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curranthro-research-design

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Use when defending the research design of a Current Anthropology (CA) manuscript — fieldwork and participant observation, interview and archival design for ethnographic/qualitative work, material/contextual analysis for archaeology, and appropriate lab/quantitative design for biological anthropology. CA judges each mode on its own terms with reflexivity, and the design must survive published CA✩ Comments. Strengthens the design; it does not write code or run fieldwork.

Current-Anthropology-Skills/skills/curranthro-research-design/SKILL.md

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Nov 9, 2026

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Sep 27, 2026
License
MIT

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# Research Design (curranthro-research-design)

CA accepts many methodologies but is demanding about each, and the design of a Major Article will be
scrutinized **in print** by invited commentators under the **CA✩ Treatment**. The design must credibly
connect the argument (`curranthro-theory-building`) to evidence — and at CA, **ethnographic and
qualitative inference is first-class**, not a soft substitute for statistics. This skill is mode-aware:
pick the section that matches your work and defend it against the strongest alternative reading,
reflexively and ethically, *as if a commentator were already writing the objection*.

## When to trigger

- Specifying fieldwork, sampling of sites/interlocutors, archive or material selection, or lab design
- A reviewer (or anticipated commentator) questioned your evidence, generalization, confound, or
  interpretive leap
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