Fieldwork: Ethical Aspects
This would include details about the purpose of the
study, the research design, the sponsors of the study,
and the individual participants and community
involved in the research. The researcher then must
consider the cultural and social values represented in
the ethical problem. The relevant values of the study
participants, the study community, the professional
community, and the study sponsors should be out-
lined. The researcher must determine the principal
value conflict. At this point in the process of decision-
making, the fieldworker should consider whose values
are threatened and who are the most vulnerable to
potential harms. This process of reflection facilitates
the identification of the key issues involved in the
ethical dilemma. When the primary ethical issues are
determined, the investigator should outline a full range
of strategies and consider the potential risks and
benefits associated with each solution. The decision
regarding a course of action should maximize respect
for the individual and group values identified. The
vulnerability of research participants and the com-
munities within which they live should be of para-
mount importance in resolving the ethical dilemma
encountered.
See also: Experimenter and Subject Artifacts: Method-
ology; Fieldwork in Social and Cultural Anthro-
pology; Linguistic Fieldwork; Research Conduct:
Ethical Codes; Research Ethics, Cross-cultural Di-
mensions of; Research Ethics: Research; Research
Subjects, Informed and Implied Consent of
Bibliography
Bosk C 1985 The fieldworker as watcher and witness. Hastings
Center Report 15: 10–14
Cassell J, Jacobs S (eds.) 1987 Handbook on Ethical Issues in
Anthropology. Special Publication of the American Anthro-
pological Association, Number 23, Washington, DC
Denzin N K, Lincoln Y S (eds.) 1998 Collecting and Interpreting
Qualitati
e Materials. Sage Publications, Thousand Oaks, CA
Faden R R, Beauchamp T L 1986 A History and Theory of
Informed Consent. Oxford University Press, New York
Fluehr-Lobban C (ed.) 1991 Ethics and The Profession of
Anthropology. University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia
PA
Kulick D, Willson M 1995 Taboo: Sex, Identity and Erotic
Subjecti
ity in Anthropological Fieldwork. Routledge, New
York
Levine R J 1991 Informed consent: Some challenges to the
universal validity of the Western model. Law, Medicine, and
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Levine R J 1996 International codes and guidelines for research
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Drug Abuse and HIV\AIDS. US Department of Health and
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99–4565, Washington, DC
Weisstub D N (ed.) 1998 Research on Human Subjects: Ethics,
Law and Social Policy. Pergamon, Oxford, UK
World Health Organization and Council for International
Organizations of Medical Sciences (WHO-CIOMS) 1993
International Ethical Guidelines for Biomedical Research In-

ol
ing Human Subjects.
P. Marshall
Fieldwork in Social and Cultural
Anthropology
1. Origins of a Method
Fieldwork is a term which has been employed for
nearly a century by social\cultural anthropologists,
for their major methodological tool and a profound
professional experience that leaves its mark on their
lives throughout their careers. It designates a complete
concentration on observations in their chosen site of
research, for a considerable period of time, usually of
no less than six months and up to a few years.
Originally, that engagement involved a total separ-
ation from the researcher’s ordinary life, and his\her
immersion into a remote and alien social environment.
Anthropological fieldwork is known also as the
‘ethnographic method.’
The idea of fieldwork owes its origin to the interests
of scientists at the turn of the nineteenth century
concerning the evolution of the human species, as
much as to the expansion of European colonialism
that brought under its rule vast territories inhabited by
unknown ‘exotic’ peoples. But no less, that movement
coincided with a growing awareness in the United
States about the vanishing cultures of native Amer-
icans. The new science of anthropology that intended
to satisfy these interests was at its first stages mostly
speculative, based on secondary sources of data,
collected by missioners, traders, colonial adminis-
trators, travelers, adventurers, etc. The practice of pre-
fieldwork anthropologists was nicknamed ‘arm-chair
anthropology.’ Its most celebrated, as well as dis-
credited representative, remains James Frazer whose
monumental work was all based on library material.
The invention of fieldwork as the characteristic
method of anthropology, as well as of its corollary
aspect of ‘participant observations,’ has often been
attributed to Bronislaw Malinowski, the British–
Polish scholar, who is also considered among the
founders of the school of functionalism in anthro-
pology. His claim to fame as fieldworker is based on
his long stay, of more than two years, during World

War I, among the Trobriand Islanders. Although he
was not the first to employ the method engaging
participant observation, nevertheless, his linguistic
skills, the meticulous ethnographies he produced, and
the introductory chapter on his method of inquiry that
opened his most famous work (Argonauts of the
Western Pacific 1922) have become the hallmark and
quintessential model of fieldwork for almost half a
century.
The fieldwork projects carried out by Malinowski,
his colleagues, and the later generations of younger
anthropologists entailed observations of the minutiae
of everyday life in the various domains of social
behavior and cultural traditions. In sum, it was
supposed to record the totality of the social experience
in the studied society. The essence of fieldwork was
encapsulated, for example, in the following statements
by representatives of three generations in British
anthropology:
This goal is, briefly, to grasp the native’s point of view, his
relation to life, to realize his vision of his world (Malinowski
1922, p. 25).
First, in my estimation, is the point that fieldwork in the
empirical mode remains the sine qua non both for the testing
of theory and, what is more important, for making new
discoveries (Fortes 1978, p. 24).
‘Good’ fieldworkers are those who are prepared to have good
‘trips,’ that is, suspend as far as possible their own social
conditioning in order to have sensory and mental knowledge
of what is really happening around and to them ( Turner
1985, pp. 205–6).
In the United States, the method of ethnographic
fieldwork was initiated by Franz Boas and his students
most of whom had until World War II concentrated
their work in the not too far away reservations of
Indian tribes. Their trips to the fields of research had
rarely involved a long departure from their ordinary
life and work. They were also far more dependent on
key informants who provided them with data on
specific subjects. Consequently, they were not as
deeply engaged in the routine of everyday life of the
people they studied. The ethnographies by Ruth
Benedict are good examples of the achievements and
deficiencies of the tradition of short fieldwork trips
and reliance on informants. Margaret Mead, probably
the most celebrated among Boas’ students, who went
to Samoa in a style of research closer to the British
tradition (1928), was later seriously criticized for her
poor work as fieldworker. It was mostly since the
mid-1940s that American anthropologists have been
equally engaged in intensive fieldwork projects away
from home. Compared with the British tradition,
American anthropologists, since the early stages, have
developed a distinctive orientation in their fieldwork
projects, more broadly directed toward inquiries of
culture and personality (represented in later years, for
example, in the works by Clifford Geertz and his
colleagues).
Fieldwork in Social and Cultural Anthropology
The method of fieldwork was adopted in most
Western European countries, though in France the
interests of leading anthropologists (Le! vi-Strauss in
particular) were far more concentrated in oral and
textual traditions such as tribal myths of creation.
They attributed little importance to the ethnographer’s
experiences in
i
o. The ethnographic tradition was
also adopted outside Europe and the United States.
2. The Practice of Fieldwork
As a first step in their project, fieldworkers in the
Malinowskian tradition have always been acutely
aware they must develop rapport and friendly relation-
ships with the people in their chosen field. They are
expected to listen attentively, and witness whatever
happens around them in the field, without disturbing
the natural flow of events. As they consolidate their
position with locals, they usually add information
through more active modes of communication (such
as initiating conversations, interviews, collecting stat-
istical data, taking photographs, etc.), but they are
careful not to instigate a flow of information into
preconceived patterns of their own making. They
invest much of their time recording this material in
their notebooks or computers. The bulk of that store
accumulates into their most treasured fieldwork pro-
duct—‘fieldnotes’ (to be later transformed into an
ethnography). The hallmark of anthropology, field-
work had also come to differentiate anthropology
from sociology. That major difference became more
prominent a few decades later when anthropologists
were no longer confined to the study of remote Third
World societies.
The practice of fieldwork has raised many, as yet not
fully resolved, problems of methodology and ethics.
Considered a ‘method,’ it is assumed to maintain a
standardized guide for professional behavior, as well
as technical rules concerning the collection and re-
cording of data. But throughout the history of
anthropology, the craft of fieldwork was practiced,
mostly by individuals, who went on their own to
explore new research sites where they confronted
conditions and constraints not envisioned by their
teachers and colleagues. For many years, the teaching
of anthropology in many universities did not include
specific courses in methodology. The apprenticeship in
anthropology was gained through more informal
methods such as a close familiarity with the relevant
corpus of ethnographies (and particularly those associ-
ated with the candidates’ departments, for example,
‘The Manchester School’), attending presentations
and seminars by colleagues who returned from the
field, communication with those who had already gone
through the experience, and finally, through the good
or bad fortunes of the novice on his arrival in the field
and his success in establishing rapport with his native
hosts. No surprise, fieldwork had been often described
5629
Fieldwork in Social and Cultural Anthropology
as the major rite de passage for students of anthro-
pology. Many anthropologists have been engaged in
one major fieldwork project only. But it seems that
more ethnographers have gradually become involved
in a few fieldwork ventures throughout their career.
Ethnographic work in the various sites of fieldwork,
in the early days and today, has been based on an ethos
of trust. Anthropologists, mostly engaged in a lone
journey, have never been able to implement a pro-
cedure of testing the accuracy and truthfulness of
fieldnotes reported by colleagues and students. Rarely
did fieldworkers choose to return to a field studied
already by another ethnographer. The few cases of
contested reports have gained much attention, in
particular, the controversy between Oscar Lewis and
Robert Redfield who studied the same community of
Tepotzlan, and Derek Freeman’s refutation of
Margaret Mead’s observations in Samoa. But long-
term research, carried out by anthropologists whose
continuing interest and commitment to a particular
field has been supported by sufficient funds or easy
access, also offered a strategy of verification of
observations made at earlier trips.
Although anthropologists have been expected to
master the language of the society they studied, that
prerequisite was rarely fully achieved. Constraints of
time and linguistic skills often impelled them to rely on
‘informants’ as interpreters until they gained a better
command of communication in the native languages.
The length of stay in the field was usually determined
by budgetary as much as by personal circumstances.
But an informal norm of one year seems to have
dominated fieldwork projects.
How fieldworkers present their role, and to what
extent their subjects comprehend the purpose and
consequences of their work, remains an unsolved
ethical problem. However, some norms that pertain to
a universal code of behavior have been institution-
alized at an early stage, such as the disguise of the
community studied. More rigorously maintained is
the tradition of disguising the identity of individual
participants. But no regulations were designed in
regard to the rights of privacy in recording and
disclosing of intimate information collected during
fieldwork. Anthropologists were left to make their
own decisions concerning ethical issues under the
assumption of a deeply felt responsibility toward
‘his\her people.’ This dilemma was addressed, for
example, by Geertz (1968, p. 157): ‘A professional
commitment to view human affairs analytically is not
in opposition to a personal commitment to view them
in terms of a particular moral perspective.’ In any case,
fieldworkers were expected to record in their field-
notes, without censoring, as much as they could
remember from their daily observations and con-
versations.
During many years of practice, however, anthro-
pologists informed their colleagues, also in a more
public fashion, about the circumstances they en-
5630
countered during fieldwork. The early publications
had mostly revealed the personal tribulations of
individuals in their respective fields (e.g., Powder-
maker 1966, Freilich 1970). But certain specific sub-
jects of methodology had engaged a more rigorous
professional treatment. For example, ‘the extended
case-method’ (Gluckman 1958), though mostly a
method of ethnographic presentation, suggested a
follow-up strategy that stimulated the fieldworker to
concentrate his\her observations, thereby revealing
the hidden connection between disjoined events.
Another theme that gained much attention concerned
the various types of informants one might meet at
entrance to a new field, and the strategies and
precautions one might consider working with them
(e.g., Casagrande 1960, Shokeid 1988). Detailed
manuals and reference materials for the various
aspects of fieldwork have gradually developed into
books of methodology so long absent (e.g., Epstein
1967, Wax 1971, Agar 1996, Ellen 1984, Shaffir and
Stebbins 1991). A more meticulous approach came to
the fore examining the methods of recording and
safekeeping of fieldnotes, the most valuable product of
fieldwork (Sanjek 1990). Also, conferences dedicated
to specific methodological issues have become fre-
quent events (such as ‘fieldwork at home’).
3. Transformations in Fieldwork Research
The idea of fieldwork had gone through immense
changes since the days of Malinowski and the gener-
ations that established the ethnographic tradition of
participant observations in remote, apparently homo-
geneous societies, clearly identified within territorial
and cultural boundaries. The consequences of World
War II, the decline of colonialism on the one hand, but
the expansion of anthropology in academia on the
other, made both the entry and the budgeting of long
trips to remote continents an impractical goal for the
growing number of students. Instead, many candidates
turned their interest to various attractive fields within
the borders of their own societies. No doubt, there had
been previous successful projects in the United States
and Europe of ethnographic studies in fields ‘at home’
(for example the most celebrated work in an Italian
lower class Boston neighborhood by Whyte 1970). But
these few research endeavors were unusual cases, in a
tradition that was directed to confront ‘other cultures’
away from home.
The new search for fields close to home seemed at
first to involve only a transfer of sites, such as the study
of the apparently clearly defined urban ethnic neigh-
borhoods in the United States (e.g., Lewis 1966,
Hannerz 1969). However, that novelty demanded a
change in the style and intensity of participant ob-
servation (Plotnicov 1973). But of more profound
consequence, the next change of spatial sites of
fieldwork came to also include institutions that offered

specific services to permanent or transient populations
(for example, Myerhoff’s (1978) work in a community
center for aged people). That transformation opened
the door to a choice of fields that, hitherto, have not
been considered suitable for observation (for example,
fieldwork in the scene of gay life, such as by Newton
1972, Read 1980, Shokeid 1995). In these fields, the
fieldworker is often unable to observe the participants
throughout a wide spectrum of daily activities. More-
over, in the fields of anonymous participants, the
observer’s ability to record behavior and communicate
with his subjects of research had been very limited in
scope. These new fields were instrumental in the
development of the method and theory of symbolic
interaction.
The transformation of methods could also be
identified in the choice of problem-oriented ethno-
graphic projects. Even when the relevant site was
actually a bounded territorial unit, it engaged a
modified strategy of fieldwork (e.g., Ginsburg 1989).
But another major change of sites entailed a complete
eradication of the bounded spatial characteristics of
fieldwork. These unbounded sites included obser-
vations of participants in particular occupations (e.g.,
Agar 1986, Hannerz 1998), observing cultural per-
formances (e.g., Heilman 1983), as well as observing
the members of dispersed social categories (e.g., Ortner
1997). These fields, no longer designed to record the
totality of personal and communal life experiences,
have been variously defined: delocalized, multisited,
postcommunity, focus groups, and transnational spaces.
The ongoing change of the spatial research entities
have not necessarily transformed some of the major
characteristics of fieldwork. Anthropologists in the
new fields continue to initiate their observations
mostly as individuals, men or women, engaged in their
lone projects. It seems, however, there are less couples
involved in these projects, compared with the tendency
of married anthropologists to take along their families
to the more remote field sites.
In recent years, however, some issues not considered
before, concerning the fieldworker’s feelings and
demeanor, have been openly raised in conferences and
edited volumes. Anthropologists preparing for a field-
work project have never been requested to consult
about their personality traits and social capabilities to
accommodate what might become stressful field cir-
cumstances. But since Malinowski’s widow published
his personal diaries (1967), revealing the prejudices
and the emotional stress experienced in the field by the
mythical founder of fieldwork, a more relaxed attitude
was gaining place in the professional discourse about
fieldworkers’ personal problems. This attitude has
been closely related to the genre of reflexivity that
since the late 1970s gained popularity in ethnographic
text (e.g., Rabinow 1977). The lone fieldworker was no
longer perceived through the image of the infallible
man or woman, expected to withstand successfully all
obstacles in a valiant test of personality that proves
Fieldwork in Social and Cultural Anthropology
he\she are capable of penetrating the social codes of
alien cultures in far away territories.
The new fieldwork sites in Western urban societies
contributed to that growing awareness and doubts
about some long established taboos that separated the
fieldworker from the subjects of his observations (e.g.,
Kulick and Willson 1995, Lewin and Leap 1996). The
border between the observer and the observed that
was naturally upheld in the old fields, where the alien
researcher had been conspicuously distinguished (by
race and other visible marks of personal character-
istics), are no longer easily maintained in many of the
new sites of fieldwork. The photographs displayed in
many ethnographies of the founding generation,
showing them in a landscape of exotic trees and simple
huts, posing in the company of minimally clothed
natives, have become a symbolic emblem for the
changing circumstances of fieldwork.
It is probably an irony that by the end of the
twentieth century, a century that gave rise to modern
anthropology, fieldwork, its most inventive method
and major signifier of professional identity, seems to
have lost its incontestable paramount position. Crit-
ical views of the validity of positivist methodology, as
well as the growing influence of postmodernist curr-
ents in cultural studies, are challenging the authority
of ethnographic texts based on participant obser-
vations (e.g., Marcus and Fisher 1986). These intel-
lectual movements, popular in recent years, inspire
and legitimize anthropological projects that are based
on other types of data (such as textual and mass media
creations) which can be collected without the need for
fieldwork. It is too early to predict whether the new
genre of arm-chair anthropology will have a more
lasting impact on the role of fieldwork and its
practitioners.
See also: Anthropology; Anthropology and History;
Anthropology, History of; Cultural Critique: An-
thropological; Cultural Relativism, Anthropology
of; Ethnography; Ethnology; Field Observational
Research in Anthropology and Sociology; Psychol-
ogical Anthropology; Qualitative Methods, History
of; Symbolic Interaction: Methodology; Thick De-
scription: Methodology
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Copyright # 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd.
All rights reserved.
5632
International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences
Figurative Thought and Figurative
Language, Cognitive Psychology of
1. A Definition
Different types of linguistic expressions (metaphors,
idioms, proverbs, etc.) form figurative language. Since
the seminal work of Lakoff and Johnson (1980 but see
Black 1979), the term ‘figurative’ is also used to
denote conceptual entities that contribute to shaping
our understanding of the world. Figurative language
in general, and metaphor in particular, plays a central
role not only in everyday discourse and in linguistic
change but also in reflecting and shaping how people
think in a broad range of domains (Cacciari 1998).
1.1 Literal
s. Figurati
e Language
When a speaker\reader encounters a sentence, she\he
is generally able to judge whether it is intended literally
or not. The ease with which people deal with this
distinction in everyday discourse belies the difficulty
and complexity of the distinction between literal and
figurative language in the linguistic and psycholin-
guistic literature. No universally accepted criteria for
discriminating between literal and nonliteral ex-
pressions have yet been devised. Many researchers
expressed serious doubt as to whether a sharp dis-
tinction can (or should) be drawn between these two
varieties of language use and proposed to substitute it
with the notion of levels of conventionalization of
meanings and sentence uses.
Despite the pervasiveness of figurative language,
many language researchers still assume that it repre-
sents a peripheral issue that language comprehension
and production models can easily ignore. For instance,
current psycholinguistic models of production are
almost silent as to why a speaker would select a
figurative expression instead of a ‘corresponding’
literal expression (if any). Likewise, standard semantic
theories still assign a rather peripheral and theoretic-
ally uninteresting role to figurative language (with the
important exception of cognitive linguistics). Two
long-standing assumptions contribute to this error.
(a) Figurative expressions can always be para-
phrased literally since they only represent a ‘stroke of
style’ reflecting, as Black (1979, p. 27) ironically
stated, the ‘incidental pleasure of stating figuratively
what might just as well have been said literally.’
(b) The opposition between literal language as the
realm of clear shared meanings, and figurative lan-
guage as the realm of idiosyncratic, obscure meanings.
The cognitive psychology of figurative language
does not consider figurative language as an ornament
added to everyday straightforward literal language
but it views it as a powerful communicative and
ISBN: 0-08-043076-7