Free Listing: A Sample Practice to Collect Anthropological Data

 

Aim: To conduct a free listing method on the participants to understand their perception regarding corona virus                          

 Free listing is a method of data collection in anthropological research. It is also used in other fields like specially business purpose or for the scientific or humanity sciences as well. Basically anthropologists are engaged with two type of approach to observe or analyse a data. Those are Emic approach which is centralised to the perspectives of the interviewer or may called as insiders’ view and the other is centralised to the researcher’s perspective which may regard as outsider’s perspective and called as the Etic approach. These two approach refers to actor’s and observer’s frame of reference respectively.
                           Anthropologists try to observe and analyse the actual fact by digging up the insider’s perspectives within a community.  They never makes opinion or judge them but try to find out the real fact. Like when a researcher go for field within a unknown community he or she might see a ritual performed by the members of that community and can conclude or make an opinion according to his or her perspectives which will regards the etic perspective as he or she is the outsider for that community but when a member of that community will make any opinion regarding that ritual practice that might be little different from the researcher as he or she knowns the history of that ritual, that person is habituated to practice that and have another kind of perspectives to make any opinion, so this will be emic approach or insiders’ view. Anthropologists mostly use the emic approach of the people to understand any social reality as much as possible about any particular society. There is a branch of anthropology named as Cognitive anthropology, flourished in the 1960s emphasised on the native’s perspective in anthropological research. Free listing can be concluded as a domain of this branch which is a dwelling approach to understand the perspective of people. Free listing deals with collection of exhortative list of item for a cultural domain. The domain may be defined as an organised set of word, concepts or sentences that jointly refer to a single conceptual sphere. These can be colour terms, fruits, flowers, kinship terms, kinds of emotions etc. The cultural domain should have a generic name containing mutually interdependent items as it’s parts. So  this  would be,
1.      Consist of items
2.      The items would be culturally defined and
3.      The items would be differentially placed
                                 Through these items a cognitive map regarding that particular domain can be designed. A cognitive map is a type of mental representation which serves an individual to acquire, code, store, recall, and decode information about the relative locations and attributes of phenomena in their everyday or metaphorical spatial environment. The concept was introduced by Edward Tolman in 1948. Cognitive maps have been studied in various fields, such as anthropology, psychology, education, archaeology, planning, geography, cartography, architecture, landscape architecture, urban planning, management and history . this serve the construction and accumulation of spatial knowledge, allowing the "mind's eye" to visualize images in order to reduce cognitive load, enhance recall and learning of information regarding a single domain. So basically through free listing method we can collect the items regarding any cultural domain and can make a cognitive map.
Procedure and Method Used :
The free listing is the method itself for collecting data but it can be say it as a structural interview method as the  process of collecting data engages structured question. One single question was designed and the answer of that question as to be cover all the part of that cultural domain. A single purposefully structured question would be asked to different people. Question has to framed in that manner as the answer should elicited of items. The question has to be directed for explanation in a cultural domain and the answer of the question would be recorded as a list of items. This method helps in exploration of a cultural domain in emic perspective
It is an individual work. The present year of 2020 is facing an unexpected pandemic situation regarding outbreak of novel corona virus (COVID-19) which leads to lockdown in different countries of the world as well as in India to prevent the outbreak situation.  It is hard to find out a way to go out for collecting data as it is risky for the others as well as of an individual itself and everything is going on through internet and telephonic services. For the sake of the completion of the assigned practical report the telephonic interview was done to 20 participants consisting 10 males and 10 females and free listing was done on a structures question, that is “what comes to your mind when you think of or hear about corona virus?”.
Everyone is aware now a days about the current situation and their answers were so inspired and informational. The first 10 words that came to their mind as the answer of the question was recorded digitally in a form of list.
The answers are being analysed through tally marks and is arranged in descending order on the basis their number of repetition. According to the repetitive pattern the items were placed to form a cognitive map centred to the Corona virus domain. The more repetitive items were placed in the core area of the  domain and the less repetitive items is placed on the peripheral area of the domain.
Observation and analysis:
For the current pandemic situation most of the persons are psychologically pressured due to many reasons like for not getting opportunity to get outside the home, the fear of being infected, working issues, online study pressures and many more.
It is little tough to have telephonic interview as many people are not interested  to participate  in spite of informing them that this is only for educational purpose or the regards but those who were participated were very much interested and so informative. 
Total 200 items were collected on the basis of the question “what comes to your mind when you think of or hear about corona virus” from 20 participants (10 males and 10 females).  The first 10 items that came to their mind were listed . Every participant were aware of the current situation, there are repetitions of many words among the 200 items and in absolute number there are 74 items that came out through analysis.
Virus and Family have been recorded for 9 times, with 8 times  Lockdown, Doctors, Death and Mask were recorded. China and Pandemic with 7 times and Sanitizer with 6 times were recorded. These items were placed in the 1^st circle of the core area of the domain of corona virus. This area are covered with orange coloured circles.
 ‘Hope’ with 5 times, Italy and Quarantine with 4 times and Immunity, Hydroxychloroquine, Test, God, Soap, outbreak, handwash, Wuhan, Fear, Economy and study with repetition of 3 times were recorded and formed the 2^nd circle of the core area of the domain of corona virus which is forming the green circle.
Breathing problem, community spread, Unity, donation, WHO, Screening, social distance, isolation, Modi ji, Sneezing, coughing, fever, news, rumours and world with repetition of 2 times were listed which formed the 1^st peripheral circle covering with the dark blue coloured circles of the domain and 
labour migrants, global crisis, career, tears, Future, contagious, incubation period, Infectious, Food, Be positive, Physical activeness,  Stop, Respiratory disease, Working from home, empty roads, poor, problems, Cooking, Awareness, No attendance tension, Spreading, safety, anxious, calming our mind. social Isolation, pharmaceutical, Hand, washing, Avoid, poverty, loss, hoarding, panic and United with no repetition were listed. These all items are placed in the 2^nd peripheral circle formed with the light blue coloured circles of the corona virus domain.
 
 
 
Free listing of the items regarding corona virus outbreak
Responds of the male participants:

Serial no.	P1	P2	P3	P4	P5
1	Virus	Virus	China	WHO	Test
2	Breathing problem	God	god	mask	Economy
3	Immunity	Hope	doctors	screening	Study
4	Hydroxychloroquine	Soap	donation	lockdown	pandemic
5	Family	Outbreak	WHO	Wuhan	outbreak
6	China	lockdown	Death	hope	social distance
7	Community spread	government	chloroquine	family	self -quarantine
8	unity	Breathing problem	sanitizer	tears	isolation
9	test	unity	hand wash	death	screening
10	sanitizer	Italy	soap	Italy	incubation period

Serial no.	P6	P7	P8	P9	P10
1	social Isolation	Economic crisis	Quarantine	Italy	Family
2	pandemic	Family	Death	China	Pandemic
3	Avoid	Wuhan	Fear	Death	Police
4	rumours	China	Family	Lockdown	doctors
5	anxious	mask	Mask	Virus	News
6	Be positive	police	Lockdown	Social media	Donation
7	calming our mind	safety	Doctors	Rumours	Mask
8	lockdown	Quarantine	Police	Sanitizer	Fever
9	social media	Cooking	Pandemic	Working from home	Coughing
10	Physical activeness	No attendance tension	Social media	hope	Sneezing

 

 
Responds of the female participants:

Serial no.	P1	P2	P3	P4	P5
1	Fear	Food	Virus	lockdown	family
2	social distancing,	economy	Infectious	hoarding	Stop
3	pandemic,	global crisis	Quarantine	Modi ji	awareness
4	outbreak,	career	Family	world crisis	Spreading
5	panic,	future	United	pandemic	news
6	doctors,	family	world	problems	Stigma
7	death	poverty	Fever	work from home	Social distancing
8	pharmaceuticals	death	Social distance	empty roads	Social media
9	labour migrants	god	Coughing	poor	Respiratory disease
10	loss	hope	sneezing	death	mask

 

Serial no.	P6	P7	P8	P9	P10
1	pandemic	Washing hand	Doctors	china	lockdown
2	china	Doctors	Virus	Doctors	Test
3	community spread	Wuhan city	immunity	mask	Italy
4	Virus	Italy	Social distancing	virus	Doctors
5	contagious	Hydroxychloroquine	Study	Hope	immunity
6	asymptomatic	Lockdown	Economy	Social distancing	Government
7	Mask	mask	quarantine	Family	Virus
8	Sanitizer	Modi ji	Social distancing	Fear	Hand washing
9	Soap	Government	Government	Death	Sanitizer
10	Virus	sanitizer	china	police	study

 

Therefore the domain of corona  virus is like as follows, 

 Arrangement of the items reported regarding corona virus with their number of repetitions :

 

Item	No. of repitation	Item	No. of repitation	Item	No. of repitation
Virus	9	social distance	2	Stigma	1
Breathing problem	2	quarantine	5	contagious	1
Immunity	3	isolation	2	asymptomatic	1
Hydroxychloroquine	3	incubation period	1	Infectious	1
Family	9	Modi ji	2	Food	1
China	7	police	4	Be positive	1
Community spread	2	Fear	3	Physical activeness	1
Unity	2	Sneezing	2	World	2
test	3	Coughing	2
sanitizer	6	Fever	2	Stop	1
God	3	News	2	Respiratory disease	1
hope	5	Working from home	1	empty roads	1
Soap	3	Social media	4	poor	1
Outbreak	3	rumours	2	problems	1
lockdown	8	Cooking	1	Awareness	1
Government	4	No attendance tension	1	Spreading	1
Italy	5	safety	1	anxious	1
doctors	8	calming our mind	1	social Isolation	1
donation	2	pharmaceuticals	1	Hand washing	1
WHO	2	Avoid	1	poverty	1
Death	8	loss	1	hoarding	1
hand wash	3	panic	1	United	1
mask	8	labour migrants	1	pandemic	7
screening	2	global crisis	1	Study	3
Wuhan	3	career	1	Economy	3
tears	1	Future	1

 

         Arrangement of the items in descending order:

Virus=Family>Lockdown=Doctors=Death=Mask>China=Pandemic>Sanitizer>Hope>

Italy=Quarantine>Immunity=Hydroxychloroquine=Test=God=Soap=outbreak=handwash=Wuhan=Fear=Economy=study>Breathingproblem=communityspread=Unity=donation=WHO=Screening=socialdistance=isolation=Modiji=Sneezing=coughing=fever=news=rumours=world>labour migrants=global crisis=career=tears=Future=contagious=incubation period=Infectious=Food=Be positive=Physical activeness= Stop=Respiratory disease=Working from home=empty roads=poor=problems=Cooking=Awareness=No attendance tension=Spreading=safety=anxious=calming our mind=social Isolation=pharmaceutical=Hand=washing=Avoid=poverty=loss=hoarding=panic=United

Interpretative conclusion:

             Every participants those were interviewed are well educated, concerned with the present pandemic situation of the world, trying to keep social distancing to prevent the outbreak of the virus. It can be concluded form the collected information and listening to them while interviewing that most of the participant are concerned for their family safety.

            Everyone knows the corona is a type of virus which is spreading from the infected people through close contacts or coughing and sneezing. This virus has developed in maturity and adopting itself day by day so the first two things that came to the most of their mind are virus and family. Of course we all know corona is a virus and how fearful it is and along with this they are spending time with family, taking care of each other and maintaining safety precautions as well. Along with this China, from where the virus was started to spread out. Many of the people are blaming China for this fearful outbreak of the virus for their food habits or for having the carelessness of the virus spreading, WHO has declared the outbreak situation as a pandemic situation for it is worldwide spreading, millions of people are getting infected day by day in worldwide so this is a word that came in most of their mind. The words those are placed in the core area of the domain are the usually concerned words that we are thinking about every day. These words are exclusively used by the people of the world and centralised to the domain.

            The words those are placed in the peripheral area of the domain are the words which are not dealt with everyone. These are some unique things that came to their mind so that the repetition of the items are less or none. These are more related to the personal interest or can be say as individual perspectives which are not as usual to everyone. They are thinking about this items as specially rather than in generalization.        

 

            This study was aimed to find out the items those are exclusively centralized to the domain of corona virus outbreak situation of the present 2020s. This is showing a cognitive domain of this particular disease consisting of 74 items based on 20 individuals. If the participant number were more it is expected to find out more unique as well as repetitive items. But overall this is a generalized domain consisting of the items centralized to Corona virus and showing that these items are culturally defined and differentially placed.