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ISSN 2084–1418
The paper edition of the Anthropology of History Yearbook is the definitive version

2015, No. (8), Anthropology and History

Agnieszka Halemba
An archive found in a garage: an anthropologist and a document

PDF version
Keywords: research methods, participatory observation, archive, Siberia, Ukraine, documents

Abstract:
Researchers from humanities and social sciences academic disciplines often explicitly acknowledge diversity of methods and types of data used during a given research process. However, when anthropologists, historians or sociologists talk about archival work, participant observation or analysis of cultural texts, do they really talk about the same research methods? Despite prominence of a discourse of multi-, inter or trans-disciplinarity, academic training is still conducted largely within disciplinary boundaries, with particular attention given to development of one or two principal research methods that require acquisition of specific research skills and sensitivities. In a case of anthropology, field research with participant observation is the principal research method; while for history the same can be said about work with archival documents. Moreover, those principal research methods shape researcher’s attitudes towards other types of sources and methods. On the basis of an analysis of two cases (from Altai and Transcarpathia), concerning a significance of encountering written documents in the field, the author shows how reliance on a particular research method can raise concerns and doubts with regard to other type of sources and research procedures.

About Author:
HALEMBA AGNIESZKA - cultural anthropologist, Assistant Professor in the Institute of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology of the University of Warsaw. Email: a.halemba[at]uw.edu.pl

References
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