Topic > Ethnographic reflection - 2300

1. Raybeck used most of the techniques on page 71 in Thinking Like an Anthropologist. He established key informants including Yusof and Mat, administered oral surveys to sex workers, collected kinship reports, and mapped the community. He also participated in the night watch (jaga) to learn the layout of the community, get to know his fellow villagers and perform his civic duty. (26, 54-55, 62, 112)2. Raybeck incorporated life stories and case studies as well as the semantic differential, a psycholinguistic tool for quantitatively analyzing the connotations of concepts. Douglas was accompanied by his girlfriend Karen. Occasionally she could get into situations where he couldn't. For example, she was invited to help prepare banquets and eat with the women in the kitchen. Through this network, Karen found that women were willing to talk more openly about their feelings and occasionally listened to village gossip before Douglas. Karen also did most of her shopping at the market and learned to bargain from a chicken seller. (44-47, 94, 99-100, 166, 180, 186-187)3. Raybeck suggests that a middle ground between qualitative and quantitative data collection is the most effective approach. Raybeck's study of the semantic differential was supposed to be scientific. Quantitative approaches, while precise and data-rich, omit information and reduce complex situations to just numbers. Raybeck found that interpretive approaches, while imprecise and difficult to replicate, are broad and rely on context to convey deeper meaning. The way Raybeck reports his findings on the community is humanistic. This allows the reader to get a sense of the empathy and context of the situations Raybeck experiences. (90-100, 195-197)4. Ra...... half of the sheet......126)20. Raybeck did a good job of downplaying ethnocentrism. As he spent more time in Malaysia, he became more and more an accepted member and his ethnocentrism diminished. Raybeck felt more like an insider insofar as he could report on the happenings of the Chinese living in the village as if he were a Kelantanese. Karen demonstrated ethnocentrism when, in accordance with religious and local customs, she agreed to wear a head covering during religious holidays, but refused to walk behind Douglas. The villagers showed ethnocentrism by questioning the couple about their lack of children as the custom in Malaysia was to have many. (49, 51, 186, 201)Source: Raybeck, Douglas. 1996. Mad Dogs, Englishmen and the Wandering Anthropologist. Long Grove, IL: Waveland Press, Inc. Source: Omohundro, John. Think like an anthropologist. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.