Anthropology Research Proposal

This 10- page long assignment (double-spaced, not counting the title and/or the cover page) should use either a narrative or an ethnographic approach to qualitative research. The fundamental question your essay should address is: Why do people have a habit of coming to this particular place, as opposed to another one? What do they do there, and how is this place meaningful to them? Although both narrative research and ethnography explore people’s experience with the place you selected, they do it in different ways: Narrative research: you will want to explore the experience and identity of a few individuals as it relates to their use of that place. Ethnography: you will want to describe and analyze the behavior, language, and general interaction of people at that place. The proposal should include (with separate headings): A research statement This should include a short description of the place you chose, a central research question, a discussion of the main assumptions associated with the proposed research, and a statement about why this research is significant in the field of sociology, psychology, and/or anthropology. Feel free to use elements of your first essay for this section of your proposal (make sure to take my feedback and comments into account!). This section of your proposal should be about 2 pages long. A literature review This should not only discusses the contribution of three peer-reviewed works to your research, but also the methodological strategy(ies) used by each author. Feel free to use elements of your second essay for this section of your proposal (make sure to take my comments into account!). This section of your proposal should be about 3 pages long. A comprehensive methodological section In this section you should explain, based on what you learned in this course, how you will go about answering your central research question. This section will vary depending on whether you choose to conduct a narrative or an ethnographic study. You need to describe and explain who you intend to meet and how, the interview questions you will ask, the observations you will make (when, and how) and the participant observation strategies you intend to use. In short, you need to explain how you will collect qualitative data and how you intend to analyze it. This section of your proposal should be 4 pages long. An interview guide This should list ten questions you would like to ask your informants. You should also provide an explanation of why you chose these questions and how you ordered them. Use sections 8-9 of the documentary Doing Sociological Research to build your interview guide. For example, start with general questions and proceed to more specific ones. Also, use open-ended questions (questions that cannot be answered by ‘yes’ or ‘no’) in order to encourage interviewees to share as much information as possible. This section of your proposal should be 1 page long.