ANTH1000 Self, Culture & Society Lecture 6 Making knowledge: Ethnography in theory & practice Dr Joni Lariat Faculty of Humanities | School of Media, Creative Arts, and Social Inquiry CRICOS Provider Code 00301J WARNING This material has been reproduced and communicated to you by or on behalf of Curtin University in accordance with section 113P of the Copyright Act 1968 (the Act) The material in this communication may be subject to copyright under the Act. Any further reproduction or communication of this material by you may be the subject of copyright protection under the Act. Do not remove this notice. Faculty of Humanities | School of Media, Creative Arts, and Social Inquiry CRICOS Provider Code 00301J Fig 1: Gnarla Boodja Mili Mili (‘Our Country on Paper’) https://gnarlaboodjamap.dlgsc.wa.gov.au/#/welcome I respectfully acknowledge the Wadjuk people of the Nyungar nation as the custodians of the land upon which this class meets and I pay my respects to Elders, past and present. Sovereignty was never ceded; neither here nor anywhere else across this vast continent. This land was stolen and remains so. This always was and always will be Aboriginal land. Last week: vThe role of language in reproducing, maintaining and changing social relationships vThe relationship between language and society is dialogical vTheoretical understandings of the relationship between language and power. vDefined key terms: Ideology, cultural hegemony, discourse. Faculty of Humanities | School of Media, Creative Arts, and Social Inquiry CRICOS Provider Code 00301J This week: v Theory and practice of ethnography – what do ethnographers do and why? v Ethnography as a sensibility; a way of looking and being in the world v Brief look at how ethnography has changed over time v Ethnographic writing as ’thick description’ Faculty of Humanities | School of Media, Creative Arts, and Social Inquiry CRICOS Provider Code 00301J What is ethnography? v Ethnography is a qualitative methodology used by many social scientists to collect evidence and insight about social phenomena v It refers both to the practice of fieldwork and to the written account produced from fieldwork v Ethnography’s vibrant changeability; adaptability; and responsiveness to social life – to the world – is its most exciting quality. Faculty of Humanities | School of Media, Creative Arts, and Social Inquiry Ethnos: culture / people Grapho: to write “… if anthropology is the study of how people collectively organize, understand, and live in the world, then ethnography is the means through which social and cultural anthropologists accomplish this study” (McGranahan 2018, 1, emphasis added) CRICOS Provider Code 00301J Ethnography is about “… getting to the feel, and not just to the structure or organization of life” … “it is not static or fixed; instead, it is personal, transformational, contingent, and responsive to actually existing and often shifting conditions. It is an open-minded, open-ended collection and celebration of the excess and messiness of human life” (McGranahan 2014, 24, emphasis added) Faculty of Humanities | School of Media, Creative Arts, and Social Inquiry CRICOS Provider Code 00301J Theory and practice vEthnography is an exploratory method vWe do not start with a hypothesis that we are seeking to confirm or disprove; the field guides our research questions and the direction our research takes vEthnography prioritises practice over theory, meaning that our understandings of the world come out of our engagement with the world vWe do not try to fit the social world into pre-existing theories vTheory is generated in the field – we don’t impose theory on the field. Faculty of Humanities | School of Media, Creative Arts, and Social Inquiry CRICOS Provider Code 00301J Theory and practice vWe try to understand the social world from the inside out, rather than than outside in. vThis approach makes us challenge what we think we know about the world – we enter ‘the field’ because we want to understand it, not to prove our assumptions correct vThis is a very different relationship to other disciplines that test their hypothesis against the world – they work from outside in. Faculty of Humanities | School of Media, Creative Arts, and Social Inquiry CRICOS Provider Code 00301J What do ethnographers actually do? v Fieldwork! v Building relationships: rapport, trust, confidence v Ethnographers incorporate a range of methods, depending on the context. v Participant-observation: living, being, & doing alongside those we are seeking to understand. Making the strange familiar by everyday sustained and in-depth engagement with the flows and rhythms of daily life v Interviews: often semi structured, open ended. Often ethnographic-style interviews are guided by the participant (whether the ethnographer intended it or not!) v The key is to allow the research context – the ‘field’ – to guide the appropriate use of methods. What works in one setting might not be appropriate (practically or culturally) in another. Faculty of Humanities | School of Media, Creative Arts, and Social Inquiry CRICOS Provider Code 00301J From ethnology to ethnography: Developments in early anthropology An anthropologist’s task is to attempt to: “grasp the native’s point of view, his relation to life, to realize his vision of his world … … to study the institutions, customs, and codes or to study the behaviour and mentality without [also considering] the subjective desire of feeling by which these people live, of realizing the substance of their happiness, in my opinion, is to miss the greatest reward which we can hope to obtain from the study of man” (Malinowski 1922, in Atkinson and Hammersley 2007) Malinowski in the Trobriand Islands, 1918 Faculty of Humanities | School of Media, Creative Arts, and Social Inquiry CRICOS Provider Code 00301J From objective stance to subjective engagement v Early anthropology followed a very positivist tradition, seeing the role of the researcher as excavating an objective truth about the society in question and presenting that truth as fact. v There was little or no question about the influence of the researcher’s subject position, either on how research subjects told their stories or on how they were heard by the researcher. v No recognition of the bias inherent in the approach the researcher took to study society v Seeing participants as individuals, with their own complex life worlds v Assumptions based upon Western understandings of self & society informed the interpretation Faculty of Humanities | School of Media, Creative Arts, and Social Inquiry CRICOS Provider Code 00301J ‘Thick description’ and writing ethnography v Human beings are “suspended in webs of significance they themselves have spun” (Geertz 1973) v Interpretive anthropology was developed, in large part, by Clifford Geertz in the 1970s. v It was his response to the deficiencies he saw in the dominant paradigm informing anthropology at the time (positivism), which promoted the ideal of a detached, objective ethnographic stance and a single, stable truth that could be extracted and re-presented by the ethnographer. “The Trobriand Islander, thinks…” v Geertz proposed we approach the task of interpretation through a writing strategy called ’thick description’ (making knowledge through the act of writing) Faculty of Humanities | School of Media, Creative Arts, and Social Inquiry CRICOS Provider Code 00301J ‘Thick description’ and writing ethnography v Thick description is a method of writing that describes the behavior we are seeking to understand in the contexts that give meaning to the behavior. v Thick description allows the anthropologist to interpret culture by understanding how the people within that culture interpret their own experiences. v Geertz grapples with the question of how we make the micro details of social life speak to the big questions of human experience and social organisation v At the heart of thick description (and ethnography in general) is the realisation that the knowledge we create is always incomplete, partial, and subjectively constructed – we cannot translate culture entirely, we can only produce a representation of what we can understand from our short time engaging with others Faculty of Humanities | School of Media, Creative Arts, and Social Inquiry CRICOS Provider Code 00301J Geertz’ view of what it means to ‘do’ ethnography From one point of view, that of the textbook, doing ethnography is establishing rapport, selecting informants, transcribing texts, taking genealogies, mapping fields, keeping a diary, and so on. But it is not these things, techniques, and received procedures that define the enterprise. What defines it is the kind of intellectual effort it is: an elaborate venture in … “thick description” (Geertz 1973, emphasis added). Faculty of Humanities | School of Media, Creative Arts, and Social Inquiry CRICOS Provider Code 00301J Next time … v Autoethnography v Digital ethnography v Feminist and postcolonial critiques of traditional ethnography Faculty of Humanities | School of Media, Creative Arts, and Social Inquiry CRICOS Provider Code 00301J References Amit, Vered. 2000. Constructing the field: Ethnographic fieldwork in the contemporary world. London & New York: Routledge Atkinson, Paul, Amanda Coffey, Sara Delamont, John Lofland and Lyn Lofland. 2001. Handbook of ethnography. London: Sage Publishing Falzon, Mark A. 2012. Multi-sited ethnography: Theory, praxis and locality in contemporary research. Farnham: Ashgate Publishing Hammersley, Martyn and Paul Atkinson. 2007. Ethnography: Principles and practice, 3rd ed. London & New York: Routledge McGranahan, Carole. 2014. “What is ethnography? Ethnographic sensibilities without fieldwork.” Teaching Anthropology, 4(1): 23-36 _____________________ . 2018. “Ethnography beyond method: The importance of an ethnographic sensibility.” Site: A Journal of Social Anthropology & Cultural Studies, 15(1): 1-10. http://dx.doi.org/10.11157/sites-id373 Faculty of Humanities | School of Media, Creative Arts, and Social Inquiry CRICOS Provider Code 00301J Week 6: Readings and activities Read the first 10 pages of the introductory chapters from the following 2 ethnographies: Engbretsen, Elisabeth. 2013. “Queer women in urban China: An Introduction.” In, Queer women in urban China: An ethnography. Chapter 1, pp. 1-10. New York: Routledge Kondo, Dorinne. 1990. “The eye/I.” In, Crafting selves: Power, gender, and discourses of identity in a Japanese workplace. Chapter 1, pp. 3-13. Chicago: University of Chicago Press Read this short piece by Carole McGranahan: McGranahan, Carole. 2018. “Ethnography beyond method: The importance of an ethnographic sensibility.” Sites: A Journal of Social Anthropology and Cultural Studies, 15(1): 1-10. http://dx.doi.org/10.11157/sites-id373 Faculty of Humanities | School of Media, Creative Arts, and Social Inquiry CRICOS Provider Code 00301J Group discussion of the readings (on DB or in Collaborate) • How do Engbretsen and Kondo draw us into the worlds they are describing? • How do they discuss their relationship to the communities they are studying? • Can you point to where they each connect micro level observations to a bigger picture about how each society is structured? • Do you find their style of writing enticing? Why? Faculty of Humanities | School of Media, Creative Arts, and Social Inquiry CRICOS Provider Code 00301J Doing ethnographic observation In groups of 3 or 4, head outside and do an observation (30 minutes) Choose a busy area. You will need to decide, how you will position yourself in the space, will you blend into the action, or separate yourself somehow? How will you record your observations? Will you write notes? Will you take an open exploratory approach, or will you focus your attention on a key aspect of social interaction that interests you? Spend 5 minutes planning your approach in your group before heading out. Faculty of Humanities | School of Media, Creative Arts, and Social Inquiry CRICOS Provider Code 00301J ANTH1000 Self, Culture & Society Lecture 9 Ethics, Representation, and Reflexivity Dr Joni Lariat Faculty of Humanities | School of Media, Creative Arts, and Social Inquiry CRICOS Provider Code 00301J WARNING This material has been reproduced and communicated to you by or on behalf of Curtin University in accordance with section 113P of the Copyright Act 1968 (the Act) The material in this communication may be subject to copyright under the Act. Any further reproduction or communication of this material by you may be the subject of copyright protection under the Act. Do not remove this notice. Faculty of Humanities | School of Media, Creative Arts, and Social Inquiry CRICOS Provider Code 00301J We respectfully acknowledge the Wadjuk people of the Nyungar nation as the custodians of the land upon which this class meets and we pay our respects to Elders, past and present. Sovereignty was never ceded; neither here nor anywhere else across this vast continent. This land was stolen and remains so. Fig 1: Gnarla Boodja Mili Mili (‘Our Country on Paper’) https://gnarlaboodjamap.dlgsc.wa.gov.au/#/welcome Faculty of Humanities | School of Media, Creative Arts, and Social Inquiry This always was and always will be Aboriginal land. Last week: § Introduced some of the historical and political conditions that underly anthropological representations § Looked at the development of anthropology and its historical association with colonialism and practices of domination § We looked at the reflexive turn and the feminist and postcolonial critiques that acted as a catalyst for this moment in anthropology § We discussed some of the methods, including autoethnography, that have emerged as strategies for enacting a reflexive approach to representational issues Faculty of Humanities | School of Media, Creative Arts, and Social Inquiry CRICOS Provider Code 00301J This week: § Unpack what we mean by ethics and why it is important § Look at the principles set out in the National Statement guiding ethical practice § Look at some examples from my fieldwork that demonstrate the complexity of ethical practice in the messy realities of ethnographic fieldwork on culturally sensitive topics § Introduce Public Anthropology (also known as, Applied, Engaged, and Activist Anthropology) and Collaborative Anthropology In the tutorials we will explore these ideas further through the work of Nancy ScheperHughes and her concepts ‘barefoot’ or ‘militant’ anthropology Faculty of Humanities | School of Media, Creative Arts, and Social Inquiry CRICOS Provider Code 00301J What is ethics (and why is it important)? § In its most basic sense, ethical research is the dedicated pursuit of practices of social engagement and representation that does not cause harm or discomfort § Ethics is not simply a bureaucratic process that you must complete before you can do your research § Ethics is ongoing: it is relevant to every part of the research, including the writing and dissemination of findings § Ethical practice means constantly and reflexively thinking through the implications of your research. It prioritises the people and places that you are ultimately representing in your research over the outcomes of the research. It involves the willingness to be guided by the community and to adjust your research in response to your developing understandings. § Ethics should be considered fundamental to all social research; if understood in this way, ethics can be productive of the very design of the research methodology and can influence the unique directions it takes. Faculty of Humanities | School of Media, Creative Arts, and Social Inquiry CRICOS Provider Code 00301J The National Statement on Ethical Conduct in Human Research Originally developed to oversee bio-medical research practices, to ensure that medical research that involved human and animal testing was bound by a set of guiding principles governing good practice Designed to prompt the researcher to consider the implications of their research. They are tools that we can use to better design our research. Additional guidelines include: Ethical Conduct in Research with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples and Communities. https://www.nhmrc.gov.au/about-us/resources/ethical-conduct-research-aboriginal-and-torres-strait-islander-peoples-andcommunities Australian Code for the Responsible Conduct of Research 2018 https://www.nhmrc.gov.au/about-us/publications/australian-code-responsible-conduct-research-2018 Faculty of Humanities | School of Media, Creative Arts, and Social Inquiry https://www.nhmrc.gov.au/aboutus/publications/nationalstatement-ethical-conduct-humanresearch-2007-updated-2018 CRICOS Provider Code 00301J Using the National Statement The questions the NS (and the process of developing your ethics application) should provoke: § What might be the unintended consequences of my research? § Are there power imbalances between researcher and participant? How can I design my research so that these imbalances are recognised and the research process (including findings and representation) negotiated? § Are the research methods suitable to the people I hope to engage? § What process can I use to check that what I have understood is what was intended? § How can I ensure that the community is involved in the research design and how the outcomes of the research are represented? § Will my research benefit the community or individuals I have engaged? Faculty of Humanities | School of Media, Creative Arts, and Social Inquiry CRICOS Provider Code 00301J ‘Do no harm’ § All researchers are bound by the ethical responsibility of ensuring that their research does not do harm to participants and their communities. § Harm can span a range of areas, from physical, to economic, to social, to psychological harm. § As ethnographers, we must also think about the broader social and cultural contexts. How might our research impact those directly involved in the research? How might it affect their family and community? Faculty of Humanities | School of Media, Creative Arts, and Social Inquiry CRICOS Provider Code 00301J ‘Informed consent’ § The participant is given ample information about the project and its intended outcomes prior to giving consent to participate in the research. § The participant is made aware of their right to withdraw from the research at any time § The participant voluntarily gives their consent free of duress, coercion and constraint § In this process, the researcher should reflect on any power imbalances in the relationship they share with the participant § Consent may need to be revisited and renegotiated/confirmed – esp. in longer projects or where changes occur (to the project or to the surrounding social contexts) Faculty of Humanities | School of Media, Creative Arts, and Social Inquiry CRICOS Provider Code 00301J Ethics and ethnography § Anthropology is about relationships, often cross-cultural relationships. § As ethnographers we must balance the idea of ‘cultural relativism’ with our own sense of responsibility to the people we study alongside § Relationships change over time. Places change over time. The research changes over time. How do we balance responsibilities to different parts of the community? When does research begin and end? § Covert and overt research exists on a continuum (we don’t tell everyone everything about our research intentions; sometimes we don’t know exactly what our research is about until later in the process) § Our representations can last for a long time. Long beyond the current contexts (within which consent was granted). How do we renegotiate consent? What if a participant withdraws consent, just as you are about to publish? Faculty of Humanities | School of Media, Creative Arts, and Social Inquiry CRICOS Provider Code 00301J When ethics isn’t so clear cut: Two dilemmas from my fieldwork in Aceh Fig. 1: Young women relaxing on repurposed colonial-era cannons, Sabang Fair, 2015, digital photo taken by Joni Lariat (author) Faculty of Humanities | School of Media, Creative Arts, and Social Inquiry CRICOS Provider Code 00301J 'Mr. Joni’ and the case of failed introductions To conduct research in Indonesia as a foreign researcher, I had to comply with 2 official ethics boards: Curtin University’s Human Research Ethics Committee and RISTEK (the Indonesian Government’s Research Ethics Committee). RISTEK requires foreign researchers to have a ‘sponsor’ (an academic working in an Indonesian university willing to vouch for the project). The sponsor is also responsible for facilitating introduction to the community where the intended research will take place. This relationship failed to eventuate! (for very strange and humorous reasons)… As a result, I had to navigate my own way into the community using only my informal connections. This radically altered the direction of my research. Only later did I realise how fortunate I was to have avoided the ‘official’ channels of introduction. My failed relationship with my sponsor allowed me to understand a deeper politics between island and mainland in the context of contemporary Acehnese religious politics – from the perspectives of those who did not occupy positions of authority. It also allowed my research to develop in an organic way, through my existing relationships with young Acehnese women. Faculty of Humanities | School of Media, Creative Arts, and Social Inquiry CRICOS Provider Code 00301J Aceh continued … Balancing conflicting responsibilities Fieldwork doesn’t take place in a static cultural and political environment: things are always changing and not always in a linear or predictable fashion. During my fieldwork (spanning 5 years), rapid upheaval swept through Aceh. Syariah (Islamic) law was formally legislated in 2014/15, one year after I began fieldwork. Under this law, homosexual sexual acts were forbidden. The maximum penalty – 100 lashes with the cane in public. Intra-community and state-run surveillance also intensified during this period – things changed quickly and dramatically. Young unmarried women became a target of suspicion and accusation. They shared their experiences with me. Early on I felt an obligation to represent the community in an affirmative and positive light. As my friendships with young women and LGBT Acehnese people deepened over time, my project shifted direction. So too did my ethical responsibilities. It was difficult to represent the stories of my confidantes whilst maintaining anonymity (it is a very small community). I had to balance their desire to be known as staunch feminist activists with my ethical responsibility to think about the impact my research might have in the future. Faculty of Humanities | School of Media, Creative Arts, and Social Inquiry CRICOS Provider Code 00301J Public anthropology (applied anthropology, engaged anthropology) § Public anthropology is anthropology that is “… attentive to pressing public issues and written in a language accessible to an educated general public, and by a turn toward a politically engaged ‘activist anthropology’” (Rappaport 2008, 1). § Public anthropology is concerned with the question of how to “make a difference beyond the discipline and the academy” (Peacock 1997). § Where our research and knowledge making is informed by an ethical commitment to effect social change, influence policy, and to shape human rights discourse and activism. § The project of public anthropology “… affirms our responsibility, as scholars and citizens, to meaningfully contribute to communities beyond the academy—both local and global—that make the study of anthropology possible” (Borofsky 2002). Faculty of Humanities | School of Media, Creative Arts, and Social Inquiry CRICOS Provider Code 00301J Collaborative ethnography Collaborative ethnography refers to research methodologies that centre collaboration between and among researchers and local communities. Collaborative ethnography has been defined as an approach to ethnography that “… deliberately and explicitly emphasizes collaboration at every point in the ethnographic process, without veiling it—from project conceptualization, to fieldwork, and, especially, through the writing process. Collaborative ethnography invites commentary from our consultants and seeks to make that commentary overtly part of the ethnographic text as it develops. In turn, this negotiation is reintegrated back into the fieldwork process itself (Lassiter 2005, 16, my emphasis). Faculty of Humanities | School of Media, Creative Arts, and Social Inquiry CRICOS Provider Code 00301J References Borofsky, Robert. 2002. “Public anthropology.” Anthropology News, 40(1): 6-7 Caplan, Pat. 2004. The ethics of anthropology: Debates and dilemmas. London and New York: Routledge Hammersley, Martyn and Paul Atkinson. 2007. Ethnography: Principles and practice, 3rd ed. London and New York: Routledge Lassiter, Luke E. 2005. “Collaborative ethnography and public anthropology.” Current Anthropology, 46(1), 83-106. _____________ 2008. “Moving past a public anthropology and doing collaborative research.” NAPA Bulletin, 29(1), 70-86. DOI: 10.1111/j.1556-4797.2008.00006.x Peacock, James L. 1997. “The future of anthropology.” American Anthropologist, 99(1): 9-17 Rappaport, Joanne. 2008. “Beyond participant observation: Collaborative ethnography as theoretical innovation.” Collaborative Anthropologies, 1(1): 1-31 Faculty of Humanities | School of Media, Creative Arts, and Social Inquiry CRICOS Provider Code 00301J Topic 9: Ethics, Representation, and Reflexivity Tutorial Activities Faculty of Humanities | School of Media, Creative Arts, and Social Inquiry CRICOS Provider Code 00301J Engaging Nancy Scheper-Hughes’ ‘barefoot’ or ‘militant anthropology’ Scheper-Hughes, Nancy. 1995. “The primacy of the ethical: Propositions for a militant anthropology.” Current Anthropology, 36(3): 409-440 What do you think of the case she mounts for a militant anthropology? Bresnahan: How can you see the practice of reflexivity playing out in Bresnahan’s account of her research? What do you think of the idea that subjectivity, emotion, vulnerability, and an insider position can be an asset to the research, rather than a hindrance? Faculty of Humanities | School of Media, Creative Arts, and Social Inquiry CRICOS Provider Code 00301J Considering ethical dilemmas in social sciences research For this activity, we have some case studies that describe ethical dilemmas to consider. Each group will focus on 1 case study. As a group, work to identify the ethical issue and the possible ways in which the researcher could navigate the dilemma. When we come back together as a large group, a representative from each will need to summarise the ethical dilemma, outline the key issues and the options your group identified. Then, present your group’s perspective of what the researcher ought to do, outlining why you see this route as the ethical way forward. Faculty of Humanities | School of Media, Creative Arts, and Social Inquiry CRICOS Provider Code 00301J ANTH1000 SELF, CULTURE AND SOCIETY Foundations of Social Organisation TO PIC 2 Faculty of Humanities | School of Media, Creative Arts, and Social Inquiry CRICOS Provider Code 00301J Faculty of Humanities | School of Media, Creative Arts, and Social Inquiry CRICOS Provider Code 00301J I respectfully acknowledge the Wadjuk people of the Nyungar nation as the custodians of the land upon which this class meets and I pay my respects to Elders, past and present. Sovereignty was never ceded; neither here on Nyungar Boodja nor anywhere else across this vast continent. This land was stolen and remains so. This always was and always will be Aboriginal land. Our teaching in Anthropology and Sociology at Curtin University is informed by principles that reflect an aspiration for contributing to positive social change alongside Indigenous Australians through higher education and research. Image description: An old colonial map of Perth with feint markings of the CBD and wetlands. Overlaid and in a bold font are significant places in Nyungar language. The Derbarl Yerrigan (Swan River) winds through the image, from left to right. Fig 1: Gnarla Boodja Mili Mili (‘Our Country on Paper’) https://gnarlaboodjamap.dlgsc.wa.gov.au/#/welcome Faculty of Humanities | School of Media, Creative Arts, and Social Inquiry CRICOS Provider Code 00301J This week’s lecture … Define the 3 main paradigms of traditional sociology Outline contemporary sociology’s core concepts Faculty of Humanities | School of Media, Creative Arts, and Social Inquiry Explore the critical perspectives of 2 important feminist sociologists CRICOS Provider Code 00301J How can we study society? Paradigm: A person’s worldview. These beliefs and assumptions are shared by members of a research community. They determine how a researcher within that community will view the phenomena they are studying and the methods that they will use. Our assumptions and beliefs influence what we understand the correct questions to be, and how we should then study them Faculty of Humanities | School of Media, Creative Arts, and Social Inquiry Broader hegemonic (dominant) culture Sociology and Anthropology Image description: A series of eyewear with different coloured lenses CRICOS Provider Code 00301J A micro or macro view? Does structure or agency define society?? Image description: Two images juxtaposed. The first shows a group of people waiting at a cross walk at the side of a road. The image shows up-close details of the individuals. The second image is shot from above an intersection. People can be seen crossing, but the details of each individual cannot be seen. Faculty of Humanities | School of Media, Creative Arts, and Social Inquiry CRICOS Provider Code 00301J August Comte (1798–1857) The birth of sociology First the term ‘Sociology’ Comte believed that we can use the methods of the natural sciences to objectively study society. He aimed to discover social laws (just like we might find ‘laws’ in the natural sciences) that are true across time and space. Social laws: Social statics (order) + social dynamics (progress) Comte did not see social laws (institutions like religion or education) as problematic Faculty of Humanities | School of Media, Creative Arts, and Social Inquiry CRICOS Provider Code 00301J Emile Durkheim (1855–1917) Influenced the functionalist sociological paradigm Society can be understood as an organism of various parts geared towards the overall functioning of society. Social facts are the patterned ways of acting, thinking, and feeling that exist outside the individual (in society) that exert social control over the individual. Social facts include, for example, the economy or religion. Durkheim was concerned with how order is maintained and wanted to understand this overall consistency and functioning of society. Faculty of Humanities | School of Media, Creative Arts, and Social Inquiry CRICOS Provider Code 00301J Karl Marx (1818– 1883) Influenced the development of conflict theory in Sociology Stark contrast with functionalism Sees society as organised around the competition and conflict over scarce resources That society is defined by class struggle, between the upper class who control the means of production and the working class who must sell their labour. This relationship infers that social change is inevitable. Sociologists who follow the Marxist theoretical paradigm primarily want to understand how wealth and power are distributed And to identify which groups benefit from certain policies Conflict theories include: Gender Theory, Class Theory and Race Theory Faculty of Humanities | School of Media, Creative Arts, and Social Inquiry CRICOS Provider Code 00301J Max Weber (1864–1920) Agreed with Marx about the relationship between conflict and social change but also believed that other factors (like values and ideas) accompanied economic and material conditions in creating change. By comparing cultures and different religions, Weber argued that the western drive towards capitalism was influenced by certain western values and ideas. He argued, therefore, that cultural ideas and values shape society and affect individual actions. Faculty of Humanities | School of Media, Creative Arts, and Social Inquiry CRICOS Provider Code 00301J George Herbert Mead (1863–1931) Influenced Herbert Blumer and the Chicago School of Sociology Ideas formed the basis of Symbolic Interactionism Mead focused his attention on micro social relations The self is active, not passive Human beings have both agency (capacity for conscious decision making) and a sense of the obligations that they perceive they have. Society is produced through the everyday social interactions of individuals. Faculty of Humanities | School of Media, Creative Arts, and Social Inquiry CRICOS Provider Code 00301J Symbolic Interactionism Blumer’s 3 main tenets of Symbolic Interactionism: Ø We know things by their meanings Ø Meaning is created through social interaction Ø Meanings change through social interaction There is no underlying truth or reality that can be studied. Meaning is subjective and socially produced. To understand social life, we must study what motivates people, the meanings they attribute to their actions and experiences, and we must try to see the world from their perspective. Faculty of Humanities | School of Media, Creative Arts, and Social Inquiry CRICOS Provider Code 00301J Sociological Perspective Scale of Study Summary of ideas about society Summary of ideas about humans Types of questions Criticisms Structural Functionalism (Functionalism) Macro Society is like an organism. It is made up of different parts that work together to ensure the overall society functioning. Human behaviour is predictable, and they are motivated by values What keeps society functioning smoothly? Doesn’t care much for understanding society when it isn’t functioning, or it sees ‘dysfunction’ as a necessary part of the overall functioning of society. Comte, Durkheim How does each part of society relate to one another? Keeps power structures in place by not challenging negative aspects of social structure. Conflict Theory (Class Theory, Gender Theory, Race Theory) Macro Marx, Weber Symbolic Interactionism Micro Society is made up of different groups who are continually struggling over limited resources. Change is fundamental to society because of this dynamic. Human behaviour is predictable, and they are motivated by interests How is wealth distributed? Society is a product of social interactions between individuals. Human behavior is creative, and they are How do people create society through their social interactions? Doesn’t focus on the motivations or lived experiences of individuals How is wealth and power maintained? How are social inequalities reproduced? Doesn’t take into account the larger social structures that Provider Code 00301J influence socialCRICOS interaction Key concepts in contemporary sociology Faculty of Humanities | School of Media, Creative Arts, and Social Inquiry CRICOS Provider Code 00301J Social constructionism • The social world is not natural, determined by biology, or ordained by god. • People continuously create, through their actions and interactions, a shared reality that is experienced as objectively factual and subjectively meaningful. • Everyday reality is a socially constructed system – people bestow a certain order on everyday phenomena that is then repeated through social interaction. • This repetition creates norms and values – that are then reiterated through our social interactions with others. • E.g.: Gender is socially constructed (it is not determined by biology but is rather produced through social relations). It is an idea (infused with power) that is accepted as normal and inevitable, and it has very real material implications for how individuals can participate in and impact society. • Social constructionism allows us to explore issues of power and ideology in how things like identity, social norms, cultural values are reproduced and contested Faculty of Humanities | School of Media, Creative Arts, and Social Inquiry Image description: A meme showing Batman and Robin embroiled in a fight. Robin says “but human nature”. Batman, striking Robin exclaims “Social construct!” CRICOS Provider Code 00301J Culture • Used interchangeably with ‘society’ and ‘social’, but always marks a distinction between psychological or biological explanations for social phenomena • Can be understood on various levels, from local, national, to global • Encompasses the shared beliefs, morals, norms, values, ideas, and practices of a society • Constantly changing – negotiated, contested • Culture is everywhere – we all have culture Faculty of Humanities | School of Media, Creative Arts, and Social Inquiry CRICOS Provider Code 00301J Socialisation • We are born into a pre-existing system of meaning • Our characteristics are not intrinsic/essential to us (they are not biologically determined, i.e., a person’s biological sex does not make them ‘naturally’ submissive or dominant) • We acquire our character through learning – through our interaction with the social and cultural worlds into which we are born Faculty of Humanities | School of Media, Creative Arts, and Social Inquiry Values – what people strive for, shared beliefs about what is important and of value Norms – the translation of values into rules governing how people should behave. These are not always codified into laws – they are often taken-forgranted ‘ways of being’ that become entrenched through repetition. Non-adherence to norms can either be explicitly or subtly punished. CRICOS Provider Code 00301J Self and selves Identity is never singular – our sense of who we are is composed of multiple selves, performed situationally in response to our perceptions of social conventions It is important to remember that the understanding of the self is culturally produced; a Western perspective is only 1 way of understanding the self How much of our lives are determined by external forces/structures? To what extent do human beings act upon their environment? Social constraints differ between individuals, dependent upon social location Agency Faculty of Humanities | School of Media, Creative Arts, and Social Inquiry CRICOS Provider Code 00301J Feminist sociology Ann Oakley’s (1982) 3 explanations for the sexism in sociology: • Sociology has been biased from its origin; • Sociology is predominantly a male profession; and, • The ‘ideology of gender’ results in the world being constructed in particular ways and in assumptions being made about how we explain differences between men and women. (in Abbott & Wallace 1997, 7) Faculty of Humanities | School of Media, Creative Arts, and Social Inquiry CRICOS Provider Code 00301J Dorothy Smith’s Feminist Standpoint Theory: A sociology for women, not about women From different standpoints different aspects of the ruling apparatus and of class come into view Faculty of Humanities | School of Media, Creative Arts, and Social Inquiry Women have been largely excluded from the work of producing the forms of thought and the images and symbols in which thought is expressed and ordered … We can imagine women’s exclusion organized by the formation of a circle of men among men who attend to and treat as significant only what men say. (Smith 1987, 18) CRICOS Provider Code 00301J Patricia Hill Collins and an intersectional approach Intersectionality is a way of understanding and analyzing the complexity in the world, in people, and in human experiences. The events and conditions of social and political life and the self can seldom be understood as shaped by one factor. They are generally shaped by many factors in diverse and mutually influencing ways. When it comes to social inequality, people’s lives and the organization of power in a given society are better understood as being shaped not by a single axis of social division, be it race, gender or class, but by many axes that work together and influence each other. Intersectionality as an analytical tool gives people better access to the complexity of the world and of themselves. Faculty of Humanities | School of Media, Creative Arts, and Social Inquiry Image description: Patricia Hill Collins, in conversation with Sirma Bilge, 2016 Link to lecture at UWA, February 2020: https://www.ias.uwa.edu.au/lectures/phcollins CRICOS Provider Code 00301J Intersectionality There is no such thing as a singleissue struggle because we do not live single-issue lives Audre Lorde Faculty of Humanities | School of Media, Creative Arts, and Social Inquiry CRICOS Provider Code 00301J Resources shared from: Canadian Research Institute for the Advancement of Women https://www.criaw-icref.ca/our-work/feminist-intersectionality-and-gba/ Faculty of Humanities | School of Media, Creative Arts, and Social Inquiry CRICOS Provider Code 00301J Resources shared from: Canadian Research Institute for the Advancement of Women https://www.criaw-icref.ca/our-work/feministintersectionality-and-gba/ Faculty of Humanities | School of Media, Creative Arts, and Social Inquiry CRICOS Provider Code 00301J References Abbott, Pamela and Claire Wallace. 1997. An introduction to sociology: Feminist perspectives. London: Routledge Collins, Patricia Hill. 1990. Black feminist thought: Knowledge, consciousness, and the politics of empowerment. New York: Routledge Collins, Patricia Hill and Sirma Bilge. 2016. Intersectionality. New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons Dennis, Alex and Peter J. Martin. 2005. “Symbolic interactionism and the concept of power.” The British Journal of Sociology, 56(2): 191-213 Van Krieken, Robert et al. 2014. Sociology, 5th ed. Pearson Frenchs Forest: Pearson Wallace, Ruth A. and Alison Wolf. 2006. Contemporary sociological theory: Expanding the classical tradition, 6th ed. New Jersey: Pearson Prentice Hall Faculty of Humanities | School of Media, Creative Arts, and Social Inquiry CRICOS Provider Code 00301J Week 2: Foundations of Social Organisation TUTORIAL ACTIVITIES Faculty of Humanities | School of Media, Creative Arts, and Social Inquiry CRICOS Provider Code 00301J Any questions about the lecture? Faculty of Humanities | School of Media, Creative Arts, and Social Inquiry CRICOS Provider Code 00301J Values & beliefs • Spend 10 minutes coming up with a list of ‘10 things that you believe to be true’. • These might be of the religious or spiritual kind, but they could also be about anything at all that you feel strongly about. • Choose beliefs that you don’t mind sharing. Faculty of Humanities | School of Media, Creative Arts, and Social Inquiry CRICOS Provider Code 00301J Danielle Dick McGeough’s Family stories: Fragments and identity • What do you take away as the 3 most significant points/insights that McGeough is puts forward in her article? • What do you think of the style of writing? Does it suit the content? Is it convincing? • Did the article evoke any memories from your own childhood? • Does her argument suit the way family narratives are constructed and reproduced in your family? Faculty of Humanities | School of Media, Creative Arts, and Social Inquiry CRICOS Provider Code 00301J Polygamous marriage in modern Malaysia In the lecture, I spoke about the long-standing interest within Sociology of the tensions between ‘structure’ and ‘agency’; that is, the question of whether human beings have control over their own actions or are confined and constrained by the rules and institutions of society. • • • • • • • • • • • Can you discuss this issue of polygamy in Malaysia, and how it is represented in the podcast, using these two terms? Start by identifying the over-arching social and cultural expectations or norms that govern marriage in Malaysia. Are these social and cultural expectations rigid, or malleable to change? What influences them to change? How does religion factor into individual decisions? What does this tell you about the institutions that influence our lives? Faculty of Humanities | School of Media, Creative Arts, and Social Inquiry CRICOS Provider Code 00301J What is a similarly important food item in your cultural world? Can you tell a story about its cultural significance? Can you think of a food preparation / cooking / consuming practice that would allow you to understand the performance of a specific social relationship? Faculty of Humanities | School of Media, Creative Arts, and Social Inquiry CRICOS Provider Code 00301J ANTH1000 Self, Culture & Society Critical Reflection Name: ___________________________ Date: _______________ 1) What are three important issues for you that were dealt with in this week’s workshop? (1) The sociological imagination (2) The idea that anthropology is about hearing and telling others’ stories (3) The importance of criticality 2) Why are they significant? (1) The sociological imagination allows us to connect individual experiences to the broader structures that shape society (2) Representing diverse perspectives can help people to understand that there are different ways to live and to make sense of the world (3) It is important to be critical of surface level explanations about the social world so that we can understand the complex ways that social realities are constructed 3) Expanding upon one of the issues you have identified above, how might you apply your understanding to an aspect of social life that you see as important? Even though Mills’ book The Sociological Imagination was written at a different time, I think it is still relevant to understanding the social issues we face today. For, example, it made me think about the issue of the declining birth rate in Australia and how it needs to be understood as more than a problem of individual women choosing not to have children. We need to understand these individual choices in the context of Australian society, especially in terms of the changes in gender roles that we can see in society today. For example, women seem to have to juggle the pressures of having a career at the same time as fulfilling old stereotypes and expectations that women be the homemaker and primary carer. I wonder what impact these broad social structures and norms around gender have on the issue of Australia’s declining birth rate? 
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