Posts Tagged ‘Field Work’
Posted by Jen Cardew Kersey on March 19, 2008
Back in February I attended the Future of Web Apps (FOWA) in Miami and BarCampMiami held in the same venue. My boyfriend is a developer so he wanted to attend this conference. I decided to go with him since it was semi-close to home and I wanted to learn more about the tech industry.
Essentially, my experience at FOWA was doing participant observation of the developer side of the tech industry. A large part of the speakers and materials covered was over my head since I have a limited knowledge but I learned a lot. I did walk away learning like I knew a bit more about their processes but more importantly I feel like I gained insight into their world. The majority of the talks focused on the development process and excluded user-centered research, or mentions of users in general. To be fair, the audience was likely interested in the former more than the later. I commented to someone that FOWA felt very developer-centric and lacked a focus on users. Their response was something to the effect of “users aren’t part of the process.” To be sure, they *should* be.
BarCampMiami was useful in that the presenters only focused on the basics of what they were discussing, i.e. OpenID, OAuth, etc. I actually learned about the subjects they presented rather than gained insight into the tech industry.
Last week I attended SXSW Interactive in Austin, TX and BarCampAustin. My experience at BarCampAustin was similar to that of Miami and I learned a lot (and had fun, BarCampAustin rocked!). SXSW was a different experience from FOWA for me though. In addition to gaining insight into and about the development process of web apps, software, etc. I became inspired by listening to the developers talk about their research.
This process of listening to people talk about their experiences to gain insights in/for research is nothing new if you’re familiar with anthropology. In listening to the developers, etc. discuss their research I discovered/thought of many ways that anthropological research could help their processes and goals. This is good knowledge to have when you’re looking for internships (me 
or if you want to do consulting work.
All and all, I really enjoyed FOWA, SXSWi, and both BarCamps. Given that most practicing/applied anthropologists will have a professional counterpart (for tech design research it’s designers/developers, for medical anthropology maybe it’s doctors, for educational anthropologists it’s teachers, etc.) and I believe that attending your counterparts’ conferences, etc. will be very valuable for you to be able to communicate with that communicate.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: Anthropology, favorite, Field Work, FOWA | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Jen Cardew Kersey on November 3, 2007
This post is so late that I questioned the value of writing it all together, and obviously decided to go a head and do it. I went out to Keystone Resort in Colorado back in early October for the EPIC conference. I had the great honor of attending the conference on an Intel sponsored student scholarship. For those poor souls that had to pay, the cost of attendance was actually quite reasonable; a little more than the SfAA or AAA cost, but significantly lower than most other conferences. I’d say it’s affordable for students, and I would absolutely say that it’s worth it to students.
I registered for the conference and went out to Colorado thinking that it would be a “business anthropology” conference; many of the organizers have a background in the discipline, many business anthropologists that I know were going to be there, and “ethnography” is typically thought of as being anthropology’s baby within the academy. It’s true that many conference goers were anthropologists and that many sessions were “anthropological,” but post-conference, I don’t really feel like it was a “business anthropology” conference. If anything, I’d call it and applied ethnography conference. There was a heavy tech presence in the conference, but there were also medical professionals, designers of all sorts, and other people from other fields.
I’d actually recommend anyone planning on working in the private sector within the realm of applied social science research to go to the conference next year – and not only because it will be in Copenhagen, Denmark Many, many of the presenters focused on the ways in which they use “rapid” versions of traditional ethnographic methods, and they did so in a very understandable way. After all, these are researchers that work in the business world, they are much more simple and to the point than our academic counterparts. I came home feeling like I understood how practitioners use ethnography in the fast-paced world of business and that really isn’t something you are likely to learn in school.
I really had a good time at the conference (aside from the altitude sickness!), it was a completely different vibe than either the SfAA or the AAA. Each morning the day started off with breakfast, then a keynote speaker. After a half hour break a panel of speakers started- everyone continued to be in one large room, there was no deciding what to attend (which is a hassle at the anthropology conferences because there are 15 sessions going on at the same time). Each day there was a catered lunch (they fed us well 
and in the afternoon there were a few breaks also. There was a lot of free time (but not too much) where people could socialize, or network, with each other (another nice aspect of the event). One afternoon there were two tracks and the second afternoon there was just the one panel. Saturday was full of free workshops, I heard they went well, but I actually left early to come home because of the altitude sickness.
Friday night there was a dinner for everyone. Everyone hung out (read open bar) for quite a few hours, ate, talked, and had an overall excellent time. This is really what set EPIC apart from other conferences in my mind, everyone was together, in one group, most of the time and there was plenty of fun time.
My favorite part of EPIC were the Birds of a Feather sessions, but more to come about that in a future post.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: Anthropology, EPIC, Field Work, NaBloPoMo, Organizations/Conferences, Practicing | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Jen Cardew Kersey on September 16, 2007
That was my thought last week as I looked back through my time cards from March – July and realized the amount of time I spent doing transcription over the last few months. I don’t like doing transcription, in fact, sometimes I despise it. Every time I’ve had to transcribe interviews, it’s been for a project with a linguistic focus (read super attention to detail and much harder transcription
Despite my dislike for transcription, I realize it’s part of the research process (well, for grad students any way and thus it is important. But than I thought about all of the hours that are a head of me coding those transcriptions. I like coding better than transcribing, but it’s not really “fun,” and on top of that, I’ve been staring at these interviews for nine months now and have read them all at least five times!
Well, the process does in deed suck sometimes, and that’s why we’re repeatedly told to only do research we love. I do love the research project I’m on and most days that’s enough to keep me going. But not always.
So what drives me? What causes me to push forward? What are my reasons for this seemingly self-torture?
I do anthropological research because I honestly believe that the outcomes may be (hopefully!) beneficial to others and this is why I am an applied anthropologist. As applied anthropologists we can work with the community to put the collected data into action, and the results can be very beneficial!
I’m not sure if it’s because I started out in an applied program, or if it’s the pragmatist in me, or what.. but I believe that it is very important to apply anthropological research. My hopes of helping is what keeps me going. I’m not sure that I understand what drives non-applied anthropologists, or other non-applied social scientists for that matter, to do research if no one will benefit from it… unless of course it’s an ego thing
Posted in Ethics | Tagged: Advocacy, Anthropology, favorite, Field Work, Life, Research | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Jen Cardew Kersey on September 16, 2007
I just finished my 7 part series about software and internet resources for research.
Part 1, “Inspiration for an Idea,” can be found here
part 2, “Literature Review,” can be found here,
part 3, “Research,” can be found here,
part 4, “Transcription”, can be found here,
part 5, “Analysis,” can be found here,
part 6, “Write up,” can be found here,
and part 7, “Publishing,” can be found here.
I hope to make the seven parts into wiki pages so that I can add resources as I learn about them and so that others may add their resources as well.
There are a few themes in almost each entry that I wanted to reiterate one last time. I mention the use of wikis and mind maps in many stages as a tool for organization, as well as maintaining PDFs in Yep.
Organization in research is very important and there are a lot of software and online tools that can help!
Related posts:
GTD – anthropology style
How to “network” as an (online) anthropology student
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: Anthropology, Blogging, favorite, Field Work, Literature, Research, Software & Applications | 1 Comment »
Posted by Jen Cardew Kersey on September 16, 2007
This is part 7 of a 7 part series about software and internet resources for research. Part 1, “Inspiration for an Idea,” can be found here and part 2, “Literature Review,” can be found here, part 3, “Research,” can be found here, part 4, “Transcription”, can be found here, part 5, “Analysis,” can be found here, and part 6, “Write up,” can be found here.
The internet has the potential to be your most valuable tool in research when you are ready to publish your findings. There are many resources online available to help you and if you do chose to publish on the internet you will make your research more accessible and you will increase the opportunity for others to start a dialog with you about it.
I do encourage you to start a blog, or post on your existing blog, the process of conducting your fieldwork, etc. so that others can learn from you. While the number of anthropology blogs is exponentially increasing, anthropology as a discipline is still underrepresented online. (Could this be because of our ivory tower roots and the nature of the discipline to work independently??)
In addition to creating a blog and blogging about your research, I would encourage people to submit an article about their project to Four Stone Hearth, a bi-weekly anthropology blogging carnival. Four Stone Hearth has been very successful and has a large audience, this will give you an opportunity to hear feedback, thoughts, etc. from others.
There are also a number of online journal that you could submit articles to in the hopes of having them included. Here are two links to lists of online journals here and here.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: Anthropology, Blogging, Field Work, Research | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Jen Cardew Kersey on September 8, 2007
This is part 4 of a 7 part series about software and internet resources for research. Part 1, “Inspiration for an Idea,” can be found here and part 2, “Literature Review,” can be found here, and part 3, “Research,” can be found here.
After you conduct your research, the next step will likely be transcribing your interviews and/or focus groups, etc. I only have experience with transcribing one-on-one taped interviews and taped focus groups. I’ve tried a few different transcription software programs and Express Scribe is by far my favorite. It’s free software that is compatible with both Mac and PC (so the free part is a benefit). The reason that I love Express Scribe is the features it offers. It’s compatible with Microsoft Word, so you can set up “hot keys” (or short cuts) that allow you to play, pause, rewind, and fast forward while in Word i.e., you’re typing in Word and without switching back to Express Scribe you use “control+d” to pause. It makes the process much easier and you save a lot of time by not having to switch back to Express Scribe. Two other great features are playing in slow motion and automatic rewinding of 5 seconds upon pause.
I do not have any experience with transcribing video, but the other RA in the online-on-campus comparison research project used Transana to transcribe the class discussions in the on-campus class. I don’t think it was her favorite software, but it worked well enough. Transana is no longer free, but you can download an older version from their website for free. You can purchase a copy for $50 and it is compatible with Mac and PC.
I also like to make a few notes about possible themes/hunches while transcribing and to do this I usually use a mind map. I’m always super careful to make these notes because it’s really too early to be thinking about themes- but I always “test” them against the data once it is available.
Related post: My first experience with Express Scribe
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: Anthropology, Field Work, Grad School, Research, Software & Applications | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Jen Cardew Kersey on September 4, 2007
This is part 3 of a 7 part series about software and internet resources for research. Part 1, “Inspiration for an Idea,” can be found here and part 2, “Literature Review,” can be found here.
So, you’ve found your inspiration for a research project and you’ve done your review of existing literature, so now If you are following a traditional research design the next step is to do your research, or the data collection.
The advice I have for software and online resources for this step is relatively short, so if you’re reading this and have recommendations please add them in the comments!
One thing I have found to be helpful is to tag electronic articles about data collection in Yep with a tag that signifies which method it’s about. This way once I’ve decided what data collection methods are appropriate for my study, I can pull up the appropriate tags i.e., “in-depth interviews” in Yep and refresh my memory.
I also find myself keeping lists of things I want to do while conducting data collection and “hunches” I’m having throughout the process of data collection. As a warning, I’ll remind you to be super careful with your “hunches” you have in data collection- make sure you carefully analyze for them and re-evaluate them after data collection is done! To organize such lists I find wikis to be the most helpful, but I think that mind maps may work well for some folks.
The Radical Anthropologist has recently done some posts about field notes, which might be helpful for you to read at this point.
My recommendations center around data collection methods and organizing data, but don’t forget.. you can CONDUCT your fieldwork online! Here are some links to anthropology research being done online here, here, and here.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: Anthropology, Field Work, Research | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Jen Cardew Kersey on August 30, 2007
This is part 2 of a 7 part series about software and internet resources for research. Part 1, “Inspiration for an Idea” can be found here.
I started off part 1 by saying this series would be better as a wiki and I’ve already proven that to myself, I made several additions to part 1 yesterday and will make a few more today. As I flesh out the notes I’ve written for the stages I keep thinking of new things and finding new links.
Now that you’ve spent some time cruising the internet and thinking about what sort of research project you’d like to do, I’m sure your inspired to pursue your project. What should your next step be and how will the internet and software help you? Well, if you’re following a traditional approach to your research, your next step is to do some review of existing literature.
Organization
If you’ve read this blog for any amount of time then you most likely know that I am hyper-organized. It’s very important to be organized with your research from the get-go and if you didn’t start to do this while you were seeking inspiration now would be the time to do it. There is a sea of electronic articles and even if you’re interest lays in an obscure topic, you’ll have many articles to keep track of.
My recommendations for organizing literature are bookmark the articles and to store the downloadable PDFs in a PDF data software program, such as Yep. I’ve also hear of using EndNote to keep track of bibliographies, etc. I have no experience with this software (I tried it and lost interest quickly) but it comes highly recommended.
If you start this early you’ll thank yourself in the long run!
Now is also a good time to consider maintaining a wiki or a mind map to organize your thoughts.
Literature Reviews
One of my favorite parts of anthropology is the fact that its work is best when complimented by another discipline. Many (American) anthropologists specialize in a more focused topic within one of our four sub-disciplines, i.e. public health, policy, environment, etc. Remember when your searching for literature DO NOT limit yourself to articles, etc. that say “anthropology”- think of what other disciplines might have something to offer.
Where to find literature
Don’t forget about the places where you found your inspiration in the first place, look for their recommendations, bibliographies, etc.
Amazon.com typically gives really good book descriptions and most books have customer reviews.
Look for people that work in the area you’re interested in. Some professors share their syllabi online and if they don’t, you can always email them and ask if you can have a copy.
Del.icio.us
Search the bibliographies of related articles.
Anthrosource
AnthroBase
Anthropology Review Database
Open Directory Project
List of anthropology journals here.
Open Access Journals here, here, and here .
This list is by no means exhaustive, so I’ll continue to add to it and I am interested to hear about other resources you all are using.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: Anthropology, Field Work, Grad School, Literature, Research, Software & Applications | 1 Comment »
Posted by Jen Cardew Kersey on August 29, 2007
Again, this blog post would be better off as a wiki and I’m still working on that.
I’m currently working on my fifth research project, and while that by no means makes me an expert I have collected quite a few software & online resources that I use to organize, inspire, and manage the elements of my research. I’m organizing the resources in the traditional research outline- having the idea, literature review, research design, transcription, analysis, write up, and “publishing” findings. Depending on your approach to research i.e., grounded theory, etc. and the scope of your research i.e., project vs. paper, you may need to re-order the outline or you may want to pick and chose from the list.
I’ve decided to break the list into a seven part series to avoid the posts being 20 pages long. Here’s part 1
Be sure to bookmark all of the webpages that you find of interest so that you may reference back to them! I prefer del.icio.us, but there are many social bookmarking websites and you can also use your browser to bookmark.
I find wikis to be particularly useful in keeping track of my thoughts, websites, etc. Learn about wikis here.
Mind mapping software is also a very easy way to keep track of your ideas for a project. Learn about mind mapping here.
Inspiration for a Project
Here are my recommendations for places to get inspirations for projects- it’s important to note that you should not copy others’ ideas, but expanding your horizons about your knowledge of what others are doing, and your knowledge in general, is a great way to get new ideas.
Podcasts & Videos
SfAA podcasts (not up right now, but will be after the 2008 Meeting)
Other anthropology podcasts
Google video search for “anthropology”
Bookmarks on del.icio.us for “anthropology+podcast“
Blogs
Bookmarks on del.icio.us for “anthropology+blogs“
Anthropologi.info‘s list of anthropology blogs
Four Stone Hearth (anthropology blogging carnival)
Listservs
This website has a good list of anthropology listservs
This is the AAA (American Anthropological Association) list of listservs
Forums
MySpace anthropology-related forums via Moving Anthropology Student Network
Social Networks
Twitter
SfAA ning network
Facebook
Linked In
Moving Anthropology Student Network
Online Journals
a list of online social science journals
Another good list of online journals
I find reading (be it online, books, articles, etc.) and engaging in conversation (virtual and face-to-face), specifically with people whom have different views/interests, to be my inspiration for both research and live in general- the above ways are the places that I do this online.
What are the ways you find inspiration online?
Related post: How to Network Online
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: Anthropology, Field Work, Grad School, Research, Software & Applications | 3 Comments »
Posted by Jen Cardew Kersey on August 25, 2007
Back in January I started working on a research project with my advisor and an on-campus peer. The focus of the research project is to compare an online version and an on-campus version of the same graduate course (taught at the same time and by the same professor). My advisor was the professor for the courses, the other RA was in the on-campus course at the time, and I was in the online course at the time. So we all have a somewhat “emic” view of the Fall 2006 course.
The on-campus RA conducted and transcribed 12 face-to-face interviews and transcribed three class meetings. I conducted and transcribed 9 phone interviews (using Skype & Pamela), transcribed three teleconference meetings, and organized three weeks of discussion board postings. The data has been collected and consists of 21 interviews and all of the course communications (class meetings, discussion boards, and teleconferences) for the same three weeks in the course. We have A TON of data.
We have weekly teleconferences between the three researchers, we email almost daily, and we have a secure online site where we share our collaborative documents and files. The entire process has been really interesting for me and I think it’s very fitting that I am an online RA for this particular project.
We have all of our transcription finished now and we are moving into the analysis phase. Our presentation on our research has been accepted at the 2007 AAA Meeting in D.C.. We will be doing a presentation about how our findings will be applied to the UNT online master’s program. We hope to find ways in which the online program can be improved upon to make the experience similar to that of on-campus. The goal of that program has always been to offer a master’s degree and graduate experience that is comparable with that of an on-campus degree. The fact that our findings will be applied really shows UNT’s dedication to the online master’s.
I don’t have any findings that can be reported yet, but we’re making good progress thus far. We have a lot of people interested in the project- so that’s very exciting for us.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: Anthropology, Field Work, Grad School, Research | 1 Comment »
