Novices in the Field: Filling in the Meaning Continuum
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.36366/frontiers.v7i1.109Keywords:
Students in the field, study abroad, field school, field research, anthropology, education abroadAbstract
My argument, based on observations of students in the field, as well as on data generated by them, is that such change, such maturity, such willingness to “break set,” is hastened, more extensive (i.e., covering more cognitive categories), and longer-lasting in students who venture into the field for a significant period of time, for the simple reason that they see for themselves other solutions to the challenges of living being deployed. As a consequence, many handed-down assumptions are no longer taken at face value. They no longer “make sense.” The discreetness of the binary category system, wherein everything is seen “in black and white,” begins to blur. As this occurs, previously inevitable associations of meaning— Middleton’s and Geertz’s respective bundles and webs—begin to unravel, freeing students’ minds to render other than prescribed interpretations of sensory data. In short, new (i.e., non-binary) standards are conceived as students acquire the skill “to correct for their own culture” while observing others (Bohannan 38).
Downloads
References
Bohannan, Paul. How Culture Works. New York: The Free Press. 1995.
Connor, Walker. “A Nation is a Nation, is a State, is an Ethnic Group is a …” Ethnic and Racial Studies 1.4 (1978): 377–400.
Eckert, Penelope. Jocks and Burnouts. Social Categories and Identity in the High School. New York: Teachers College Press. 1989.
Geertz, Clifford. The Interpretation of Cultures. New York: Basic Books.
Giddens, Anthony. Modernity and Self-Identity: Self and Society in the Late Modern Age. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. 1991.
Gmelch, George and Sharon Bohn Gmelch. “An Ethnographic Field School: What Students Do and Learn.” Anthropology and Education
Quarterly 30.2 (1999): 220–227.
Grant, Linda, Judith Preissle, Josephine Beoku-Betts, William Finlay, and Gary Alan Fine. “Fieldwork in Familiar Places: The UGA Workshop in Fieldwork Methods.” Anthropology and Education Quarterly 30.2 (1999): 238–248.
Mestenhauser, Josef A. “Internationalization of Higher Education: A Cognitive Response to the Challenges of the Twenty-first Century.” International Education Forum 18.1–2 (1998): 1–8.
Middleton, DeWight R. The Challenge of Human Diversity. Mirrors, Bridges, and Chasms. Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland Press. 1998.
Sutherland, Anne. The Making of Belize. Globalization in the Margins. Westport, CT: Bergin and Garvey. 1998.
Van Gennep, Arnold. The Rites of Passage. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 1960.
Wallace, M. Tim. “Mentoring Apprentice Ethnographers through Field Schools.” Anthropology and Education Quarterly 30.2 (1999): 210–219.
Ward, Martha C. “Managing Student Culture and Culture Shock: A Case from European Tirol.” Anthropology and Education Quarterly 30.2
(1999): 228–237.
Wright, Lawrence. “One Drop of Blood.” The New Yorker 25 July 1994: 46–55.
