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77 books match the query 'Fieldwork' and 5 start with r

cover of Remembering Archaeological Fieldwork in Mexico and Peru, 1961-2003: A Photographic Essay

Remembering Archaeological Fieldwork in Mexico and Peru, 1961-2003

A Photographic Essay

Jeffrey R. Parsons

University of Michigan Press, 2019

Half a century ago, when archaeologist Jeffrey R. Parsons began fieldwork in Mexico and Peru, he could not know that many of the sites he studied were on the brink of destruction. The rural landscapes through which he traveled were, in many cases, destined to be plowed under and paved over. In Remembering Archaeological Fieldwork in Mexico and Peru, 1961–2003, Parsons offers readers a chance to see archaeological sites that were hundreds or thousands of years old and have since vanished or been irrevocably altered. Hundreds of photographs, accompanied by descriptions, illustrate the sites, the people, and the landscapes that Parsons encountered during four decades of research in these regions. Parsons is now emeritus professor of anthropology at the University of Michigan and has published many archaeological monographs as well as ethnographic research on salt, fish, and other items used for traditional subsistence in Mexico. Foreword by Richard I. Ford.
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cover of Research Confidential: Solutions to Problems Most Social Scientists Pretend They Never Have

Research Confidential

Solutions to Problems Most Social Scientists Pretend They Never Have

Eszter Hargittai

University of Michigan Press, 2009

"We all know that the actual process of empirical research is a messy, complicated business that at best only approximates the models we impart to students. Research Confidential pulls back the curtain on this process, laying bare the sordid details of the research process, but doing so in a way that respects the ideals of social research and that provides useful lessons for young scholars. It should be required reading for our research methods courses."
---Michael X. Delli Carpini, Dean, Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania

"In this impressive volume, some of the brightest young lights in social research have taken us backstage to share what they learned from their innovative projects. Besides providing a wealth of help with methodological concerns, the book includes theoretical and career issues to consider when doing research. Anyone doing research should benefit from reading it."
---Caroline Hodges Persell, Professor of Sociology, New York University

"Research Confidential complements existing methods literature by providing refreshingly honest accounts of key challenges and decision forks-in-the-research-road. Each chapter enlightens and entertains."
---Kirsten Foot, Associate Professor of Communication, University of Washington

"A must-read for researchers embarking on new projects. Rather than the abstract descriptions of most methods textbooks, this volume provides rich accounts of the firsthand experiences of actual researchers. An invaluable resource of practical advice. Critically, it will make new researchers aware of the actual challenges that they are likely to face in their work."
---Christopher Winship, editor of Sociological Methods and Research and Professor of Sociology, Harvard University

This collection of essays aims to fill a notable gap in the existing literature on research methods in the social sciences. While the methods literature is extensive, rarely do authors discuss the practical issues and challenges they routinely confront in the course of their research projects. As a result, editor Eszter Hargittai argues, each new cohort is forced to reinvent the wheel, making mistakes that previous generations have already confronted and resolved. Research Confidential seeks to address this failing by supplying new researchers with the kind of detailed practical information that can make or break a given project. Written in an informal, accessible, and engaging manner by a group of prominent young scholars, many of whom are involved in groundbreaking research in online contexts, this collection promises to be a valuable tool for graduate students and educators across the social sciences.

Eszter Hargittai is Associate Professor of Communication Studies at Northwestern University and Fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University.

Cover art courtesy of Dustin Gerard

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cover of Resonance: Beyond the Words

Resonance

Beyond the Words

Unni Wikan

University of Chicago Press, 2012

Resonance gathers together forty years of anthropological study by a researcher and writer with one of the broadest fieldwork résumés in anthropology: Unni Wikan. In its twelve essays—four of which are brand new—Resonance covers encounters with transvestites in Oman, childbirth in Bhutan, poverty in Cairo, and honor killings in Scandinavia, with visits to several other locales and subjects in between. Including a comprehensive preface and introduction that brings the whole work into focus, Resonance surveys an astonishing career of anthropological inquiry that demonstrates the possibility for a common humanity, a way of knowing others on their own terms.
 
Deploying Clifford Geertz’s concept of “experience-near” observations —and driven by an ambition to work beyond Geertz’s own limitations—Wikan strives for an anthropology that sees, describes, and understands the human condition in the models and concepts of the people being observed. She highlights the fundamentals of an explicitly comparative, person-centered, and empathic approach to fieldwork, pushing anthropology to shift from the specialist discourses of academic experts to a grasp of what the Balinese call keneh— the heart, thought, and feeling of the real people of the world. By deploying this strategy across such a range of sites and communities, she provides a powerful argument that ever-deeper insight can be attained despite our differences.
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cover of Resurgency: Outlasting the War on Terror in Iraq

Resurgency

Outlasting the War on Terror in Iraq

Kali Rubaii

Duke University Press, 2026

Resurgency examines how Iraqi farmers outlast the long shadow of US military intervention as they return to repair their war-damaged homeland. Based on detailed ethnographic research, Kali Rubaii expands the temporal and descriptive definitions of war, displacement, and resistance.

In Resurgency, Kali Rubaii offers detailed ethnographic insight into how decades of war have affected everyday life in Iraq. Drawing on fieldwork in Anbar province and Iraqi Kurdistan in 2014–15 and 2021–24, Rubaii foregrounds the practices of displaced people who stubbornly outlast their occupiers, returning to homes that feel estranging, repairing war-damaged land, and surviving into futures to which they have been disinvited. Following Anbari farmers in their struggle to counter the social and environmental fallout from toxic military waste, depleted ecosystems, and transformed political economies, Resurgency expands the temporal and descriptive categories of what war is—and what resistance looks like. By asking what actions and dispositions make sense when conditions of survival are diminished, and when today may be better than tomorrow, Rubaii offers new methods and insights to those concerned about the possibilities of life amid environmental devastation, mass displacement, and the slow violence of the forever wars.
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cover of Retracing Inca Steps: Adventures in Andean Ethnoarchaeology

Retracing Inca Steps

Adventures in Andean Ethnoarchaeology

Dean E. Arnold

University of Utah Press, 2021

Dean Arnold takes readers on a journey into the Andes, recounting the adventures of his 1960s research in the village of Quinua, Peru. Arnold’s quest to understand how contemporary pottery production reflected current Quinua society as well as its ancient Inca and pre-Inca past is one of the earliest studies in what later became known as ethnoarchaeology.
 
This first-person narrative reveals the challenges of living and working in another culture and the many obstacles one can encounter while doing field research. Arnold shares how his feelings of frustration and perceived failure led him to refocus his project, a shift that ultimately led to an entirely new perspective on pottery production in the Andes. Masterfully weaving details about Peru’s geography, ecology, history, prehistory, and culture into his story, he chronicles his change from small-town Midwesterner to a person of much broader vision, newly aware of his North American views and values.
 
Retracing Inca Steps is an excellent read for the lay person wishing to learn about the environment, prehistory, history, and culture of Peru as well as for students wanting to know more about the joys and rigors of fieldwork.
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