Fieldwork and research methodologies
- Introduction
- Staff
- Timetable
- Aims and intended learning outcomes
- Prescribed and recommended texts
- Assessment
Introduction
This course is designed to familiarise students with fieldwork techniques, and to offer training in collection and research methodologies. Through familiarising themselves with current and past critical resources, and by engagement in fieldwork exercises, students will gain competence in folklore collecting.
Students will select their own contributor(s) and document their traditions using audio and video recording, presenting their findings through full transcription, synopses and visual records (photographic stills and moving images). In addition to their transcriptions, students will submit notes on the content of their recordings, the conditions and setting of their interviews and provide relevant background material about their contributor(s).
Staff
Timetable
Two hours of seminar teaching each week except for weeks 8 and 10, when the class will consist of a 4 hour fieldtrip.
Aims and intended learning outcomes
·To survey the main research concepts, current issues and trends involved in modern folkloristics.
·To ensure students have a clear understanding of the major and minor genres as they impact on collected materials, and of the role of fieldworking in collecting in these genres.
·To introduce students to prominent Scottish tradition bearers and allow them the opportunity to reflect on the collecting process in co operation with these experts.
On completion of the course, students will be able to:
·Identify and explain the main research concepts, issues and trends which are involved in modern folkloristics.
·Explain the ways in which fieldwork can be used to conduct research in the major genres in folklore (including narrative, material culture, custom and belief)
·Identify appropriate methods for fieldworking within the major genres
·Comment on the ethical issues involved in fieldwork
·Collect items of folklore in an ethically responsible manner, document these items, present them both for archival purposes and within the context of their oral and written work
Prescribed and recommended texts
·Hamish Henderson Alias MacAlias (Edinburgh: Polygon, 1992)
·Valentina Bold, 'Ballad Raids and Spoilt Songs: Collection as Colonization', The Flowering Thorn ed Thomas A. McKean (Utah: Utah State University Press, 2003), pp.353-62).
·Richard Bauman et al, ?Methods of Research?, Part III of Handbook of American folklore, ed Richard M. Dorson (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1983), pp. 359-458
·Edward Ives, The tape-recorded interview: a manual for fieldworkers in folklore and oral history (Knoxville, University of Tennessee Press, 1995).
·Bruce Jackson, Fieldwork (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1987).
·Geraldine Lee-Treweek and Stephanie Linkogie, Danger in the Field. Risk and Ethics in Social Research (London: Routledge, 2000).
·Elizabeth C. Fine, The folklore text, from performance to print (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1994).
·Sharon Sherman, Documenting ourselves: film, video and culture (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1988).
·Ian Gregory, Ethics in Research (London: Continuum, 2003).
·Roger Homan, The ethics of Social Research (London: Longman, 1991).
·Selected articles from The Journal of American Folklore, Ethnos, Living Tradition, Tocher and Folklore.
Assessment
Oral presentation in Week 6
Written up presentation (in essay form) in Week 7
Project in Week 9
Project in final week
