ABSTRACT
David Schneider’s account of “American Kinship,” reviewed in Chapter 6, was couched at a high level of abstraction. It was also based on interviews and their transcriptions (as well as Schneider’s own intuitions) drawn from a sample. Methodologically, it resembled the survey approach in sociology. George L. Hicks’ study of the Little Laurel Valley in western North Carolina, southern Appalachia, represents the opposite methodological pole, often identified with classic anthropological work: It is a local study, based on intensive investigations and intimate everyday acquaintance over a period of time, “participant observation,” during 1966–1967 (Hicks [1976] 1992: 2), with return visits in 1968 and 1972. Hicks also explains that his own family background and personal work experiences helped him in integrating into, and doubtless sympathizing with, these rural people into whose lives he entered with his inquiries.
