Fieldwork Methods Research Articles

Educational Profile of the Santals of Dhabaddivillage, Bankura, West Bengal-An Ethnographic Study

An intensive study on prevailing educational system and availing nature of beneficiaries was conducted in the tribal village Dhobaddi of Bankura district, West Bengal, India during November, 2009. The study intends to find out the issues, challenges and impacts associated with the Govt.,Govt. aidedand communal educational institutions in the studied village. Data were collected through household schedule and school investigation. Identical field work method were in use including interviews, observationsand the allied techniques during field-situation. Adult villagers, Students, Parents, Teachers and Panchayet personnel were interviewed. The study, instead of its limitations, finds out some loopholes in the way of implementation of academic schemes (Govt., Govt. aided and communal) in the studied village. The study also indicates reluctant nature of the tribal villagers in availing modern education. Poor maintenance of academic schemes, Poverty, marginality, isolation, traditionalism, lack of knowledge about facilities are the main causes of educational backwardness of the tribal villagers under study. Instead of all the facts educational achievements have produced certain positive outcome to them. Hence care should be taken to make the tribal villagers better facilitated to avail education.

The Use of the PEMS Equipment for the Assessment of Farm Fieldwork Energy Consumption

<abstract> <b><sc>Abstract. </sc></b>This article presents investigations of fuel consumption and CO₂ emission of a farm tractor operating with a cultivator. The cultivator has been designed to operate at greater speeds of up to 15 km/h. During the tests, the tractor operated with different speeds, which influenced the fuel consumption and the time of operation. An increase in the cruising speed resulted in greater fuel consumption and a reduced time of operation. A fuel consumption curve was determined depending on the tractor speed. At the same time, the authors assessed the quality of the cultivation through soil analysis after the cultivation. The fuel consumption was measured with the carbon balance method – the most accurate method available. Such measurements were performed by the Portable Emission Measurement System (PEMS) equipment. The investigations utilizing the PEMS equipment enable measurements of the exhaust emissions under actual operating conditions, during fieldwork. The methodology used in the research is the most accurate and most reliable one currently available. It takes into account all of the variables of actual operation. This method is a state-of-the-art achievement in exhaust emissions measurement and has great potential. It may be successfully used for research related to assessment of energy consumption of farm tractors depending on the analyzed factors, e.g. type of soil, design of tools, and method of fieldwork. The performed tests allowed formulating conclusions related to the influence of the speed of the farm tractor with the cultivator on fuel consumption and emission of CO₂. From the test, it follows that upon reaching a certain operating speed the increment of the fuel consumption is getting smaller while the time efficiency increases. The authors also observed that the above did not have impact on the quality of the cultivation. The presented results of the investigations and their analysis confirm the usefulness of the applied methodology in the assessment of energy consumption of farm tractors and machines during fieldwork operation.

University Museums as Laboratories for Experiential Learning and Engaged Practice

AbstractThis article describes how faculty in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Denver have used collections and exhibitions in the Museum of Anthropology as a pedagogical tool to provide students with experiential and socially engaged learning opportunities and to show how anthropologists use different forms of tangible and intangible culture to investigate and represent topics of anthropological interest. I discuss how the renewal of material and sensory engagement in anthropology as well as anthropologists’ growing interest in the turn in contemporary art practice toward the use of ethnographic fieldwork methods have inspired me to experiment with new pedagogical methods. On the whole, the article highlights not only the things one can do with objects in university museums but also the importance of animating the agency of both objects and exhibitions through experimentation with participatory, multisensory, and dialogical approaches. [museum pedagogy, material culture, public anthropology, social practice art]

Multiculture and Public Parks: Researching Super‐diversity and Attachment in Public Green Space

AbstractSituating itself in encounter and public space debates and borrowing from non‐representational theory approaches, this paper uses data from the authors' 2‐year Economic and Social Research Council research project to consider how local urban parks can work as sites of routine encounter, mixity, and place belonging. The paper explores how parks as green public spaces are important as sites of inclusive openness while the materiality of parks is a key dynamic in affective encounter processes. Parks can work as animators of social interactions, participatory practices, and place affinities across ethnic and cultural difference. The paper concludes that the concept of convivial encounter can be extended to incorporate the concept of elective practices – choosing to be in shared public space can generate connective sensibilities that are not necessarily contingent on exchange. In using parks as a lens to examine localities and diversity, the paper critically reflects on research practices for understanding and describing heterogeneous formations of multiculture and outlines how the project's research design and the fieldwork methods sought to carefully and appropriately undertake research with complexly different places and populations Copyright © 2015 John Wiley &amp; Sons, Ltd.

Archaeological fieldwork techniques in Stone Age sites. Some case studies

Field techniques used in the excavation of archaeological sites are rarely specified in academic publications, under the tacit understanding that fieldwork methods are standardized enough to make their description unnecessary. Although that is probably the case in commercial archaeology, it is however an unwarranted assumption as far as academic archaeology is concern, and neglects the wide range of different field techniques used during archaeological excavations by each research team. In this paper, we outline field methods used by our research group in the excavation of Palaeolithic sites in Spain and East Africa, from the selection of localities for excavation to the digital processing of the resulting spatial and archaeological data. Our aim is to contribute to consolidating a corpus of standard practices in modern research archaeological excavation, whose quality control is essential to guarantee a successful collection of data used for the interpretation of archaeological remains.

What is so new about mixed methods?

In this article, I dispute claims that mixed methods research emerged only recently in the social sciences. I argue that some anthropologists and sociologists (and others) have used mixed methods in fieldwork for at least 80 years, and there are studies from early in the 20th century that clearly fall within the definition of "mixed methods." I explore some of the history of the mixing of qualitative and quantitative data in earlier ethnographic works and show that in some sectors of social science research, the "emergence" and proliferation of mixed methods were particularly notable around the middle of the 20th century. Furthermore, concerning issues about "paradigms of research" in the social sciences, I identify some of the types of research in which the mixing of QUAL and QUAN approaches was more likely to occur. I suggest that some of the literature about research paradigms has involved a certain amount of "myth-making" in connection with descriptions of qualitative and quantitative research assumptions and styles.

The Role of Basic Needs on Villager's Developmental Behavior (Case Study: Sardar Jasngal District in Fuman County)

1. INTRODUCTION Different research findings depict that rural areas of country are underdeveloped in spite of many efforts that have been done concerning rural development. Various scientific ideas have been provided by researchers concerning rural underdevelopment conditions. In one of the approaches concerning country underdevelopment, internal factors have been introduced as original factors responsible for underdevelopment, which have been intensified by international relation system as external factors. Several studies have considered human capital as an important factor in development process and know the weakness of human capital in rural areas effective in underdevelopment. In this case, it must be said that how the weakness of human capital plays a role in the underdevelopment situation. Some groups believe that if human societies are in the condition of explosion due to sever poverty, this condition will generate a healthy society with noble ideas of human excellence. Based on psychological studies, the needs of human beings and the process of providing needs are factors which affect people motivation to keep track of development process. The main aim of this paper is considering the role of Maslow's hierarchy of needs on developmental behavior of rural societies. Hence, this question arises that in what stage the villagers are to access their basic needs and what role the present conditions play in their developmental behavior. Finally, correcting viewpoints will be provided. 2. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK Human hierarchical needs are considerable based on Abraham Maslow model. Including: Physiological needs, need to oxygen, food, water and relatively fix body temperature are the human basic needs, which if not provided, people will die. Safety needs, these needs are including safety, job, income, housing and property. Social needs, such as power, friendship, belonging and empathy in society. Self-esteem needs, including self-confidence and need to self-actualization. It is also the perfect expression of one's creative potential. Man flourishes when reaches this stage which means that he can understand society existing conditions, be realistic, and have neutral judgment and democratic vision. He is creative and innovative and seeks to achieve a persistent identity in the society. The roles of rural dwellers' needs characteristics intheir developmental behavior are considered in this paper based on Maslow hierarchical human needs theory. 3. METHODOLOGY This research is a fundamental-applied research and is based on two methods of library and fieldwork. Research study area is rural area of Sardar Jangal District in Fuman County. Firstly, the villages have been classified to three types of plains, foothills and mountainous. Then, sample villages of each type have been chosen according to the number of each type of villages. Finally, 300 households were selected randomly as sample villages based on Cochran method. A questionnaire including 16 questions has been completed by head of households through interview. Validity of questionnaire has been considered through content validity and reliability of questionnaire has been surveyed through Split half Method. Collected data were analyzed based on descriptive frequency, Man-Whitney (U) test and kruskal-wallis test. 4. DISCUSSION Nonparametric U Test with p value of less than 0.05 depicted that most people, about 74 percent are searching to secure their so-called daily foods; problems such as sustainability of development, self-actualization and self-esteem in their thinking is more fantasy. Nonparametric U Test was conducted concerning the willingness of people to pay for better future of the country and villages, and their willingness for training courses to improve job performance. In both cases (with p value of 0.012 and 0.032 respectively), it is found that low income groups in most cases seek their immediate needs. They do not participate in rural development plans and do not have any incentives to improve their professional capacity. For understanding developmental idea of different income groups concerning tracking goals such as self-esteem, respect and self-actualization, nonparametric test of Kruskal-Wallis was done. The results showed that various income groups have different views so that these problems are the concern of not many of rural population who do not have any difficulty in meeting their basic needs. 5. CONCLUSION In this study Maslow theory concerning the role of hierarchical human needs on their developmental behavior was confirmed and showed that the current behavior of villagers is reasonable in the conditions which has been imposed on them. Development process will not be possible without fulfilling basic needs, including social justice, and people voluntary participation. Therefore, it is necessary to first provide the basic physiological and security needs of rural population. Then, the crowd should be called to pursue sustainable development goals and institutionalize it in the society. In this case, dynamic forces of society will be empowered and forces resistant to developmental trends will be adjusted.

Assessing Handheld Mobile Laser Scanners for Forest Surveys

A handheld mobile laser scanning (HMLS) approach to forest inventory surveying allows virtual reconstructions of forest stands and extraction of key structural parameters from beneath the canopy, significantly reducing survey time when compared against static laser scan and fieldwork methods. A proof of concept test application demonstrated the ability of this technique to successfully extract diameter at breast height (DBH) and stem position compared against a concurrent terrestrial laser scan (TLS) survey. When stems with DBH &gt; 10 cm are examined, an HMLS to TLS modelling success rate of 91% was achieved with the root mean square error (RMSE) of the DBH and stem position being 1.5 cm and 2.1 cm respectively. The HMLS approach gave a survey coverage time per surveyor of 50 m2/min compared with 0.85 m2/min for the TLS instrument and 0.43 m2/min for the field study. This powerful tool has potential applications in forest surveying by providing much larger data sets at reduced operational costs to current survey methods. HMLS provides an efficient, cost effective, versatile forest surveying technique, which can be conducted as easily as walking through a plot, allowing much more detailed, spatially extensive survey data to be collected.

Extreme habitat loss in a Mediterranean habitat: Maytenus senegalensis subsp. europaea

Maytenus senegalensis subsp. europaea communities are unique vegetal formations in Europe. In fact, they are considered Priority Habitat by Directive 92/43/EEC. These are ecologically valuable plant communities found in the southeast of Spain. By combining modeling methods of environmental variables, historical photo-interpretation, and fieldwork, a chronosequence of the evolution of their extent of occurrence (EOO) has been reconstructed in 1957 and 2011. Results showed a strong regression range of M. senegalensis subsp. europaea populations. More than 26,000 ha of EOO for this species have been lost in the province of Almería. Considering the final number of polygons, this area has been fragmented 18 times since the 1950s. These results reinforce the idea that the alteration and fragmentation of habitat due to human activities is one of the most important drivers of biodiversity loss and global change. These activities are mostly intensive greenhouse agriculture and urbanization without sustainable land planning. Knowledge about the distribution of M. senegalensis subsp. europaea is of great interest for future habitat restoration. Therefore, this would be the key species to recover these damaged ecosystems.

Trusting the Bridging Power of Autoethnography

In this essay I explore how autoethnography as a method for fieldwork and for writing has conveyed me to new locales and to new insights that I would not have found without employing it. I also consider how trusting the autoethnographic bridge is not easy and that taking the bridge is not for everyone.

Patenting and the early‐stage high‐technology investor: evidence from the field

We discuss the importance of patenting to the venture capital investor in high‐technology firms. While literature suggests that patenting will have an impact on the nature and level of investment, the investors themselves are keen to suggest otherwise. We investigate this issue by the use of new primary‐source empirical data, gathered by fieldwork methods. Our results help explain a link between the existence of patenting and the level of investment made. We further support our analysis with illuminating quotes from investors currently active in the field.

Evaluating the impact of response enhancement methods on the risk of nonresponse bias and survey costs

The pursuit of high response rates to minimise the threat of nonresponse bias continues to dominate decisions about resource allocation in survey research. Yet a growing body of research has begun to question this practice. In this study, we use previously unavailable data from a new sampling frame based on population registers to assess the value of different methods designed to increase response rates on the European Social Survey in Switzerland. Using sampling data provides information about both respondents and nonrespondents, making it possible to examine how changes in response rates resulting from the use of different fieldwork methods relate to changes in the composition and representativeness of the responding sample. We compute an R-indicator to assess representativity with respect to the sampling register variables, and find little improvement in the sample composition as response rates increase. We then examine the impact of response rate increases on the risk of nonresponse bias based on Maximal Absolute Bias (MAB), and coefficients of variation between subgroup response rates, alongside the associated costs of different types of fieldwork effort. The results show that increases in response rate help to reduce MAB, while only small but important improvements to sample representativity are gained by varying the type of effort. These findings lend further support to research that has called into question the value of extensive investment in procedures aimed at reaching response rate targets and the need for more tailored fieldwork strategies aimed both at reducing survey costs and minimising the risk of bias.

The basic color terms of Mandarin Chinese

In this paper the theory of the evolution of basic color terms introduced by Berlin &amp; Kay is applied to Mandarin Chinese. The data was collected using the fieldwork methods, color list and color-naming tasks. The rainbow order of colors does not affect the list task results. The results, i.e. basic color terms, are calculated according to the procedure in Davies &amp; Corbett. There are nine basic color terms in Mandarin. Ranked according to the cognitive salience criterion they are the following:hóng‘red’,huáng‘yellow’,lu‘green’,lán‘blue’,hēi‘black’,bái‘white’,zǐ‘purple’,fěn‘pink’, andhuī‘gray’. Of the fully developed set of BCTs only the terms for ‘brown’ and ‘orange’ are absent. There are no real gender differences for the BCTs. Mandarin is a Stage VII basic color vocabulary language. The absence of the Stage VI term for ‘brown’ is explained using the wild-card theory. As a result Mandarin is not a counter-example to the theory of basic color terms. We suggest that the termchéng‘orange’ is the next candidate for basic status in Mandarin. There are two competing terms for basic ‘brown’zōngandhè. If one competing term for ‘brown’ (with high probability the termzōng) becomes basic, Mandarin Chinese will have a full set (eleven) of basic color terms.

Exceptional Luck? Conducting Ethnographies in Business Organizations

Anthropological fieldwork methods are increasingly becoming popular with management and business. This paper discusses the experiences of business anthropologists with conducting ethnographies in organizations. Based upon a review of organizational ethnographies and three personal vignettes four issues have been found; access to business organizations, role taking, involvement versus detachment and freedom to publish. To deal with these issues other than traditional anthropological requirements are needed for business anthropologists. It is not so much exceptional luck, but rather a strategic use of one's networks, negotiation skills and social skills to handle these issues. Therefore, business anthropologists need to develop networking and negotiating capacities and commercial sensitiveness to conduct ethnographies in business organizations.

The Intersection of Culture and Science in South African Traditional Medicine

Traditional African medicine often carries with it a perception and stigma of being irrational and ungrounded in scientific method in academia. One reason for this common prejudicial view of traditional African medicine is the failure to effectively interpret African traditional medicine concepts, as these are often metaphorical descriptions of the biological and psychological effects of plants or combinations of them used in the traditional medicine preparations. When translated into other languages such as English, these metaphorical descriptions of medicinal plant use can seem to incorrectly reflect mysticism and/or superstition with no scientific basis. This difficulty in interpreting cultural descriptions of medical phenomena, together with the fact that there are hardly any academic papers engaging the science of South African traditional medicine in the biological sciences, is an indication of the disconnection between the humanities studies and the biomedical studies of South African traditional medicine. This paper investigates some popular examples of spiritual plant use in traditional South African medicine using phytopharmacological studies together with anthropological fieldwork methods, demonstrating the empirical basis for use of some plants in divination (by producing clarity of thought or dreams). The examples also reveal the phytochemical and biomedical foundations of the South Bantu speaking traditional healers’ explanations of why and how various spiritually used plants have medicinal value. The challenge for scientists (such as botanists) is to effectively translate and interpret cultural and language based descriptions of spiritual medicinal plant use made by indigenous peoples while recognizing and discarding cultural prejudices that prevent a more comprehensive and integrated understanding of the science that intersects and forms the basis of many, though not all, cultural healing practices.

The “Green Mile”: crystallization ethnography in an emotive context

Purpose –The purpose of this paper is to discuss emotions within a highly emotive organizational setting through the use of crystallization. The authors contend that the expression of a researcher's positionality as a presence within their research is crucial in contexts where conventional research approaches are unable to capture the depth of the phenomenon under study. The paper argues that the presentation of research findings from highly emotional organizational context will benefit from a challenge to traditional ways of representing and communicating the researcher's experience. As an example of this, in this paper the authors examine the emotions involved in experiencing animal euthanasia in a work context.Design/methodology/approach– The paper draws ethnographic methods of fieldwork in an Australian animal shelter. The paper uses autoethnography and interview data.Findings– Euthanasia is one of the most tolling experiences for animal shelter workers. This paper reveals that through a creative representation this experience may come induce understanding of the emotive context. Furthermore, the employees adapt one or more story-lines to deal with the conflict of euthanasia.Originality/value– The strength of this paper is that it uses a novel approach to present findings in the form of crystallization. It also furthers insight on how organizational members explain their involvement in emotive work-tasks.

Comparison under controlled conditions between multi-frequency ADCPs and LISST-SL for investigating suspended sand in rivers

This paper aims to investigate the possibility and limits of using the laser device LISST-SL to calibrate and validate the multi-frequency acoustic method for assessing the concentration and grain size of suspended sand in rivers by using Acoustic Doppler Current Profilers (ADCPs). Over the last few decades, the methods for investigating suspended sediment using Acoustic Backscattering (ABS) have been gaining increasing acceptance for riverine applications. ABS allows indirect quantification of the suspended sediment using non-intrusive measurements with high temporal and spatial resolution from a moving boat, with a range of several metres. Despite the advancement of these techniques, the use of ABS usually implies calibration and validation in the field, which can be performed by comparing echo recording by ADCP to data from water samples. Sampling and analysis of water samples noticeably increase the campaign cost and limits the reliability of the calibration because of the time and spatial averaging involved in physical sampling. In the present work, the LISST-SL suited to river applications was tested to provide matching data in one point for the validation of ADCP methods in future field work. To this end, laboratory tests were conducted utilising two ADCPs working at 1200 and 600kHz frequencies and studying the same water volume that was concurrently being analysed by the laser device. Rapid injections of sand (median grain size: 130–250μm) produced average concentrations of 100–1000mg/L in a 0.25-m/s-fast and 1.7-m-deep flow. Echo records at the two frequencies were compared to the mean grain size and concentration measured via laser diffraction. Although noticeable differences between the acoustic and laser assessments of concentration were due to (1) inappropriate sampling of LISST-SL at low flow velocity and (2) investigation scarce resolution with respect to actual gradients, the corresponding mean sizes were well correlated.

Tracing Post-Dvaravati Culture from Space: Applying Remote Sensing Technique in West-Central Thailand

This article presents the results of recent research on the historical period of west-central Thailand between the eleventh and thirteenth centuries. At this time Dvaravati was in a stage of decline while the prominent rivals of Pagan and Angkor began to prosper. The construction of stone sanctuaries in the Bayon style in west-central Thailand has caused serious debate regarding the influence of Jayavarman VII over that part of Thailand. However, the main point of the present study is that the successors of Dvaravati can be considered to have played a significant part in the socio-economy of that period. This research explores the landscape of the study region using remote sensing techniques as well as carrying out conventional methods of fieldwork. New discoveries and current evidence are discussed, along with some issues concerning the archaeology of the post-Dvaravati, pre-Sukhothai transitional period (c . a.d. 1100–1300). West-central Thailand is believed to have been an economically desirable land with rich resources throughout its history. It is hoped that this work will contribute to the understanding of the social changes after the Dvaravati period when the economic power shifted to other parts of Mainland Southeast Asia.

Spending some time in the field. Fieldwork in the Portugese Geological Survey during the twentieth century

The practice and methods of geological fieldwork in the Portuguese Geological Survey evolved during the middle part of the twentieth century. Between the 1920s and the 1940s, the Survey's field assistants played a key role in conducting geological fieldwork; special attention will be given to their training. In 1940, Georges Zbyzsewski (1909-1999) was hired as a geologist by the Survey and he was responsible for conducting the majority of fieldwork. Scientific collaborators from outside the Survey also began to play a key role in the institution. From the 1950s onwards, several new specialities were hired by the Survey, especially geologists and field assistants. The pace of geological fieldwork recorded an unprecedented increase. The characteristics of the teams that carried out this task in the Survey were instrumental in this achievement.

O sentido social do arranjo e ambiência em Amanã

This article studies the elements and conditions that assign an architectural space the status of a home. The research subjects - residents of the Boa Esperança community in the Amanã Sustainable Development Reserve, Amazonas (AM) - broadened my architectural perspective. My field work methods consisted of interviews and observations during my stay in the community. My findings suggest that the social sense of the arrangement of objects facilitates the interaction between residents and non-residents of a single home. The ambience elements support the arrangement and enable the required mobility and stability. However, what makes a house a home for those who live in it is a sense of being part of the Amanã Lake area. “My house is within here” summarizes the feeling of belonging to this region, which is the element that allows an architectural space to acquire the status of a home.