Department of Anthropology

Abstract

I address a problem that demands the attention of social science researchers conducting ethnographic fieldwork: the unnoticed presence of ideologies in the conduct of inquiry. Building upon Peshkin's work on the role of subjectivity and his model of self-reflexivity in qualitative research, I examine how ubiquitous ideologies (naturalized, taken-for-granted, common sense notions) of language affected my research topic and methodology in profound ways while conducting fieldwork on Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, home of the Oglala Lakota people. I draw implications from this example to the pervasive problem of discovering "self-evident I-deologies" in fieldwork research.

Dr. Henne-Ochoa received his PhD in Educational Psychology from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2003. His dissersation was entitled Tongue-tied: Sociocultural change, language, and language ideology among the Oglala Lakota (Pine Ridge Sioux). He is currently a Research Associate in the Department of Psychology at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Prior to this, he was an Assistant Professor in the Education Department at Bucknell University, Lewisburg, PA. He recently moved to Bloomington where he is finishing several publications based on recent fieldwork at Pine Ridge, South Dakota.

Round Table Summary Statement

Reports from the Field: Lessons and Challenges of Contemporary Anthropological Fieldwork

A Round Table Series at the American Indian Studies Research Institute

This series of round table talks features conversations with contemporary fieldworkers of anthropology and related disciplines with an emphasis on the Americas. Anthropologists from all sub-fields have long histories and traditions of what constitutes fieldwork. However, the nature of "being in the field" has changed in the last decade. Fieldworkers are re-examining their own positionality, a process that may be unsettling while also offering the promise of a renewed relevance of Anthropology. This series is interested in the practical side of fieldwork in Anthropology that is useful to the needs, agendas, and self-perceptions of indigenous and local communities, while producing work that contributes to collaborations, and more generally testimonies of lessons and challenges from well-meaning practices of inclusive fieldwork.

Location: American Indian Studies Research Institute, 422 N. Indiana Ave.

Times: Every other Thursday, 3:00-4:00 pm, starting September 20, 2018