“B.A.T.A.M” is an ethnographic film produced by Johan Lindquist. It presents stories of two women who live on the Indonesian island of Batam. Wati, one of the major participants of the interview is a young female factory worker. Another major participant, Dewi, who came from Java and used to work in an electronic factory, is currently working as a prostitute. The film primarily shows how the “multinational capitalism and migration interact in the shadowlands of globalization”. In my analysis, I will mainly dress on the critique of the film in terms of both the quality and the ethical aspects of the film as an ethnographical film. An ethnographic study aims to explore and analyze a particular group of people’s social practices, and establishes a detailed description of how that particular social group operates, based on the observation of, and usually the participation in, that certain group. The study is usually helped by the interviews and data collecting through the use of camera recordings. The ethnographic film is a method or a way of documenting and gathering the ethnographic data in the field work. It is also a medium, adopted by the ethnographer, to broadcast or convey the ethnographic findings or knowledge with the aim to present an interpretation of a certain social phenomenon or cultural understandings. (Yoshimizu, 2014). During the interview with Wati and Dewi, there are no interactions between the participants and researcher. Researcher neither asks questions nor provides responds to the participants’ views. In this process, researcher does not attempt to direct or restrict the topic. Instead, researcher allows the participants to freely sharing their views and stories in a natural way, following their own intenti... ... middle of paper ... ...o audience who watch the film. In this respect, the outcomes of the research are not authentic and convincing. The discussion made by those people who are willing to reveal the “reality” is made with a purpose. They are taking advantage of this powerful medium to reveal the potential problems and concerns of the society, and express their own perspectives and understandings of their own culture and life. Therefore, there may be biased or radical comments which influence the validity of the research. The point is that researchers themselves fully understand the purpose of their study. However, some participants such as those people who were randomly interviewed on the street didn’t quite understand the aim of their study. Therefore, their answers may not completely fulfill the research purpose, and this may also mislead the research, thus producing useless outcomes.
Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing’s book In the Realm of the Diamond Queen examines the Meratus Dayaks, who position themselves in the Southern part of Indonesia. She examines the way in which this particular group is marginalized and in some ways exploited. Through this ethnographic work, Tsing is able to provide a very interesting insight on this particular culture grou...
Murchison, Julian. Ethnography Essentials: Designing, Conducting, and Presenting Your Research. John Wiley and Sons, 2010.
According to Ruby’s book, film can be used a research tool. Visually experiencing something gives us a greater understanding of it, rather than just reading or hearing about it. Ruby expresses the idea that film makers looking to make a visual ethnography have a lot of responsibility to the culture they are sharing so as to give them fair and accurate representation, free from artistic molding or outside influences. They should not highlight the differences in culture, but merely document it in true form. We have studied many people that have made contributions to ethnography such as Robert Flaherty, Timothy Asch and Jean Rouch. An anthropologist that is currently still making major a contribution to this field is Robert Lemelson.
Philosophy questions many ideas or statements. For example, the Examined Life asks, does life have meaning? This idea was analyzed, experienced, questioned, discussed and concluded in many different ways. There was a common thread between the Philosophy film, the Apology, our class discussions and the video, Examined life. We often ask ourselves, are we obligated to other people?
The evolution of film technology, has given anthropologists the ability to employ films to present ethnographic data. Although this privilege has contributed immensely to the collection of anthropological knowledge we have today, it has increased the issues with regards to misinterpretation. Both films expose the fact that it is common for an untrained individual to misinterpret the epistemological assumptions made by the films’ authors and that, frequently, a sense of cultural superiority can form. In many cases, anthropological films may authorize uncertainties with regards to the other. Additionally, they may, unintentionally, confirm negative stereotypes or expectations that other media has implanted into the minds of the untrained student. Because of the presence of an incongruity between the filmmaker and the audience, studying the factors that contribute to the contradictions would be advantageous.
Participant observation is a method of collecting information and data about a culture and is carried out by the researcher immersing themselves in the culture they observing. The researcher becomes known in the community, getting to know and understand the culture in a more intimate and detailed way than would be possible from any other approach. This is done by observing and participating in the community’s daily activities. The method is so effective because the researcher is able to directly approach the people in the community in a natural context as opposed to taking the participant out of their environment. The aim of participant observation is to gain an understanding the subject’s life from their perspective, with the purpose of collecting more detailed information about a community’s habits, opinions, relationships and issues.
Ethnography is a research method used to explore different cultures from a personal view. Many anthropologists have sought to use ethnography as their main study method because of its specificity and opportunity to get hands on. Those that participate in ethnographies are expected to accurately record detailed accounts of the society in which they are staying, but at the same time maintain a critical distance.
Spradley, J. P. & McCurdy, D. W. (1972). The Cultural Experience: Ethnography in a Complex Society. Chicago: Science Research Associates.
I emphasize here the collusion between all parties involved, for it is important to recognize the ways in which informmants are also actors and agents, and that the negotiation of reality that takes place in the doing of ethnography involves complex and shifting relations of power in which the ethnographrapher acts and is also acted upon. (Kondo 75)
The research is not without its limitations. One of the challenges that would be faced would be establishing the accuracy and bias in the various answers given by respondents. Some of the information may be dishonest, biased and unclear. This would render the report unreliable.
In this case the method used is qualitative research as qualitative techniques such as participant observation and ethnography have been used. Qualitative techniques are used when researcher conducts his observation based on words rather than numbers as it focuses more on interviews and group discussions. Even though this form of research provides an in depth analysis into the topping of discussion, it has certain disadvantages too, It has been criticized to be too subjective and are base...
Tradition represents an integral component of one's cultural identity, and this is especially so in this rapidly changing world which we live in, where the boundaries between different cultures are increasingly being blurred and distorted by the process of globalisation. While traditions do define the beliefs, practices and collective experiences of a people, the continued existence of certain socio-cultural institutions in which discriminatory and repressive measures still persist cannot be condoned. It is this very dimension that Pramoedya addresses in his short story, "Inem": The narrator's reminiscences of his childhood perform a serious social commentary and incisive social critique of various repressive traditional institutions in Indonesian society, such as the practice of child-brides (i.e. the forced socialisation of children), as well as the intransigent nature of prevailing patriarchal attitudes towards women and subsequent treatment they receive in the author's socio-cultural milieu. The story achieves, albeit subtly, a powerful condemnation of these facets, which is presented artfully through a duality in the narration - a child's naïve perspective and circumscribed knowledge to describe the course of events as they happened, alongside the mature, retrospective voice, which also provides a highly mimetic depiction of life in this society.
This documentary film is about a scientist named Mark Plotkinraces against time to save the ancient healing knowledge of Indian tribes from extinction. These Indian tribes had very interesting ways to survive. I know myself as a person living in the United States living in a nice apartment and having medicines right at hand, these people are truly amazing. They have figured out what plants can do in medicine. Now, it is used in our modern medicine, and these Indian tribes are learning more and more what certain plants and mixture can do. For an example they even use multiple plants to produce insulin by hand for diabetes. This scientist is putting himself in their lives to learn their way of life, their culture, their society. This would be an example in the anthropology subfield for cultural anthropology. Scientists Mark Plotkinraces in my opinion would be considered an ethnographer. He uses the scientific method for his findings. Also, mentioned that usually this data is used to make film to inform people of this interesting way of life, and all of us are different in our own cultures and as
In conclusion, ethnographic fieldwork makes cultural anthropology unique as compared to another discipline. It defines cultural anthropology as holism in that is it studies the holistic behaviour of humans and how they interrelate with certain events. The study takes the form of observation by participation and cross-cultural
The purpose of their research is to acquire ethnography data. They anthropologist obtaining qualitative data and observing how the people they are researching are living and their day -to-day activities. Some of their methodology includes participant observations in which the anthropologist is involved in the day-to-day activities to observe from first-hand experience of how the people live.