of demographic composition, social/political dynamics, cultural and other forms of diversity, and capacity for planning and development.

Branches of Anthropology

Careers in Anthropology

With the costs of college education continuing to skyrocket, more and more parents are asking their college-aged children some very practical questions. For example, parents want to know why their children are majoring in anthropology. Behind such a question is the more pragmatic question: What kind of job can you get with a B.A. in anthropology?

It is important to bear in mind that a B.A. in cultural anthropology-as in most other undergraduate fields of study-is a liberal arts degree, not some type of professional certification. In other words, an undergraduate degree in anthropology does not prepare a person to become a professional research anthropologist any more than an undergraduate degree in political science equips a person to achieve high political office. The B.A. in anthropology does provide excellent background for graduate study in anthropology at the Ph.D. level, which is the normal route to becoming a professional anthropologist.

For those not interested in pursuing a career as an anthropologist, the B.A. in anthropology provides valuable skills and insights that can be relevant for a wide variety of other professions. Because cultural anthropology involves the study of human behavior in whatever form it may take, a B.A. in anthropology can be useful for any job that requires an understanding of human cultural behavior. However, such a general statement is of little use to the recent college graduate who is pounding the pavement in search of employment. The term anthropologist or cross-cultural expert is not a standard job Classification in the employment section of a newspaper's classified ads. In recent decades, however, a number of jobs in both government and industry have developed that focus on certain cross-cultural issues and involve working with people from different cultural and subcultural backgrounds. These jobs might include program director, consultant, planner, market analyst, housing administrator, cross-cultural trainer, social worker, survey researcher, or coordinator of refugee services. Many of the case studies appearing in the Applied Perspective sections of this text illustrate how anthropological skills have been applied to a number of different professional areas. For example, case studies showed how anthropological skills and insights have been used to help architects design appropriate housing for subcultural groups, develop a highly successful reforestation program in Haiti, shed light on the public health aspects of the AIDS epidemic, and provide courts with culturally relevant information for the resolution of legal cases, to mention but a few applications.

As mentioned in Chapter 3, the prevalence of applied anthropology within the discipline has increased in recent decades, most notably during the 1970s and 1980s. Because of a shrinking academic job market, coupled with federal legislation requiring environmental impact studies and historical preservation, more professionally trained anthropologists are employed in nonacademic positions than in colleges and universities. As more and more Ph.D.-level anthropologists are making their way into nonacademic jobs, employment opportunities for those with less than Ph.D. training in anthropology are also increasing. Today people with training in cultural anthropology are putting their observational and analytical skiffs to work in a variety of ways in both the public (government) and private (business) sectors of the economy.

Opportunities for employment with the U.S. federal government are wide ranging. In the area of international development, an increasing number of jobs are opening up for people who understand cross-cultural behavior. Such organizations as the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA)-organizations that administer foreign aid-hire people trained in anthropology to provide the background needed to implement certain programs of planned change successfully, such as programs for family planning, agricultural development, educational reform, and disease prevention. As many development agencies throughout the world have learned the hard way, the most well-intentioned programs of planned change can have disastrous results unless something is known about the cultures of the target populations. Before spending (in some cases) minions of dollars on development programs, such organizations as CIDA and USAID want to have as much relevant information as possible about the local cultures.

Anthropological skills are valuable for various types of government work abroad, but at least as many cultural anthropologists are working for various branches of government (federal, state, and municipal) at home. Because North America, contrary to popular myth, is not a perfect melting pot, a good deal of ethnic diversity can be found there. As long as substantial cultural differences exist, there will be a need for anthropological skills and insights to help bureaucrats work effectively with all cultural subgroups.

Because anthropology deals with understanding cultural differences, and because governments are in the business of providing services for all people, there should be a considerable overlap of interests between cultural anthropologists and government bureaucrats. To illustrate, people with anthropological training have worked in government positions at home in the following areas: aging, criminal justice, cultural resource management, disaster assistance, education, family planning, human and civil rights, information systems, medical care, museums, nutrition, program evaluation, public housing, public relations and communications, refugee settlement, research grant writing, social impact analysis, substance abuse, urban planning, and welfare policy. Although this list is hardly definitive, it does give a general idea of the scope of jobs related to training in anthropology.

Today a growing number of students of anthropology are finding their way into new and exciting areas of employment, particularly in the private sector of the economy. The following is a sample of recent employment experiences in the world of business by those with training in anthropology:
Steven Barnett was hired by an advertising agency in charge of creating an ad campaign for the Sylvester Stallone movie Rambo III. Barnett conducted ethnographic research on how a cross section of U.S. theatergoers viewed Rambo. Barnetts findings that Rambo was viewed almost as a comic book hero resulted in an ad campaign that played down ". . . the cold war politics and played up Rambo as a larger-than-life cultural icon.' (Heller 1988:A-24)

After conducting an ethnographic study on two-way pagers in rural China (where there is a shortage of telephones), Motorola decided to start marketing its pagers for vigorously for the rural China market. According to Jean Canavan, an anthropologist for Motorola, "If we want to develop technologies that really fit into the way people live their day-to-day lives, then we have to understand how people really live." (Hafner, 1999.)

Lucy Suchman, working as a researcher for Xerox, makes anthropological observations of airport workers to learn how they keep track of people, airplanes, luggage, and air freight. Xerox hopes to use these findings to help improve its handling of documents, design more user-friendly equipment, and improve its instruction manuals. (Deutsch 1991:C- 11)

Allison Cohen, described as a marketing ethnographer, conducts firsthand research into people's kitchen cabinets, refrigerators, and medicine cabinets to determine their buying patterns. Rather than using mailed questionnaires, as has been the case in more traditional marketing research, people like Cohen are hired by marketing firms to observe U.S. consumer behavior in its natural context. Advertising agencies are willing to hire these "Margaret Meads of marketing~'because they feel they will be able to develop more effective ad campaigns if they first know something about what is being bought and why. (Miller, Shenitz, and Rosado 1990:59-60)

Lorna McDougall, an employee at Arthur Andersees Center for Professional Education, uses anthropological data-gathering techniques to study why some people learn more effectively through the lecture method and others learn better through more interactive methods. The findings from this research will enable the instructors at the center to use the most effective teaching techniques in their corporate training. (Deutsch 1991:C- 11)

Some North American companies are interested in hiring those trained in cultural anthropology to collect relevant information on their culturally diverse workforces as a way of minimizing conflicts between the corporate culture and the cultures of the workers. Moreover, companies that are manufacturing, marketing, or negotiating abroad need help from anthropologically trained people when working in culturally unfamiliar waters. As a way of addressing these needs, an increasing number of cultural anthropologists are becoming cross-cultural trainers for organizations that send people abroad or have multicultural workforces at home. By conducting a search for "cross cultural training" on the Internet, you will find numerous companies that provide culture specific training. Many of these training firms either employ anthropologists as cross cultural experts or are using comparative cultural data that have been collected by anthropologists.

The preceding discussion has attempted to provide some idea as to how those with training in anthropology can fit into the world of work. As Van Willigen reminds us, "the (job) market is not very much aware of anthropologists as such" (1993:223). In the final analysis, each student is responsible for carving out a spot in the job market for her or himself. In other words, because no jobs in the nonacademic world are exclusively for cultural anthropologists, it is important for the graduate in cultural anthropology to prepare for the job search by gaining an understanding of the organization offering the job as well as a clear appreciation of what he or she brings to the job situation. Anthropology graduates are better equipped in certain areas than are those graduating with any other liberal arts degree. First, anthropology graduates are well acquainted with cross-cultural differences and similarities, an area of expertise of particular importance in a multicultural society such as our own. This involves the ability to "size up" unfamiliar social and professional situations, appreciate the wide range of cultural behavior in the world, and learn how to behave toward people from other cultures with sensitivity, flexibility, and understanding. Second, training in anthropology instills such qualities as interviewing skills, experience with survey research, observational acuity, and a holistic perspective. Third, anthropology graduates should have other skills and assets that can be useful to potential employers, such as experience with statistical methods, computer skills, foreign language fluency, and communication skills. Once students have a clear understanding of their skills, they are in a good position to tailor their resumes to a particular job opening.

For an excellent visual introduction to the topic of anthropology and jobs, ask your professor to show the video Anthropologists at Work: Careers Making a Difference, produced by the National Association of Practicing Anthropologists (NAPA) and distributed by these American Anthropological Association (AAA).

Corporate Anthropology

Corporate Anthropology Unearths Truths Of Workplace

Los Angeles Times

Many moons ago, while stalking ancient Mayan ruins in Central America, Karen Stephenson suddenly found herself at the wrong end of an automatic rifle.

The Harvard-trained anthropologist was traveling with colleagues in the war-torn region when renegade soldiers waylaid their jeep. In the sickening moments that followed, she said, ``If we'd panicked, they surely would have shot us.

``I can still feel the sweat on my forehead,'' said Stephenson, now a jet-hopping corporate consultant, during a frenetic 48-hour stopover in Los Angeles. ``I've had many life- threatening experiences in the jungles of Guatemala. But no more life- threatening than I've experienced in the corporate world.''

Sharpened by the vestige of a West Texas twang, it's a canny synopsis of her workplace world view. A former UCLA business professor, Stephenson has traded in her safari togs for designer labels, a Sony laptop and a Palm Pilot that must be on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

A Varied Clientele But she has kept her Mata Hari-like sense of adventure.

These days, the self-styled ``corporate anthropologist'' circles the globe preaching a sophisticated, yet plain- spoken, management gospel to a disparate clientele that at one time or another has included blue-chippers IBM, AOL Time Warner and Hewlett- Packard, plus the Pentagon, the CIA, the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the Los Angeles Police Department.

Her message? Next time you slip into your cozy office cubicle, don't forget to bring your hip boots.

The American workplace can be a swamp of betrayals, sneak attacks, feral co-workers, slash-and-burn bosses and other nasty surprises. That's why ``trust relationships,'' as Stephenson calls them, should be recognized and nurtured as the gold standard of successful, innovative organizations.

Although most institutions rely on hierarchies and office flow charts to measure employee interaction, Stephenson thinks there's a better way to determine how workers communicate and share vital information.

Using mathematical algorithms and customized software, she and her New York-based company, Netform International Inc., chart the below- the-radar social networks that shape white-collar environments.

The Secret Network Through confidential surveying and painstaking analysis, Stephenson and her 20-member staff attempt to determine a company's hidden molecular makeup by asking simple questions like:

* Who do you talk to?

* Who do you go to for expert advice, or a quick decision?

* Which old-timers know where the bodies are stashed?

* Which employees are creating information ``bottlenecks,'' bolstering their own power by keeping colleagues in the dark?

When collected and converted into graphic images, the resulting data resemble DNA strands, densely encoded with names, job titles and crisscrossing lines indicating personal connections.

``[Our findings] make executives very happy, because at last they can see what's really going on,'' Stephenson says, ``and it makes the rank and file very happy because they're finally getting recognized for the work they do.''

She says that we ignore these trust- based networks at our peril, because when they're not properly understood or used, everyone loses. Key employees aren't retained over time. Mentorship breaks down. Institutional memory seeps away. Manipulative blowhards who have the boss' ear get promoted over more talented, less visible rivals. Lacking the psychological safety net of trust, many employees grow afraid of taking risks.

Thus, Stephenson says, when people complain they don't get recognized for the work they do, they're usually right.

``They don't get recognized for the work they do because the work they do gets done at the tacit level,'' she says. ``Many people reorganize their companies all the time, and nothing ever changes. Too much misalignment is a bad thing. Before you know it, you've got `acquired organizational dysfunction syndrome.' We want to avoid that.''

This type of snappy, user-friendly insight has been boosting Stephenson's profile as a free-thinking corporate provocateur. With her nimble, bicoastal firm, she's out to redesign the global workplace, one corporate culture at a time.

And from Wall Street to Hollywood to Harvard, people are listening.

``She is kind of in a class alone,'' says Maria Leo, first vice president of human resources for Merrill Lynch, which has been working with Stephenson for several years.

At 49, Stephenson fully fits the part of a modern management guru: Gucci glasses, high-end, head-to-toe black, and short, bobbed hair, flatteringly gray.

Divorced for many years, Stephenson says she once told her former husband: ``My work is first, my child is second and you are third.''

Her son graduated from high school two weeks ago. That leaves his mother freer than ever to pursue what she calls her mission: to enable the ``strong'' to help the ``meek'' get their due in the workplace, while holding the ``weak'' - petty-minded obstructionists, back stabbers and incompetents - in check.

Drawing analogies with chemistry and anthropology, she contends that most organizations are marked by three recurring behavioral patterns.

Workers Fit Patterns These derive from three groups of archetypal workers known as ``hubs,'' ``gatekeepers'' and ``pulse takers.'' They are classified according to the nature and number of their ``trust relationships'' with colleagues.

Hubs are employees with the most direct ties to co-workers.

Gatekeepers are more self-aware versions of hubs. They enjoy serving as power brokers and tend to infuse information with their own agendas.

Pulse takers are the least visible employees. They observe and measure the state of the company and are widely trusted.

Perhaps the most famous pulse taker in history was the wily Italian courtier Niccolo Machiavelli, author of ``The Prince,'' a brilliantly cynical manual of managerial technique. Some employees may occupy several of these roles, or trade them as their careers evolve.

Mathematical Models Stephenson's research identifies the members of each group in a given organization. Then, using mathematical models first conceptualized by mathematical theorist Frank Harary and structural anthropologist Per Hage, she maps out her findings in interlocking graphs that are easier to decipher than they look.

What's striking is how similar these networks appear, whether depicting an Indian caste system, a corporate bureaucracy or a group of HIV-positive men.

Stephenson also has been winning converts in government and not-for- profit circles. Vice Adm. Dennis McGinn, deputy chief of Naval operations for Warfare Requirements and Programs at the Pentagon, credits a Netform analysis with breaking a bureaucratic logjam.

After surveying 2,200 Navy employees, Stephenson found Navy staffers, drowning in paperwork, were wasting time currying favor in order to get their memos moved to the top of their colleagues' in baskets. The affected departments have set up a Web- based routing system that lets employees swap information more easily and have input on tasks in progress.

This story can be found at :
http://tampatrib.com/businessnews/MGAV8C44NQC.html