The personal approach in cultural anthropology, self-consciously and deliberately undertaken, perceives value in the unique combination of interests, personal values, theoretical orientation, imagination, sensitivity, and other idiosyncratic qualities embodied in a particular competent investigator or team of investigators. Because of the uniqueness of the factors through which the personal approach yields knowledge, the approach is not easily taught, and the conclusions it reaches are incapable of being fully tested for their reliability. The credibility of the conclusions reached by that approach depends heavily on the cogency, consistency, logic, and persuasiveness with which they are argued and presented. From the time description is begun, through subsequent analysis of data, to the final presentation of conclusions, idiosyncratic factors enter research undertaken by the personal approach because of the nonstandardized vantage point from which the events are observed. Considering the very substantial part played by the personal qualities of the observer when knowledge is produced by this route, accuracy of conclusions cannot be equated with one-to-one faithfulness to independently existing facts. The personal approach has been more often utilized in ethnography and ethnology than in archeology and is most appropriate for research whose goal is historical narration, depicting a way of life, the interpretation of meaning, or tracing relationships between cultural patterns. The credibility of knowledge obtained through the approach is no more unstable than that of knowledge founded on the objective method; all knowledge is constantly being upset as new evidence, new techniques, new standards, or new theories are brought to bear on a topic.

Previous articleNext article No AccessDiscussion and CriticismOn the Positivistic Method in Anthropological ResearchTheodore Papadopoullos and John J. HonigmannTheodore Papadopoullos Search for more articles by this author and John J. Honigmann Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmailPrint SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Current Anthropology Volume 17, Number 3Sep., 1976 Sponsored by the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/201784 Views: 4Total views on this site Copyright 1976 The Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological ResearPDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

American AnthropologistVolume 77, Issue 3 p. 654-654 Free Access Ethnology:The Hidden Frontier: Ecology and Ethnicity in an Alpine Village. JOHN W. COLE and ERIC R. WOLF JOHN J. HONIGMANN, JOHN J. HONIGMANN University of North CarolinaSearch for more papers by this author JOHN J. HONIGMANN, JOHN J. HONIGMANN University of North CarolinaSearch for more papers by this author First published: September 1975 https://doi.org/10.1525/aa.1975.77.3.02a00560AboutPDF ToolsExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL No abstract is available for this article. Volume77, Issue3September 1975Pages 654-654 RelatedInformation

Book reviewed in this article: Ethnology: The Middle Ground: Social Change in an Arctic Community, 1967–1971. JOEL S. SAVISHINSKY and SUSAN B. FRIMMER . Ethnology: Leadership Among the Southwestern Ojibwa . JAMES G. E. SMITH.

American AnthropologistVolume 75, Issue 2 p. 601-601 Free Access ARCTIC TOWNSMEN is by Two Authors John J. Honigmann, John J. Honigmann University of North Carolina, Chapel HillSearch for more papers by this author John J. Honigmann, John J. Honigmann University of North Carolina, Chapel HillSearch for more papers by this author First published: April 1973 https://doi.org/10.1525/aa.1973.75.2.02a01730AboutPDF ToolsExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat No abstract is available for this article. Volume75, Issue2April 1973Pages 601-601 RelatedInformation

THE CONDITIONS OF SOCIAL PERFORMANCE: AN EXPLORATORY THEORY. By Cyril S. Belshaw. New York: Schocken Books, 1970. 115 pp. $4.95 Get access John J. Honigmann John J. Honigmann University of North CarolinaChapel Hill Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Social Forces, Volume 51, Issue 3, March 1973, Pages 373–374, https://doi.org/10.1093/sf/51.3.373-a Published: 01 March 1973

American AnthropologistVolume 74, Issue 1-2 p. 6-6 Free Access General and Theoretical: A Hundred Years of Anthropology. T.K. PENNIMAN JOHN HONIGMANN, JOHN HONIGMANN University of North CarolinaSearch for more papers by this author JOHN HONIGMANN, JOHN HONIGMANN University of North CarolinaSearch for more papers by this author First published: February‐April 1972 https://doi.org/10.1525/aa.1972.74.1-2.02a00070AboutPDF ToolsExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat No abstract is available for this article. Volume74, Issue1-2February‐April 1972Pages 6-6 RelatedInformation

Most of the papers contributed to the symposium and reported on in this issue testify to the interest that North American anthropologists have been taking in Central European studies. It seems like a good time to reflect on the character of the approach that is being taken toward one segment of Central European ethnography, the Alpine region, by us and by some of our European colleagues, like Gerald Berthoud. My paper, which is in the nature of a discussion of the symposiasts' contributions, will also be devoted to pointing out directions that have been popular in Alpine studies, particularly as they show up in this symposium though I will also note one or two possible research topics that have been little exploited in this part of Europe. The symposiasts reiterate several themes which reveal the way Alpine ethnographers have tended to perceive communities in that region. Clearly anthropologists have given the bulk of their attention to the people who work the land, rather than to the increasing number of individuals engaged in service occupations or employed in factories and offices. No doubt such emphasis is largely due to the anthropologists' preference for rural cultures; despite recognizing a subfield of urban anthropology, we still frequently leave field study of the urban or actively urbanizing scene to sociologists. The choice of specializing on rural culture may be due to the greater ease of carrying on the personalized method of anthropology in comparatively small villages or rural communities.

RELIGION AND THE TRANSFORMATION OF SOCIETY: A STUDY IN SOCIAL CHANGE IN AFRICA. By Monica Wilson. Cambridge: The University Press, 1971. 165 pp. $6.00 Get access John J. Honigmann John J. Honigmann University of North CarolinaChapel Hill Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Social Forces, Volume 51, Issue 2, December 1972, Page 246, https://doi.org/10.1093/sf/51.2.246 Published: 01 December 1972

A visitor to Inuvik driving or walking through the West End where 1,100 people live, including the overwhelming proportion of the native population, will see few familiar symbols of Indian or Eskimo life, nor will the Metis be conspicuous. The reason is that many cultural uniformities link the East End of Inuvik, where about 1,300 overwhelmingly non-native civil servants and their families live, with the predominantly native West End. For example, English is the town's nearly universal language; families use many of the same foods, buying them at the store and cooking them in the same way. Homes are furnished according to the same familiar pattern. Yet on closer acquaintance the town reveals two contrasting ways of life. The civil servants in their East End apartments or private houses fully exemplify middle class, or mainstream, North American culture. The ease with which they have transplanted that culture practically intact above the Arctic Circle owes much to the modern fully serviced housing and accompanying amenities which the government provides and subsidizes for their use. Meanwhile another style of life bearing different emphases is practised by the people of native background.

Journal Article BIG MEN AND CARGO CULTS. By Glynn Cochrane. Oxford: Clarendon, 1970. 187 pp Get access John J. Honigmann John J. Honigmann University of North CarolinaChapel Hill Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Social Forces, Volume 49, Issue 4, June 1971, Page 651, https://doi.org/10.1093/sf/49.4.651 Published: 01 June 1971