Psychodynamic Ethnography

3 Credits · Level: Undergraduate

How to go about doing psychological anthropology in the field? Because psychological anthropology entails a close, intimate relationship with the ethnographer’s interlocutors, which is often not considered strictly necessary by other subfields of the discipline, it has also developed over the decades specific techniques to establish rapport, engage in conversation with interlocutors, and analyze the material obtained. The course will discuss the way in which psychological anthropologists have managed (or failed) to engage the subjectivity and the emotional world, both conscious and unconscious, of their interlocutors, as well as their own, during the ethnographic relation. The students will be required to complete two field exercises – an observational one, and an interviewing one – which are designed to have them face similar conundrums psychological anthropologists face in the beginning of their field expe