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ББК Т3(2Р-4Т)
ETHNOGRAPHY: THE CODE OF THE ANALYSIS FROM THE POINT OF VIEW OF SCIENTIFIC STUDIES
G.P. Pirozhkov
Department of “History and Philosophy ”, TSTU
Represented by professor A.A. Slezin and a member of the editorial board professor V.I. Konovalov
Key words and phrases: ethnography; informatization; information
institutions; the mathematization of sciences; scientific studies; a scientific and educational discipline.
Abstract: The programme of the analysis of ethnography as a scientific and educational discipline from the point of view of scientific studies is examined in the article for the first time, the definition of ethnography is given.
Science as an integrated phenomenon emerges at the New time as a result of the separation from Philosophy, it passes several stages, at each of which the corresponding ideals, norms and methods of the scientific research are formulated, a definite style of thought is formed as well as a peculiar conceptual apparatus and etc. In the XVIII - the first half of the XIX century all main branches of the modern scientific knowledge isolated from Philosophy. Ethnography of that time represented a branch of the human activity, connected with the scientific study of the concrete part of the country; it can also be examined as a scientific problem, actively acquiring the corresponding characteristics of a scientific discipline. Due to the complexity of its knowledge ethnography actively cooperated with other sciences. From the second half of the XIX century the process of the study of ethnography was carried out within the limits of Motherland studies at first, then within the problematic area of the Arts (History, Geography and others). The problems examined from the point of view of scientific studies of that time were among those of, first of all, Philosophy, History, Social science, Psychology and others, though the subject of the research of scientists was more often Elementary science and technics. On the whole such a method of the study of ethnography was typical for the period, when it played a rather small role in the life of the society, and its social effect was not big. With the increase of the social and, first of all, economical effect of the ethnographic science, the intensive process of the development of the “organism” of ethnography begins, and together with it the need of the special study of ethnography as science, various aspects of its contents becomes actual in the interests of the optimization of its use by the society. This happened against the background of the development of scientific studies [3].
The need of the study of the theory and practice of ethnography becomes greater in the 1920-s. The characteristical feature of this stage of the study of ethnography as science was the peculiarity of conditions, in which it was developed, - the Soviet state in the 1920-s put a question about the important role of ethnography in the solution of political problems, about the participation of ethnographers in the socialistic
construction. That’s why the search from the point of view of scientific studies included the fixation of external properties rather than the characteristics of the contents of the science, what could have allowed to find out the qualitative precision of the object of the scientific research itself in the sphere of ethnography. The historical, philosophical, sociological aspects of ethnography weren’t practically studied. In the 1930-s ethnography was used by the authorities as one of the means of the cultural and ideological frame of the Soviet regime, it was a mechanism of the mass communistic indoctrination [10]. The study of separate parts of the country turned out to be the activity of a small group of people who were, on the whole, far from the classical science but belonged to the regime. After the Second World War the analysis of ethnography from the point of view of scientific studies was not carried out either. We can notice some scientific interest to ethnography only at the beginning of the 1960-s. At this time the first generalizing scientific works (the USA, the USSR and others), in which an effort to consider the modern science as an integrated system was made, were published. That’s why the scientific publications (first of all, in a province), in which various aspects of the organization of science, its aim, forms and methods of the research, the source base were analyzed and a critical review of the ethnographic policy and etc. was given, appeared in ethnography. However ethnography was not represented in the “field” of scientific studies, the external limits of which were Economical sciences, Sociology, History, Cybernetics, Informatics and others, at this time either. There was not ethnography in the lists of branches of scientific studies either.
From the end of the XX century ethnography as a scientific and educational discipline saw a rise. The modern ethnography greatly differs from ethnography of the previous years by some peculiarities and, first of all, its increased role in the life of the society. Today ethnography is: 1) science about the ethnographic activity, having a long history, big theoretical contents, methodology, a wide conceptual and terminological apparatus (terminology system), a wide sphere of the practical appliance and other features, which are typical for other disciplines; 2) a complex of scientific disciplines, different according to their contents and private methods of research, but leading on the whole to the scientific and versatile study of the region (A.S. Barkov); 3) ethnography as a sphere of knowledge characterizes the life activity of a person on his land, in time and space; as a pedagogical category - a mechanism of the passing of the adaptation experience from a generation to a generation; 4) any activity concerning the study of a definite place for the purpose of the solution of scientific, production, self-educational tasks, carried out by both local and central state, economical organizations, scientific institutions, public organizations, individual persons (I.I. Michlina). The comprising parts of ethnography:
- due to the social (public) functions: scientific (research), production
(economical), educational (bringing up), cognitive (self-educational), monuments protecting and others;
- due to the thematic needs, i.e. according to the inclusive aspect: geographical, literary, economical, historical, church and monastery, historical and pedagogical, linguistic, historical and cultural and other directions of ethnography (according to S.O. Schmidt “special branches”);
- due to the organizational and channel principle: school, higher educational, library, bibliographic, archival, museum and other spheres of ethnographic activity. In educational institutions ethnography has a subjective aim (elementary scientific, historical and literary, economical, art studying and others) and includes two types: educational and out-of-class (out-of-school, out-of-room).
The metasystem (N.N. Scherba), the part of ethnography and at the same time its direction (I.I. Michlina) is library and bibliographic ethnography, providing all kinds, forms and directions of the ethnographic activity with the primary and secondary information.
A synonym in ethnography is regional studies.
Now ethnography gives great impulses to the public and technical progress, influences all spheres of the public life, and its results and achievements define the opportunities of the accelerated economical and cultural development of the country. There are no doubts about the close connections of ethnography with the general and culturological education, the adaptation of young generations to the modern quickly changing economical, political and culturological, ecological conditions [2]. All this makes actual the examination of ethnography from the point of view of scientific studies.
As science of science has two aspects - formal (metascientific) and inclusive (philosophical, economical, political, sociological, ethical, cultural, physiological, psychological, historical and etc.), it is important to pay attention to the study of the structure of the ethnographic science. We think that at the stage of external properties and its contents, the examination of ethnography as a combination of sciences must be prevailing in the cognition of ethnography. That’s why the scientific approach to ethnography requires finding out everything general what there is in the development of sciences, interrelations between natural, humanitarian sciences, ethnography, technics and production. This concept will allow to underline the general features in the structure of the object (objects) of ethnography itself and, in this way, in the character of connections between its components, its various branches. It will help to find an approach to the definition of the contents of ethnography through the tasks of the theoretical ethnography.
We must mention the following tasks of the study of ethnography: the general regularities and concrete forms of functioning and development; the subject of the examination; a way and means of functioning; the definition of the role and a place in the system of sciences; connections with other sciences; the dependence of the aim and tempo of the development on public phenomena and institutions. The enumerated problems were identified in the ethnographic literature somehow at various periods. However the time has come when it is necessary to set a problem about the wide comprehension of the theoretical principles of the organization, planning and control of ethnography. We think that, studying the laws of the development of the ethnographic science, it is necessary to approach to it paying attention to the important methodological principle - ethnography today is a specific public phenomenon, a really existing process, developing with the time.
The development of ethnography in Russia, Ukraine, Bellorussia proves that: the ethnographic science today is both a creative activity concerning the getting of new knowledge and the result of this activity - the aggregate of knowledge (mostly in the conceptual form), put into the integrated system on the basis of definite principles, and the process of their use. The main sides of the existence of ethnography as science are also a social institute with all its infrastructure: the organization of science, scientific institutions and etc.; the ethos of science; the unions of researchers; resources, finances, the scientific equipment and tackle; the system of the scientific ethnographic information; various types of ethnographers’ communication and etc.; and a specific branch of the human activity, and an important element (side) of culture.
There is one more important nuance. It would be a mistake to consider the contents only as the theoretical study of its object (objects) in the scientific examination of ethnography. It will lead to the underestimation of the specific contents of the applied ethnography, which in this case, will represent the tasks of the general and theoretical ethnography. The problem is to give a more accurate and strict theory of the object (objects) and the subject, examined by ethnography.
The scientific cognition is an integrated developing system, having a rather complicated structure, which represents the union of stable interrelations between the
elements of this system. The structure of the scientific cognition can be represented in various spheres and correspondingly - in the aggregate of its specific elements. There are elements in the structure of the ethnographic scientific knowledge (like of any other), which contradict to the traditional concept of scientific thought: philosophical, religious, mysterious ideas; intellectual habits, which are out the reach of verbalization and reflection; social and psychological stereotypes, interests and needs; definite conventions, metaphors, contradictions and paradoxes; the signs of individual preferences and antipathies, habits, mistakes and etc. Paying attention to such elements, V.I. Vernadsky pointed out that “there is one basic phenomenon which defines the scientific thought...-this is the general compulsiveness and undoubtedness of the right scientific deductions, scientific statements, concepts, conclusions.” Science differs from any other knowledge and the spiritual exposition of a person by this. Examining the structure of the scientific knowledge, V.I. Vernadsky thought that “the sides of the scientific knowledge - integrated science - are in the process of the great development, and the sphere, covered by them, is expanding more and more”, the scientific apparatus of facts and generalizations constantly grows, an alive, dynamic process of such an existence of science, binding the past with the present, is reflected in the chaotic way in the sphere of the human life, and is the power, transforming biosphere into noosphere -the sphere of the human mind [1, p. 400,428]. All statements of a great thinker can be fully applied to the ethnographic science, which was created and develops “armed” by the integrated science; its scientific apparatus actively develops; it binds the past and the present of the human society. So it is doubtless that ethnography is science, including together with the true knowledge false knowledge, but received with the help of scientific means, having a hard nucleus of science - a true, reliable layer of knowledge, having History, Social science, Management and others.
From the end of the 1980-s in the conditions of the great interest of researchers to the general and theoretical problems of ethnography, its scientific methodics, the contents of the ethnographic movement, the emergence of new branches of the ethnographic knowledge at the juncture with other scientific disciplines, the renewal of the study of those themes which had been forbidden before and the emergence of new branches of ethnography, the change of the paradigm of ethnography began gradually, and it was stipulated by the increasing role of the importance of information in the life of the society - informatization. In these conditions there was a problem of the examination of actively studied questions, connected with informatization from the point of view of ethnography. The demand to pay more attention not to a document but to information itself (“ethnographic document”, “ethnographic information”), of course, concerns ethnography. The development of the science about control systems and, on the whole, cybernetics, gave rise to the study of nature and the essence of information processes first of all. This concerns a local level as well. There is also what to think of here on the part of ethnographers. There are new approaches to the examination of the nature of information. For example, the problem of the “hermeneutical circle” in the comprehension of the nature of information [5, p. 3-25]. Some ethnographers supported the main statements of such an approach [12, p. 25-30]. Thinking about ethnography in the conditions of informatization, we state: as its main neighbouring disciplines -library studies, archival studies, museum studies and others - assimilated the ideas of fundamental informatics more and more, the ethnographic science begins using many information technologies of neighbouring sciences more and more actively. In the 1990-s there were the signs of the transfer to a new -information- paradigm in ethnography.
Slow tempos of the penetration of ethnography into the modern information field are stipulated mainly by the ill preparation of the ethnographic community for the quick perception of the realities of the information society. In these conditions the problem of
the formation of an ethnographer’s information culture, which depends on such factors as professional and non-professional aims and motives of the use of the ethnographic documental information, age and etc., arose. The needs of the ethnographic information are a special kind of information needs. Various categories of information users have them. Ethnographic bibliography takes an important place in the formation of an ethnographer’s culture [7].
From the end of the XX century a whole complex of ethnographic disciplines began to appear. The general theory of these disciplines represents just what must unite them. The research of the ethnographic problems is a specific task, which can be carried out within the limits of the corresponding scientific discipline - the theory of ethnography. The theoretical publications in the sphere of ethnography will be important for the development of ethnography.
In the modern scientific research the role of the systematic approach and of the use of systematic methods in the most difficult problems of the history and the organization of the science increases. The apprehension of ethnography as a system implies the ideas of the complexity of the integration of theoretical and applied aspects of this science, and also reflects the internal scientific and social character in this system of information. It is important to point out here the organic connection of the systematic approach to the analysis of ethnography with other methods of the scientific research.
We can consider as proved the fact that sciences have such principal stages of the development as descriptive, logical and analytical, at which the qualitative analysis of the studied object is carried out from the point of view of these or those methodological positions, and the highest stage - the stage of the harmonic integrity of qualitative and quantitative methods of the scientific research. Science itself begins with this urgent stage of the development of complex methods of the research - in this case - the ethnographic science, including, due to the complexity of its knowledge, natural, technical, public and other data, actively using methods of various sciences, what is caused by the fact that ethnography is at the juncture of natural, technical and public sciences. The modern ethnography, going away from the descriptive level of the research, craves for the analysis of the real reasons of the public and scientific and technical progress and tries to give the scientific explanation to the studied phenomena and processes on this base.
The public needs of ethnography led to its wide cooperation with Informatics, Sociology, Economics, other sciences, which, providing ethnographers with reliable methods, allow to formulate own concepts. It is known that none of the existing sciences provides the study of the general regularities of the development of nature and society. This role can belong in many cases to ethnography. What’s more there is a great sphere of the mutual coincidence of scientific interests of many sciences and ethnography. That’s why the strengthening of these connections is the task of the future.
The first quantitative component of ethnography is scientometrics [4], which attracts a greater and greater attention of ethnographers. It is doubtless that the dynamics of the changes in time and according to the branches of the ethnographic knowledge allows to characterize the essential features of the development of ethnography. We should admit that the history of ethnography knows statistics, which, unfortunately, hasn’t found its researcher yet. It is not difficult to suppose that the introduction of statistical data about ethnography into the scientific analysis will give the opportunity, though indirectly, but in some cases rather objectively, to speak about the tempos and tendencies of the development of this complicated historical phenomenon, which is called science, will enrich the ideas of scientists about both science, on the whole, including Russian science, and about one of its components - the ethnographic science, and will give more objective scientometrical characteristics of ethnography itself - theoretical and applied.
The mathematization of science has become an encouraging stimulus to the increase of the results, mobility, the proof base and the integration of solutions offered by ethnography. The mathematization of ethnography raises the level of its comprehension of deeper regularities of the studied part of the objective world, widens and improves (like in the case with all mathematized sciences) the logical apparatus and received generalizations, conclusions, recommendations. However not all sides of the development of the ethnographic science can be described with the help of mathematics. And there is one more principal statement. The scientometrical methods of the study of ethnography are not a panacea. It is true that it’s possible to study the information processes in the ethnographic science, documental ethnographic flows with the help of quantitative methods, but they must be based o the wide use of the data of the scientific observation, the analysis of questionnaires, experts’ estimations and etc. The scientometrical methods haven’t been used in ethnography until recently. The second quantitative part of scientific studies is bibliometrics, which is defined as “quantitative analyses of bibliographic features of the main part of literature” [9, p. 50-51]. The problem of the application of some bibliometrical approaches to the elicitation and the analysis of documental ethnographic flows was set by the researchers of the Tambov ethnographic centre [8, p. 65-68]. It’s doubtless that bibliometrics leads to the elicitation of the tendencies of the development of the ethnographic science, the use of bibliometrical methods of citing will show the structure of the ethnographic knowledge (the theoretical aspect), will help in the search of new ethnographic documents (the practical aspect), and also will lead to the bibliometrical estimation of various examined objects of ethnography.
Nowadays there is a constant increase of interest to the social, human and humanistic aspects of science, a specific discipline can appear - the ethics of science, the notion “ethos of science” penetrates into science itself. Certainly this actualizes many problems of the ethos of ethnography due to the democracy, openness and accessibility of the community of ethnographers. It’s time to put a question about the formulation of the Code of an ethnographer’s honour. In this case we should pay attention to the principles, suggested by V.V. Ilyin [6, p. 122-125], some statements of the Code of the professional honour of the association of British museums [13, p. 58-60].
The organizers of the ethnographic science must take great care of the problems of the interrelations of ethnography and the authorities, the possibilities and the borders of the science control, the character of the consequences (especially negative) of this control both on the part of state institutions and under the influence of business and the public. We have noted some of them: about the use of the historical ethnographic experience, the inheritance of Motherland studies traditions, especially - about the interrelation of the ethnographic organizations with the authorities and the public [11, p. 72-76]. The last problem has a principal meaning in the conditions of Russia. V.I. Vernadsky pointed at this [1, p. 405].
So science was always under the influence of the society, affecting the public progress in its turn. This fully refers to ethnography, the scientific analysis of which is able to enrich not only the general ideas about science on the whole and Russian science in particular, but also the ethnographic science itself, to optimize its humanistic influence on the state and the society.
References
1 Vernadsky V.I. About science. V. 1/ V.I. Vernadsky. - Dubna, 1997.
2 Gorlova I.I. Cultural policy, the culturological form: a regional aspect: Monograph / I.I. Gorlova. - Krasnodar,1997 and etc.
3 Dmitrienko, V.P. Methodological problems of science of science / V.P. Dmitrienko. - Tomsk, 1977.
4 Zvoryikin, A.A. Science, production, labour / A.A. Zvoryikin. - M., 1965.
5 Zinovieva, N.B. A new opinion about the nature of information / N.B. Zinovieva // Information systems and processes: The collection of scientific articles. - Issue 1. - Tambov and etc, 2003.
6 Ilyin, V.V. The theory of cognition. Epistemology / V.V. Ilyin. - M., 1994.
7 Michlina, I.I. The ethnographic bibliography in the system of the Russian bibliography: the theoretical foundations: Monograph / I.I.Michlina.- Krasnodar, 2003 and etc.
8 Neezzhalaya, S.A. The methodics of the study of the ethnographic documental flow / S.A. Neezzhalaya, G.P. Pirozhkov // The materials of the Tambov centre of ethnography. - Issue 1. In three parts. - Tambov; M.; Petersburg; Baku; Vien, 2004. -Part 2.
9 Penkova, O.V. Science of science, scientometrics and their derivatives: The methods of the quantitatine estimation of the scientific activity: Monograth / O.V. Penkova, V.M. Tyutyunnik. - Tambov, 2002.
10 Pirozhkov, G.P. The USSR in the 1928-1941-s: from the dictatorship of the party to the dictatorship of the leader: Materials to the special course: Lectures / G.P. Pirozhkov. - Tambov, 1994 and etc.
11 Pirozhkov, G.P. About the interrelation of ethnographic organizations with the authorities and the society / Pirozhkov G.P., Zorina V.P. // The formation of a specialist in the conditions of a region: New approaches: The fourth AllRussia scientific conference of higher educational institutions, Tambov, April, 12-13 2004. - Tambov; M.; Petersburg; Baku; Vien, 2004 and etc.
12 Tyutyunnik, V.M. About a new opinion of the nature of information in the social communication / V.M. Tyutyunnik // Information systems and processes: The collection of scientific articles. - Issue 1. - Tambov and etc., 2003.
13 Varwani, R. Museumsethik - eine britische Perspektive / Varwani R. // Museumskunde. - 2002. - Bd. 2.
Краеведение: науковедческий код анализа Г. П. Пирожков
Кафедра "История и философия", ТГТУ
Ключевые слова и фразы: информатизация; информационные учреждения; краеведение; математизация наук; науковедение; научная и учебная дисциплина.
Аннотация: Впервые в литературе рассматривается программа науковед-ческого анализа краеведения как научной и учебной дисциплины. Дается определение краеведения.
Heimatforschung: Wissenschaftskode der Analyse
Zusammenfassung: Im Artikel wird zum ersten Mal in der Literatur das Programm der Wissenschaftsanalyse der Heimatforschung als der wissenschaftlichen und Lehrdisziplin betrachtet, es wird die Bestimmung der Heimatforschung aufgeführt.
Ethnographie d’une région: code scientifique de l’analyse
Résumé: Pour la première fois en littérature est examiné le programme de l’analyse scientifique de l’ethnographie d’une région comme une discipline scientifique et d’enseignement; est donnée la notion de l’ethnographie d’une région.
