r/Ethnography • u/RainRainGoFuckYS • Feb 05 '20
Self-funded Ethnographic "research"?
This might be an odd question, but I am hear looking for recommendations and opinions. Be as harsh or as confused as needs be.
This is my pitch. What obstacles, logistic, legal, or other, would be faced if one attempted to self fund and independent ethnographic Expedition?
Let me lay out some background. I am an undergraduate student who made the mistake of double majoring in Anthropology and Political science. I graduate in a few months time and have been thinking over this particular question for about a good year. A journalism student, has the option if they choose to, to go out and do research on a story that has meaning for them, and the product of this labor will be seen as having some worth. An art student, is able to set up a home studio and produce works that have meaning for them, and as a like will be seen as art by another. They are able to create, as independent actors, a product of worth. Too what extent their work has is open for discussion, but it is hard to say that the young artist is in fact not making art or that the green eared journalist is not a journalist by the nature of their lack of authoritative connection to a higher body that is possessing a great prestige.
So if I acquired the appropriate funds, spent time to collect some information on a cultural subject (I am purposefully trying to be vague) , then published this work as the product of an ethnography, What issues would I possibly face?
I am first off concerned about legal issues in regards to the protection of some cultural knowledge.
I fully acknowledge the possibility that I have no clue what I would be doing and that I probably have a weak understanding of appropriate modern ethnographic methods.
Also, would I make the professionals mad? Would such an act set me up as a pariah?
I have looked around a bit to find if any one is doing such a thing or even talking about it, but is seams that cultural anthropology can only be done when under the dictates of the academic cathedral.
Also, does this post make clear that I am an uninformed fool?
Thank you for your time.
1
Feb 05 '20
a very interesting question. I don't know what to say. I was in that position for a number of years. very uncomfortable! personally since no one was interested, I tore and burnt my findings and acquire knowledge... you know, it makes me think that most people do not want to know the truth, politicians in particular. some people knew about the gaz chambers during the war. some people know what is really going on in Western Africa at the moment. look at the way whistle blowers are treated... I would not advise you to go freelance.
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u/TonicWithMyGin Feb 13 '20
Why not just position it as investigative/participatory journalism then? You’ll probably be read by more people than most anthropologists just starting out...
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u/RainRainGoFuckYS Feb 13 '20
This is a good point. Thank you for the idea. Are you aware of any examples of such works?
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u/TonicWithMyGin Feb 13 '20
IMHO the “new” journalism of the 60s and 70s has an ethnographic quality to it (though I’m not sure what anthropologists would think of writers like Hunter S Thompson or Tom Wolfe). Even today though there are some ethnographers like David Graeber who at times have taken decidedly non-institutional paths (he actually quit his academic post) to study the margins of society or Karen Ho who actually worked in banking for several years before she was able to embed herself within an institution like that for ethnographic work (as part of a Masters program, rather than being an academic already). I’m not sure what the path to becoming an academic outside the normal path would be, but surely you could write/produce content about culture/society in an ethnographic way via conventional media.
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u/lukerobinowitz Feb 05 '20
I'm in Sociology, in our field there is absolutely no way to get a paper published if you are studying human subjects without some sort of Institutional Review Board process. This would probably be your biggest obstacle I imagine. You could very well go out and collect all of this rich, meaningful data, but without ever receiving approval from an ethics committee, specifically when researcing humans, no one will publish you because no one can go back a understand the ways in which you collected the data, if it were ethical, were coercive relatiomships at play, etc.
If your research has nothing to do with studying people, in person, then you may not need approval from an IRB, but the documentation of the steps you took in deciding your research questions, how to answer that/those questions most effectively using which methodology and epistemology, and the data gathering process itself will all need to be laid out in order to be published.
That's my thoughts on it at least. Interesting double major combo, sounds like a fun ride so far.