AN471      One Unit
Qualitative and Quantitative Methods for Anthropologists

This information is for the 2025/26 session.

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The twofold aim of this course is to provide students with insights into the process by which anthropological knowledge is produced, and to train them in the collection and analysis of qualitative and quantitative data. In doing so it offers students a methodological framework for conceptualising and designing their own PhD research projects. The course discusses the nature of ethnographic data and evidence, its implications for research, and ways of incorporating empirical data in ethnographic texts. 

10 hours of lectures and 30 hours of seminars in the Autumn Term.

This course has a reading week in Week 6 of Autumn Term.

Students will be expected to produce two presentations in the Autumn Term.

Students will carry out fieldwork exercises and read selected texts. They will present their findings as part of two scheduled presentations, on which they will receive in-seminar verbal feedback.

A. Robben and A. Sluka (eds.) 2007. Ethnographic Fieldwork: An anthropological reader;

P. Atkinson.2015. For Ethnography; R. H. Bernard. Research Methods in Cultural Anthropology: Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches.Fifth Edition.

A. Cerwonka and L. Malkki. 2007. Improvising Theory: Process an Temporality in Ethnographic Fieldwork.

K. Narayan. 2012. Alive in the Writing: Crafting Ethnography in the Company of Chekhov.

Essay (50%, 3000 words) in Autumn Term Week 7

Essay (50%, 3000 words) in Autumn Term Week 11

Students will write two 3000-word essays (each worth 50%), which can draw from issues covered in either the Tuesday or the Friday class, or both. The first essay is to be submitted on the first day after reading week, and the deadline for the second essay is the last day of Autumn Term.