Essay about ethnography

Among these, for both, was the exploration of society. While sociology has had other ends, moral and metaphysical, sociologists have always wanted to understand how society worked, to map its dimensions and then look into the big sectors and little crannies so mapped. They ordinarily wanted to find things out rigorously and scientifically, and to develop general theories. But some sociologists have made it their main business to describe what has not yet been described, in the style of the ethnographer, to tell the big news, in the style of the journalist, combining these more or less with the desire for rigor and general theory.

It has seemed to me worth while to show from the history of civilization just what war has done and has not done for the welfare of mankind.

Writing Live Fieldnotes: Towards a More Open Ethnography | Ethnography Matters

In the eighteenth century it was assumed that the primitive state of mankind was one of Arcadian peace, joy, and contentment. In the nineteenth century the assumption went over to the other extreme — that the primitive state was one of universal warfare. This, like the former notion, is a great exaggeration.

Man in the most primitive and uncivilized state known to us does not practice war all the time; he dreads it; he might rather be described as a peaceful animal.

Real warfare comes with the collisions of more developed societies. If we turn to facts about the least civilized men we find proofs that they are not warlike and do not practice war if they can help it. The Australians have no idea Note.

Their fights do not lead to slaughter or spoils or other consequences of victory. Quarrels between tribes are sometimes settled by a single combat between chiefs. They have no political organization, so there can be no war for power. An Englishman who knew them well said that he knew of serious wounds, but he had known of but one death from their affrays.

We are told Edition: Perhaps the converse would be true: We are not astonished to hear that they develop excessive tyranny and cruelty to those who are weaker than themselves, especially to women, and even to their mothers. This is attributed in great part to head-hunting and cannibalism.

In general they know the limits of their own territory and observe them, but they quarrel about women. In one case only had he heard of war for any other reason; three brothers, Barolongs, fought over one woman, and their tribe had remained divided, up to the time of writing, into three parties.

During his residence in the Bechuana country he never saw unarmed men strike each other. They quarrel with words, but generally both parties burst into a laugh and that ends it. A Spanish priest, writing an account, inof the Aurohuacos of Colombia, 5 says that they have no weapons of offense or defense.

If two quarrel they go out to a big rock or tree and each with his staff beats the rock or tree with vituperations. The one whose staff breaks first is the victor; then they embrace and return home as friends.

Even our American Indians, who appear in Edition: Wampum strings and belts were associated with peace-pacts and with prayers for peace.

In contrast with these cases we find others of extreme warlikeness which account for the current idea that primitive men love war and practice it all the time. But if we examine the cases of peacefulness or unwarlike-hess which have been cited, we see that only two or three seem to present evidence of Arcadian peace and simplicity, such as, in the imagination of the eighteenth century philosophers, characterized men in a state of nature.

Probably if we had fuller knowledge these few instances would be much modified. What we see is that men have always quarreled. The cases which have been selected are some of them also those of people who have been defeated, broken, and cowed down.

Another set of examples consists of those in which abstinence from war is due to cowardice, and with it go the vices of cowardice — tyranny and cruelty to the weak.

These cases are calculated to delight the hearts of the advocates of strenuosity.

What our testimonies have in common is this:Autoethnography, is a form of qualitative research in which an author uses self-reflection and writing to explore anecdotal and personal experience and connect this autobiographical story to wider cultural, political, and social meanings and understandings.

Autoethnography is a self-reflective form of writing used across various disciplines such as communication studies, performance studies. I am not afraid to confess feeling swept, against my will, into the whirlpool of news coverage from Zuccotti Park.

To begin with, initial media reports on Occupy Wall Street seemed almost proudly negligent in their characterizations of protesters’ manifold and serious grievances with the state. Our essay topics have been closely modeled on those in the SAT. You can also do the essays given in the first section of each of the tests in the Official Study Guide..

Each of the topics consists of a prompt and an assignment. When I go online, I feel like one of B F Skinner’s white Carneaux pigeons.

Those pigeons spent the pivotal hours of their lives in boxes, obsessively pecking small pieces of Plexiglas. It is a pleasure to welcome you to our School which is at the forefront of teaching and research in the social sciences in Australia.

We have a team of dedicated academic and professional staff in the disciplines of Political Science, Criminology, Anthropology and Sociology as well as our allied research centres providing a dynamic and rewarding environment to further your studies.

Chris, this is a really moving account, especially when you talk about people repeating (and thus bodily engaging with) words they disagree with, while simultaneously physically indicating their disapproval.