Doing Fieldwork in China 田野研究
Fall 2018
Course Instructors: Dr. Pan, Tianshu TA: Chen, Xiaoqiong
Time and Location: 9:55-12:30; Wednesdays; H4403
This seminar aims to situate students' fieldwork experiences within a framework of the Chinese and North American contexts to provide students with conceptual and methodological tools for approaching their field placements; to evaluate their own experiences and observations through critical reflection; and to integrate their understanding of Chinese and North American social and cultural systems through written exercises and ethnographic practices.
One goal, of course, is that you learn about research design and ethnographic fieldwork in anthropology. Anthropology provides a new language, a set of technical concepts, and a new methodological toolkit that will hopefully help you better observe, describe and understand the local social world around you. In learning the anthropological perspective, I hope that you develop a critical, even “skeptical” view toward superficial explanations of human behavior by replacing your common sense understandings of social interaction with an uncommon sense about the structure and process of social life. As we learn about medical anthropology as a social science we will learn to discriminate between reasonable and unreasonable generalizations made on the basis of limited evidence.
In addition, this course establishes a forum for you to direct your work and creative energies towards social and cultural issues in various contexts. This approach allows the you to discover “communities,” to create a channel of communication, to find ways of continual engagement and project development, and to perhaps carry knowledge and expression beyond the immediate workings of the community and into the realm of culture. Ethnographic narratives will be woven into the in-class discussion of these themes.
Course Requirements
As a course that introduces important theoretical and methodological material, attendance is mandatory. Class participation is critical as it provides the conditions for discussion or debate premised on the ability to analyze and question assigned readings.
Attendance and Participation 10%
Journal of field experiences (with guidelines) 40%
Fieldwork assignments
In-class presentations 30%
Write-ups 20%
Week 1 (09/12) Getting to know the “field”
Brown, Kerry. 2013. Shanghai 2020: The City’s Vision of Its Future. Foreign Language Press.
Wasserstrom, Jeffrey N. 2009. Global Shanghai 1850-2010. Routledge.
Case Examples: Rethinking Shanghai Nostalgia: An Ethnographic Inquiry into the Interface between Historical Memory and Place-making Process in a Global Metropolis;
Reflections and Thoughts on the Ethnographic Aspects of World Expo 2010
Week 2 (09/19) Why Culture Matters
Class discussion topic: ethnocentrism vs. relativism; the medicalization of society
Miner, H. 1956. Body Ritual among the Nacirema,American Anthropologist58 (1956): 503-507
Bohannan, Laura. 1966. Shakespeare in the Bush, Natural History Magazine, August/September.
Case Example: Ethnographic Perspectives on the Lifeworld of the Nacirema
Background reading:
Conrad, Peter. 2007. The Medicalization of Society: On the Transformation of Human Conditions
into Treatable Disorders. The Johns Hopkins University Press.
Assignment: Field Journals
Week 3 (09/26) Ethnography and Field Work: the Validity of “Soft Data”
Class discussion topic: the normal and abnormal behaviors
Malinowski, B. 1922. “Introduction” in Argonauts of the Western Pacific. Waveland Press.
Kelley, Tom. The Ten Faces of Innovation. Chapter 1, the Anthropologist Tom Kelley
Excerpt from C. Wright Mills, The Sociological Imagination (originally published in 1959)
The AAA Statement on Ethics (www.aaanet.org/stmts/irb.htm.)
Background Reading:
Maria Heimer and Stig Thøgersen. 2006. Doing Fieldwork in China. University of Hawaii Press.
Fieldwork Assignment: Researching the Place; The Social Life of Things
Week 4 (10/03) National Holiday Break (No Class)
Week 5 (10/10) Place Matters
Class discussion topic: neighborhood gentrification and spatial reconfiguration in Shanghai
Excerpt from C. Wright Mills, The Sociological Imagination (originally published in 1959)
Place Matters: An Ethnographic Perspective on Historical Memory, Place Attachment, and Neighborhood Gentrification in Post-reform Shanghai, In Chinese Sociology and Anthropology (Vol. 43, no. Summer 2011), pp. 52-73.
Background reading: Deep China (Kleinman et.al. 2011)
Week 6 (10/17) Participant Observation
Class discussion topic: Naturalistic Observation and Participant Observation
How we know what we know and how we know we know; Research as a way of knowing;
Qualitative Research: Fieldwork and Participant Observation; Observing, Learning, and Reporting;
Background reading:
Bernard, H. Russell. 2018[1994]. Research Methods in Anthropology. 2d ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Ethnographic text: Sidewalk (Duneier1999) ; Ethnographic case example: Seeing Voices: Studying the Deaf People in Shanghai (Zhang Meiyin)
Week 7 (10/24) Field Encounters
Class Discussion topic: Asking, Listening, and Telling
Ethnographic Case Example: Arthur Kleinman’s Eight Questions
Kleinman, Arthur M. 1973. Medicine’s Symbolic Reality: On a Central Problem of the Philosophy of Medicine, Inquiry 16(1973): 206-13.
Gibson, D. and M. Zhong (2005). “Intercultural communication competence in the healthcare context.” International Journal of Intercultural Relations29(5): 621-634.
Background reading:
Kleinman, Arthur. 1988. The Illness Narratives.
Emerson, Robert, Rachel Fretz and Linda Shaw. 1995. Writing Ethnographic Fieldnotes. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press.
Week 8 Field Trip (WUSTL)
Week 9 (11/07) Reflections on Medical School Education
Class discussion topic: What does it mean to be a doctor?
Davis-Floyd, Robbie E. 1987 Obstetric Training as a Rite of Passage. Woman, Physician and Society. Special Issue of the Medical Anthropology Quarterly. Vol. 1, no 3.
Recommended reading:
Konner, Melvin. 1987. Becoming a Doctor: A Journey of Initiation in Medical School. Penguin.
Week 10 (11/14) The Challenge of a Graying China
Class discussion topic: “let the sunset glow” (aging in cross-cultural perspective)
James Watson’s seminal study of ancestor worship in pre-revolutionary China. (http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~anthro/social_faculty_pages/social_pages_watson_w.html)
Martin Whyte 1997. The Fate of Filial Obligations in Urban China The China Journal, No. 38. (Jul., 1997)
Recommended readings:
Jackson and Howe. 2004. Introduction: Will China Grow Rich Before It Grows Old, in The Graying of the Middle Kingdom. CSIS.
Ikels, Charlotte Ikels. 2004. Filial Piety: Practice and Discourse in Contemporary East Asia
Week 11 (11/21) Stigma and “Shame of Illness”
Class discussion topic: the normal and abnormal behaviors
Kleinman, Arthur. 1988. The Illness Narratives. (Chapter 6)
Background reading: The Burden of Sympathy (Karp 2001)
Case example: Challenges of Mental Health Care-giving in Urban Shanghai
Week 12 (11/28) Fieldwork in a “Risk Society”
Class discussion: coping with risk in everyday life
Pan, Tianshu. Weathering the Storm: Local Responses to Avian Flu Threats In N. Zhejiang, China, In Fudan Journal of Social Sciences (Vol.4, No. 4, 2007)
Background reading:
Kleinman and Watson. 2003. SARS in China.
Claire E. Sterk, Fieldwork on Prostitution in the Era of AIDS.
Case Example: Local Responses to Avian Flu in Northern Zhejiang Province
Week 13 (12/05)
In-class presentations
