Sweet Potatoes O'Brien: A Comment

Abstract

take. My first suggestion is: There can be a continuation of the two types of research presented in this volume, namely of small groups and of specific cultural patterns that appear to characterize the region as a whole. While acknowledging that these would be sharply limited, I state, would be nonetheless valuable in increasing knowledge about the regional subculture. I then say, However large the society being studied, there is always social interaction in small groups reflecting patterns of the society, and, quoting Frankenberg (1966:149) with approval, state, paradoxically, 'only the most intensive of very limited areas of social life will make the most extensive comparative work possible.' Clearly, I do not say these papers are in any sense inappropriate approaches. On the contrary, I state they are quite appropriate and valuable. After all, I spent more than two years collecting, selecting, editing, and corresponding about them, and I use them in introductory courses each semester with enthusiastic response, a number of students having been inspired to carry out similar research studies. What I suggest next (and this is apparently where the reviewer was misled) is: Another approach is to have teams of anthropologists use entire communities as the object of It is the reviewer, not I, who uses the term better approach. I contend that the approaches are different and that both are valuable, although obviously teams of anthropologists studying entire communities can carry out what I call base-line, time-interval, and theory-testing studies more effectively than can the single participant-observer studying a much more limited cultural system. Incidentally, the reviewer claims I did not define community. definition is there, quoted from Arensberg (1954:120). In his final paragraph, the reviewer raises a controversial issue when he states, The contributing anthropologists were either unable or unwilling to give up their participantobservation methodology. He suggests they might have used other techniques, such as survey research. My contention in the book is that participant-observation is essential for in vivo, holistic resear h, and that it can help anthropology make a needed contribution to the study of complex societies by viewing behavior patterns in context and in relationship to other patterns. Rather than giving up participant-observation, I prefer to see it made more effective in the study of complex societies.