What Is Analysis?

Duke University Press eBooks, 2021

This collection grapples with analy sis as a constitutive pro cess of ethnographic work. It picks up where most discussions on ethnography as a form of knowledge production stop: the point at which we are called to specify how we perform analy sis. If analy sis is the practice of immersing

Edward Elgar Publishing eBooks, 2021

Practicing Anthropology

: [19][20][21][22]. Although not collaborative in the same sense, other articles that share some or all of the characteristics I am about to discuss are "Keeping Some Distance: Anthropology in Urban Planning" by Jeffery F. Dow (16,2[1994]:24-26) and "Reforming Electric Utility Regulation: The Engineer as Anthropologist" by Eric Hirst (16,2[1994]:27-30). The methodological approach suggested in these articles has some very disturbing features. These features have the potential to transform applied anthropology into the Mac-Science of the ninties-with its practitioners reduced to the role of flipping technocratic hats according to what disciplines "collaborate" in the research. If we are to avoid this, we must establish the difference between applying and using anthropology. To apply anthropology is to expand the knowledge base to a different reality through careful contextualization of previously acquired knowledge. New insights developed in the process can contribute towards the improvement of methods, theory, and research procedures. The user of anthropology, on the other hand, is mostly concerned with the gathering of information to prove or disprove the effectiveness of this or that instrument or mode of analysis; the user of anthropology treats the social realm as yet another laboratory where human interaction is to be replicated though not understood. The first disturbing feature is the idea that the best way to undertake anthropological research is to hyphenate it with another discipline. While there is nothing in principle that can be damaging to applied anthropology from its interaction with other disciplines, careful attention must be paid to the conditions under which such interaction takes place. A second, related disturbing feature is the heavy reliance on the so-called partnership arrangement as the preferred vehicle to undertake field work. Partnerships of the kind advocated might very well mean that field work is reduced to information scavenging on the remains of "the other," i.e., the research participants. Let us look closely at these two paradigmatic characteristics and the methodological consequences of using vs. applying anthropology. The principal reason for cross-discipline cooperation is to join forces in order to solve common problems. In applied anthropology, however, collaboration too often means applying our research tools to problems defined by other disciplines--or even loaning our tools to those disciplines. It is . irresponsible for Baba and Falkenburg to suggest that an engineering graduate student who takes notes and asks questions can become an ethnographer solely on the basis of this "experience." To reverse their simplistic analogy, to behave like an engineer but to think like an ethnographer is not a sufficient condition to conduct sound quantitative research. Mastering the tools of the trade cannot and must not be confused with the need to obtain scientifically rigorous results. Another problem with the cross-disciplinary collaboration described by Baba and Falkenburg is that it omits active involvement from the workers at the site. Throughout the article, the workers appear as nothing more than lower-order information devices whose very livelihood activities need "translation" via engineering students who know the jargon used, though not the human beings who use it. Clearly, this kind of cross-discipline interaction is intended to act on people rather than with them. In the Old Days, when glorifying corporations and putting academic credentials at their service was not part of a researcher's duties, this kind of research was called exploitative and manipulative. It is the inevitable result of putting applied anthropology at the service of third party interests under the guise of collaborative efforts. Within the practitioner/ researcher model there can be no legitimacy whatsoever in a study that systematically denies participation to those who are most affected by it. However, if applied anthropology is seen as a user-friendly discipline, willing to bend and twist as the requirements of the user demand, this type of research becomes possible. In such a case, we are not applying anthropology; we are using anthropology to suit someone else's needs. The reliance on partnership as the preferred way to conduct field work has similarly negative results. Partnership is conceived of as a combined effort on the part of two disciplines that, while taking part in a common task, nevertheless remain totally independent from one another. This sort of "coequal partnership" leads-as Baba and Falkenburg show-into various kinds of power-plays and mind-games between "professionals of different occupational subcultures." The main component in these power-plays is the issue of control over the definition, design, and implementation of field work. Three-quarters of field work time, it seems, was spent trying to convince engineers of the benefits of qualita, tive methods. The focus of the field work, however, was "what was wrong at the informant's work site"-that is to say, workproductivity improvement. Engineers alone cannot figure out the problems in an industrial setting, so let's bring in the anthropologists. Thus, the task is not to do what ethnographic work demands (careful, long-term investigation); rather, the task is to take the path of least resistance and do what works. Partnerships of this type are, in essence, opportunistic arrangements entered into to manipulate the social realm. It is ironic that, while some of us are not prepared to accept the disintegration of indigenous societies in the name of progress, others, it seems, have no quarrel with the prospect of turning

According to most ethnomethodologists, ethnomethodological analyses (EM) go a step farther, compared with formal analyses (FA). Garfinkel explained that EM "is proposing and working out ʹWhat Moreʹ there is to the unquestionable corpus status of formal analytic investigations than formal analysis does, did, ever did or can provide" (1996 : 6). This sentence provides a mere description of what researchers have to do in order to produce EM analyses. Francis and Hester propose a three-step method used by the ethnomethodological sociologist to "know not just what 2 people do in their work, but how they do it" (2004 : 159) :

Journal of Social Philosophy

The more closely we examine actual language, the greater becomes the conflict between it and our requirement. (For the crystalline purity of logic was, of course, not something I had discovered: it was a requirement.) … The preconception of crystalline purity can only be removed by turning our whole inquiry around. (One might say: the inquiry must be turned around, but on the pivot of our real need.) (Wittgenstein 2009, § §107-08) A theory in the flesh means one where the physical realities of our lives-our skin color, the land or concrete we grew up on, our sexual longings-all fuse to create a politic born out of necessity. Here, we attempt to bridge the contradictions in our experience: We are the colored in a white feminist movement. (Moraga and Anzaldúa 1981, 23) What is considered theory in the dominant academic community is not necessarily what counts as theory for women-of-color. Theory produces effects that change people and the way they perceive the world. Thus we need teorías that will enable us to interpret what happens in the world, that will explain how and why we relate to certain people in specific ways, that will reflect what goes on between inner, outer and peripheral "I"s within a person and between the personal "I"s and the collective "we" of our ethnic communities.

Journal of Folklore Research 44,1, 2007

Ethnography. Special Issue “Between Theory and Social Reality in Ethnography" Online first., 2015

Following Reed (2010, 2011), we can think of ethnography as the encounter between two sets of meanings: those of the ethnographer on those of the subjects whose lives are being studied. If we are able to recognize the contested, unfinished, reflexive and complex character of how people think about themselves, we should be able to imagine ourselves in the same terms and go into the field armed with a theoretical helmet with interchangeable lenses, imagining which theoretical concepts would best fit the case. In this paper, I develop how this approach finds a fruitful analogue in psychoanalysis as a practical endeavor that produces a particular kind of truth; what we can learn from that equivalency; how this epistemological approach works in parallel to Reed’s plea for theoretical pluralism; and what are then the consequences of this book for practitioners of cultural ethnography.

American Anthropologist, 1984

Revue Europeenne Des Sciences Sociales European Journal of Social Sciences, 2015

In reaction to the criticisms to which analytical sociology has been subject with increasing frequency, the article attempts an overall assessment of this research program by addressing the following questions: where does contemporary analytical sociology come from? what are the differences between the ''old'' and ''new'' analytical sociology? what does analytical sociology really consist of? do the critics of analytical sociology have good reasons to be critical? Gross's 2009 ASR article is deeply discussed in order to answer the last question.