ABSTRACT

Although it may seem as if our team spent most of our time "hanging out", my research method was strongly influenced by the epistemology of cultural materialism. In practice this meant that the team of researchers would be observing, counting, using scientific instruments uniformly to collect data, and reaching approximate concordance on what had been observed. My research assistants were keen observers, familiar with the area and endowed with a cultural insider's point of view, yet capable of detaching themselves from their backgrounds, a skill they worked hard to develop. From the outset, I brought in ethnographic articles and books that the team read and discussed, and during our second summer of research Nilsa and Paul participated as regular students in a seminar entitled Street Ethnography that I taught in the summer session at Columbia University. At our staff meetings members reported on events and occurrences from their various perspectives, and we sought to reach concurrence on what had been observed before interpreting the implications. I believe this provided a fuller approximation of reality than what could have been reached by a single scientific observer.