THE CONSTRUCTION OF PRIMARY DATA IN CULTURAL-ANTHROPOLOGY
THE CONSTRUCTION OF PRIMARY DATA IN CULTURAL-ANTHROPOLOGY
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DOI：
10.1086/203456
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发表时间：
1986-08-01
影响因子：
2.2
通讯作者：
KASAKOFF, A
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
BERNARD, HR;PELTO, PJ;KASAKOFF, A
1985年4月，在华盛顿特区的国家科学基金会举行了一次关于文化人类学原始数据构建的会议。我们关心的是数据收集，而不是数据分析。我们认为，虽然人们非常关注数据分析，特别是复杂的统计分析，但对我们基本原材料的有效性、可靠性和准确性问题关注不够。认识到一旦偏见进入数据，统计分析就不能得到它，我们关心的是改善文化人类学原始数据的结构。为了解决这个问题，我们认为集中讨论本学科中的四种主要类型的数据构建是有用的：(1)对关键告密者的相对开放式、非结构化的采访，(2)对受访者的结构化采访，在调查的情况下，可能有数百或数千人，(3)对行为和环境特征的直接观察，以及(4)从现有记录中提取信息，如本地文本、法庭诉讼程序、婚姻记录等。在人类关系领域档案的案例中，最后一种方法涉及对同事的人种学工作进行编码。这种对原始数据质量的关注在人类学中当然不是什么新鲜事。马林诺夫斯基在《西太平洋阿尔戈斯人导论》中有力地阐述了这一点，并一直保持在英国社会人类学的前沿(见爱泼斯坦1967)。博阿斯把它作为他研究计划的基石之一。60年代的民族科学观点很大程度上基于对有效性的关注(当地人到底怎么想的？)为了可靠性(问题框架对一系列告密者或一系列人类学家采访的单一告密者产生相同的结果吗？)最近，人类学家也开始关注数据的准确性和精确度。例如，一个问题，如“这里多长时间下雨一次？”可以利用告密者对降雨周期性的认知，如果这是研究人员打算得到的，那么它是有效的
In April 1985, a conference was held at the National Science Foundation in Washington, DC, on the construction of primary data in cultural anthropology. We were concerned with data gathering rather than with data analysis. We felt that, while much attention had been focused on data analysis, particularly on complex statistical analysis, insufficient attention had been paid to issues of validity, reliability, and accuracy of our basic raw materials. Recognizing that once bias has entered into data, statistical analysis will not get it out, we were concerned with improving the construction of primary data in cultural anthropology. To address this issue we felt it useful to focus discussion on the four main types of data construction in our discipline:(1) relatively open-ended, unstructured interviews with key informants,(2) structured interviews of respondents who, in the case of surveys, may number in the hundreds or thousands,(3) direct observation of behavior and environmental features, and (4) extraction of information from existing records such as native texts, court proceedings, marriage records, and so on. In the case of the Human Relations Area Files, this last method involves the coding of the ethnographic work of colleagues.This concern with the quality of primary data is certainly not new in anthropology. Malinowski addressed it forcefully in the introduction to Argonauts of the Western Pacific, and it has remained in the forefront of British social anthropology (see Epstein 1967). Boas made it one of the cornerstones of his research program. The ethnoscience perspective of the'60s was based largely on a concern for validity (what do the natives really think?) and for reliability (do question frames produce the same results over a series of informants or from a single informant interviewed by a series of anthropologists?). More recently, anthropologists have become concerned also with accuracy and precision of data. For example, a question such as" How often does it rain around here?" may tap an informant's cognition about the periodicity of rainfall, and if that is what the researcher intends to get at, then it is a valid