SAS at SfAA Call for Submissions: Cross-Cultural Research

[Toni Copeland]

SAS,

Ian Skoggard is calling for submissions to participate/present in a SAS/SCCR panel on cross-cultural research at SfAA. Anyone interested should email Ian Skoggard directly at ian.sk...@yale.edu by Oct. 7th.

Thanks!

SAS/SfAA Call For Papers—Cross-Cultural Research

Session Abstract:

Ethnography and ethnology represent two different orders of knowledge production. Ethnographic fieldwork is first-order knowledge production. The verity of fieldwork lies in its firsthand and deeply personal experience of a people living their lives. More than description, ethnography derives theories to help interpret and explain what is seen and experienced.  It is both the personal immersion in a society and scientific examination of that experience that constitutes the truth of ethnography. Subsequent ethnographic studies can further test existing theory as critique or refinement. Ethnology constitutes a second-order production of knowledge. Ethnology is research based on the study of more than one culture in order to produce a more generalizable theory about human behavior. Cross-cultural research is a subset of ethnology. Cross-cultural research is a specific ethnological practice in which ethnographic data is coded and scientifically tested, such as formulating and statistically testing hypotheses. The verity of cross-cultural research lies in both the ethnographic data and scientific methodology. Cross-cultural research allows scholars to test anthropological theory across many cultures. Also, its scientific basis creates a common ground with other science-based disciplines, allowing for an exchange of ideas and theory across disciplines. Cross-cultural studies have been used to account for the variation between cultures in godly beliefs, sharing behavior, romantic love, kinship structures, and warfare, among many others. In this panel we invite studies that use cross-cultural research databases and methodologies. We also invite papers that use new ethnographic data to critique or support theories generated by previous cross-cultural research studies. We also invite scholars that make novel use of the Human Relations Area Files (eHRAF World Cultures) in their research (or other databases such as the Database for Religious History or D-Place), including searches that capture complex behaviors and values in the corpus. We are particularly interested in student proposals that discuss their exploratory research and research plans. Finally, we accept any general theoretical discussion of cross-cultural research as a method of knowledge production.    

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Toni Copeland, Ph.D. 

Society for Anthropological Sciences, President

Blount Scholars Program / Department of Anthropology 

The University of Alabama