Participant observation is the basic and defining research strategy for cultural anthropologists, a useful tool for building rapport, establishing trust, and gaining an understanding of culture as experienced by its members. This article uses the author's experience working in an Inuit community in Canada to explore another use of participant observation: the acquisition of communicative competence. In small, bounded communities such as those in the Canadian Arctic, the development and display of cultural and communicative competence is necessary to overcome apathy and sometimes hostility toward researchers. Furthermore, establishment of these abilities allows for the use of phased assertion as an interview probe. Phased assertion works not only as a data collection technique, it reinforces communicative competence and improves informant rapport.
Agar, M.H.1980. The professional stranger. Orlando, FL: Academic Press.
2.
Bernard, H.R.2006. Research methods in anthropology. 4th ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
3.
Briggs, C.1986. Learning how to ask. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
4.
Briggs, C.2007. Anthropology, interviewing, and communicability in contemporary society. Current Anthropology48 (4): 551-80.
5.
Briggs, J.1970. Never in anger. Boston: Harvard University Press.
6.
Clifford, J.2004. Looking several ways: Anthropology and Native heritage in Alaska. Current Anthropology45 (1): 5-30.
7.
Collings, P.2000. Aging and life course development in an Inuit community . Arctic Anthropology37 (2): 111-25.
8.
Collings, P.2001. "If you got everything, it's good enough": Perspectives on successful aging in a Canadian Inuit community. Journal of Cross-Cultural Gerontology16 (2): 127-55.
9.
Collings, P., G. Wenzel, and R.G. Condon.1998. Modern food sharing networks and community integration in the centralCanadian Arctic. Arctic51 (4): 301-14.
10.
Condon, R.G.1996. The Northern Copper Inuit: A history. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press.
11.
Condon, R.G., P. Collings, and G. Wenzel.1995. The best part of life: Subsistence hunting, ethnicity, and economic adaptation among young adult Inuit males. Arctic48 (1): 31-46.
12.
Crago, M.1992. Communicative interaction and second language acquisition: An Inuit example. TESOL Quarterly26 (3): 487-505.
13.
Crago, M., B. Annahatak, and L. Ningiuruvik.1993. Changing patterns of language socialization in Inuit homes. Anthropology and Education Quarterly24 (3): 205-23.
14.
Damas, David.2002. Arctic migrants/arctic villagers: The transformation of Inuit settlement in the Central Arctic. Montreal, Canada: McGill-Queen's University Press
15.
Douglas, J.D.1976. Investigative social research. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.
16.
Duhaime, G., M. Chabot, and M. Gaudreault.2002. Food consumption patterns and socioeconomic factors among the Inuit of Nunavik. Ecology of Food and Nutrition41 (2): 91-118.
17.
Evans Pritchard, E.E.1976. Witchcraft, oracles, and magic among the Azande. Oxford, UK: Clarendon.
18.
Fienup-Riordan, A.2001. "We talk to you because we love you": Learning from elders at culture camp. Anthropology and Humanism26 (2): 173-87.
19.
Huntingdon, H.P., and communities of Buckland, Elim, Koyuk, Point Lay, and Shaktoolik. 1999. Traditional knowledge and ecology of beluga whales (Delphinapterus leucas) in the Eastern Chukchi and Northern Bering Seas, Alaska. Arctic52 (1): 49-61.
20.
Kirk, J., and Miller, M.L.1986. Reliability and validity in qualitative research. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.
21.
Krupnik, I., and D. Jolly , eds. 2002. The Earth is faster now: Indigenous observations of Arctic environmental change. Fairbanks , AK: Arctic Research Consortium of the United States in cooperation with the Arctic Studies Center, Smithsonian Institution.
22.
Langdon, S.J.1991. The integration of cash and subsistence in southwest Alaskan Yup'ik Eskimo traditions. In Cash, commoditisation and changing foragers, ed. N. Peterson and T. Matsuyama, 269-91. Osaka, Japan: National Museum of Ethnology.
23.
Lassiter, L.E.2005. The Chicago guide to collaborative ethnography. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
24.
Morrow, P.1996. Yup'ik Eskimo agents and American legal agencies: Perspectives on compliance and resistance. The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute2 (3): 405-23.
25.
Searles, E.2000. "Why do you ask so many questions?" Learning how not to ask in a Canadian Inuit society. Journal for the Anthropological Study of Human Movement11 (1): 247-64.
26.
Wenzel, G.1986. Canadian Inuit in a mixed economy: Thoughts on seals, snowmobiles, and animal rights. Native Studies Review2 (1): 69-82.
27.
Wenzel, G.1991. Animal rights, human rights. Toronto , Canada: University of Toronto Press.
