Between survey research and participant observation: Identity and methodological ruptures in Polish ethnology /cultural anthropology in the 21st century Cover Image

Między survey research a obserwacją uczestniczącą: rozdarcia metodologiczno-tożsamościowe w polskiej etnologii/antropologii kulturowej w XXI wieku
Between survey research and participant observation: Identity and methodological ruptures in Polish ethnology /cultural anthropology in the 21st century

Author(s): Łukasz Kaczmarek
Subject(s): Anthropology
Published by: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego
Keywords: ethnography; survey; fieldwork; participant observation; questionnaire

Summary/Abstract: Polish ethnology undergoes persistent transformation as a result of theoretical, methodological and epistemological influences from world anthropologies. While in theory it has substantially shifted towards the main stream socio-cultural anthropology, many Polish ethnologists still cultivate formalised methodological approaches developed in the first half of 20th century in Poland, symbolised by a survey. Ethnography understood as an endeavour to obtain an insight into a people’s culture, largely by means of long-lasting participant observation and deep hanging out still struggles for recognition as “scientific enough” while survey approach described in a formalised and quasi-quantitative way dominates students’ training and successful research grants applications. Such a situation highlights the rupture in the identities of Polish ethnographers who feel that discrimination of a participant observation by their own colleagues hinders their struggle to make anthropology an autonomous and publicly recognised discipline in Poland

  • Issue Year: 2016
  • Issue No: 2
  • Page Range: 123-136
  • Page Count: 14
  • Language: Polish