Create a new account

It's simple, and free.

Ilongot Headhunting

This study will examine Renato Rosaldo's Ilongot Headhunting, 1883-1974, focusing on Rosaldo's point of view on the subject and the role of that perspective on the material in the book. The study will argue that Rosaldo's sympathetic attitude toward the people in his research affects the work in positive ways. Ethnographic research carried out over a lengthy period of time inevitably includes biases on the part of any author. The question is not whether there is a bias, but whether the author is aware of that bias and remains conscious of it in order to try to keep it from distorting that research or the findings, Rosaldo is aware of his sympathy for the people, and, in fact, immediately acknowledges it in the first words of the book:

I am most indebted to my Ilongot friends and companions whose names (pseudonyms, for obvious reasons) appear in this book. It has been a pleasure to recollect our conversations and days of walking together along the trails (v).

The debate in ethnographical studies continues over researcher bias. It is the opinion here that the ethnographer should be personally involved in his subjects' lives in order to not only deepen his research but also to prevent their becoming mere statistics for objective analysis.

Rosaldo makes the important point that only by seeing the subjects in a particular study as unique can the ethnographer come to a meaningful and effective conclusion with respect to which methods and concepts should be used in that specific work. In fact, the point is made that to apply inappropriate concepts to a study of such a group as the Ilongots is itself a bias which is clearly counter-productive in terms of understanding the people.

For example, the author warns of the "weaknesses of synchronic studies in anthropology" and the impossibility of trying "to fit the results of our investigation into the classic ethnographic mold." He adds that in studies such as that of the Ilongot...

Page 1 of 6 Next >

More on Ilongot Headhunting...

Loading...
APA     MLA     Chicago
Ilongot Headhunting. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 16:32, March 28, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1690730.html