Research Interests and Fields

Abstract

Abstract Depending on the problem, various methods can be justified for obtaining data in ethnographic research. Narrower interests can be served using simpler, formal methods, while lesser-known, broader connections can be investigated using a more open and diversified approach. Most ethnographic data are obtained in the field. However, it is proper fieldwork – which involves being immersed in a network of human relations and the communal life of the people being studied over a longer period of time – as opposed to short-term methods of gathering information that provides the opportunity to explore and explain the relationships and contexts of sociocultural phenomena that have yet to be identified. All types of fieldwork require the leavening effect of theoretical considerations, and even intensive fieldwork can and should be combined with data from other sources (e.g., historical or statistical), if possible, in order to enhance the validity of the interpretations. The author demonstrates these opportunities from his own practice: gathering data for the Atlas of Hungarian Folk Culture in a variety of localities; participating in a team undertaking a community study of Varsány, a village in Northern Hungary, which became long-term field research; and carrying out fieldwork in Rititi, a Kikuyu village in Kenya, to investigate coffee production. The analysis takes into account the interests and length of the research, the techniques applied, the position of the researcher in the studied communities, and his relationship with their members, including social distance, both during the fieldwork and through subsequent contact with them.