Subsections
[Cr:4, Lc:1, Tt:0, Lb:3]
This course introduces the students to multiple methods of understanding human cultures
across the ages. It is an interdisciplinary introduction to methods used in Anthropology, Archeology and
History. The course is largely field based and incorporates theory through engaging students in situated
practices. A significant portion of the course will be taught in the field.
- Ethnographic Methods: Understanding Culture: historical and critical approaches to studying culture
Ethnography: planning a qualitative study, subjective engagements in the field, representation of ’a’
reality. Techniques: Participant observation , structured and open-ended interviews Visual Anthropology
Interrogating the field in ’fieldwork’ Ethics in research: Insider/outsider debate, politics of
representation, self and the other, observer and the observed Analyzing and writing up ethnographic
research: Content analysis, Discourse analysis, meaning making, representation.
- Archeological Methods:
History of research methods in global and Indian archeology Reading, writing and presenting in
archeology: reading and gauging published materials; writing grant proposals; publishing general and
scientific articles in archeology; presenting research results Archeology field methods: planning stage,
documentation required, equipment required (e.g. Global Positioning System), survey and excavation
methods; documenting geological and archaeological sections, surface collections of artifacts. Archeology
lab methods: curation, cataloging, database construction, specimen labeling and photography,
experimental archeology portion, quantifying data and basic statistics of large data sets; maintaining field
equipment and labs.
- Archival Methods: Understanding Archive: Documentation, History and Structure
History and Memory: Interrogating Archive.
- Burke H. & Smith C., The Archaeologist’s Field Handbook, Allen 7 Unwin (2007).
- Joglekar, P. P., Research Methods for Archeology Students, Ravindra Gurjar & Gayatri Sahitya (2014).
- Denzin and Lincoln (Eds.), Handbook of Qualitative Methods, (Second Edition), Sage (2000).
- Geertz, C., The Interpretation of Cultures, Basic Books (1973).
