The Clean Water Project
Projects
Clean Water
Cultural Database
ESL Assessment
Housing Interviews
Pueblo Remains
Silvernale Village
Charity Assessment
Zwelihle Playground
Projects Home
EMuseum Home
Procedures
The anthropologists lived in seven villages
near Santa Cruz and conducted participant-observation research for seven months. Each
anthropologist lived with a host family
and helped with planting and harvesting
crops, attended town and school meetings,
mothers clubs, and agricultural co-ops. Each
village had a local health promoter who
made weekly rounds to survey the presence of
diarrhea in households. The
When the anthropologists first entered the communities they conducted a census followed by a needs assessment survey. In each village 10 men and 10 women were
asked to list five general needs of their
community, five health needs, and the most common diseases found in their community.
They conducted community outline interviews within the villages and included
neighboring communities to determine whether the host community was typical
for the area.
The researchers took economic inventories of
a variety of households in each community and ranked the wealth of the
household based on the presence of material items such as televisions and
motorcycles. They conducted unstructured interviews with laborers,
landowners, and renters to gather information on the economic structure of
the communities including income levels, economic stratification, and cycles
in seasonal migration. At least three informants were used from each
category per community to allow the anthropologists to cross-reference the
responses.
The anthropologists were interested in the
use of traditional remedies as compared to Western medicine in the host
communities. Because women are the family members who treat disease, a
disease questionnaire was administered to 68 female heads of household in
four villages in which they were asked to name causes, symptoms, and
treatments for 25 common ailments. Additionally, the researchers gathered
lists of all traditional remedies from key informants.
Four months into the fieldwork a
Rapid Assessment Survey was conducted in the host
communities and six additional villages. The anthropological team conducted
149 semi-structured interviews, with female heads of household whenever
possible. They also asked informants to demonstrate their system of water
transport, treatment and storage. Additional interviews were conducted with
school teachers, village health promoters, and community leaders to gather
demographic, cultural, and historical information.
To complete the fieldwork, the group of
anthropologists conducted final interviews to build a database of
quantitative data. The questions were carefully formulated and revised after
a test trial. Informants were randomly selected from six communities and 210
interviews were completed.
Ervin, Alexander M.
Lind, Jason D.
2000 Biomedical
Perspectives vs. Ethnomedical Perceptions: A Look at Health Beliefs and
Behaviors
Relating to
Diarrhea in Lowland Bolivia. Master's Thesis. Minnesota State University,
Mankato.
Murphy, Arthur, Winifred
Mitchell, Brian Riley, and 4 others.
1997 Proyecto de
Agua Segura: "Claro" Ethnography, Intervention and Evaluation.
Technical Report
presented to USAID/CCH, LA PAZ, and BOLIVIA.
anthropologists accompanied them on these
visits meet people in the community and observe health behaviors.Sources:
2000 Applied Anthropology: Tools and Perspectives for Contemporary
Practice.
Boston: Allyn and Bacon.