Performing ethnographic fieldwork can be challenging, especially when it comes to building rapport with your subjects. Often times the subjects of the research may feel intimidated, judged or like they won’t be understood when being interviewed. In order to get the best results from their research, fieldworkers need to make sure their subjects feel comfortable in sharing all aspects of their life in regards to what they are studying. Anne Fadiman and Joshua Reno both work to build relationships with the people they study through participant observation to gain trust and get an inside look into their social and cultural worlds. In the text The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, Anne Fadiman uses a qualitative method in order to
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Getting a first-person, emic perspective on the Lee family not only advanced her research but also made the family feel more comfortable in sharing their experiences. Throughout the book, there was some ethnocentrism among the doctors. The doctors treating Lia believed their Western medicine was superior to the Hmong way of curing diseases through their rituals. They put very little consideration into their culture and didn’t take the time to try to understand it. In the hospitals, many stereotypes were put in place regarding the Hmong, including just referring to them as a “Hmong patient” rather than by their actual name. Fadiman recalls that ever since the Lee family arrived in the United States, they “had been meeting Americans who, whether because of their education, their knowledge of English, or their positions of relative authority, had made them feel as if their family didn’t count for much” (Fadiman 96). And although one can argue there was some ethnocentrism among the Hmong by them not trying to understand Western medicine, it is undoubtedly the doctor’s job to understand and get to know their patients. Taking all of this into consideration, Anne Fadiman was determined to look deeper into the Lee family and their culture in order to get a better understanding as to how they felt and to prove that someone does care and is interested in their …show more content…
Fadiman had spent hundreds of hours in Lee’s apartment trying to get as much information as she could. But, by no means was this task easy, Fadiman writes, “Meeting a Hmong is like getting into a speakeasy: everything depends on who sent you” (Fadiman 97). Not only was it difficult to meet with them, but there were a lot of cultural rules Fadiman had to work with in order to be as respectful as possible. Before meeting the family, Fadiman spoke with other anthropologist and was told “Don’t raise your voice. Take off your shoes. Don’t offer to shake hands with a man or people will think you’re a whore”, all of which may be uncommon in the American culture (Fadiman 93). She was able to meet the Lee family through an arrangement done by Blia Yao Moua, a Hmong leader, and by bringing a cultural broker, May Ying. With a language barrier in place, and Foua and Nao Kao not being able to read or write in any language, things were certainly challenging for Fadiman. Luckily she was able to overcome these challenges through the cultural broker, building rapport, and with the permission of the Lee family to record their
Getting a first-person, emic perspective on the Lee family not only advanced her research but also made the family feel more comfortable in sharing their experiences. Throughout the book, there was some ethnocentrism among the doctors. The doctors treating Lia believed their Western medicine was superior to the Hmong way of curing diseases through their rituals. They put very little consideration into their culture and didn’t take the time to try to understand it. In the hospitals, many stereotypes were put in place regarding the Hmong, including just referring to them as a “Hmong patient” rather than by their actual name. Fadiman recalls that ever since the Lee family arrived in the United States, they “had been meeting Americans who, whether because of their education, their knowledge of English, or their positions of relative authority, had made them feel as if their family didn’t count for much” (Fadiman 96). And although one can argue there was some ethnocentrism among the Hmong by them not trying to understand Western medicine, it is undoubtedly the doctor’s job to understand and get to know their patients. Taking all of this into consideration, Anne Fadiman was determined to look deeper into the Lee family and their culture in order to get a better understanding as to how they felt and to prove that someone does care and is interested in their …show more content…
Fadiman had spent hundreds of hours in Lee’s apartment trying to get as much information as she could. But, by no means was this task easy, Fadiman writes, “Meeting a Hmong is like getting into a speakeasy: everything depends on who sent you” (Fadiman 97). Not only was it difficult to meet with them, but there were a lot of cultural rules Fadiman had to work with in order to be as respectful as possible. Before meeting the family, Fadiman spoke with other anthropologist and was told “Don’t raise your voice. Take off your shoes. Don’t offer to shake hands with a man or people will think you’re a whore”, all of which may be uncommon in the American culture (Fadiman 93). She was able to meet the Lee family through an arrangement done by Blia Yao Moua, a Hmong leader, and by bringing a cultural broker, May Ying. With a language barrier in place, and Foua and Nao Kao not being able to read or write in any language, things were certainly challenging for Fadiman. Luckily she was able to overcome these challenges through the cultural broker, building rapport, and with the permission of the Lee family to record their