Learning How to Find Out: Theories of Knowledge and Learning in Field Research

In Learning How to Ask , Charles Briggs argues that asking questions follows cultural conventions. Field workers carry assumptions about the nature of talk and knowledge, and their questions may elicit different kinds of information and relationships than expected. This article looks ethnographically at theories of knowledge in Akuapem, Ghana, and how they interacted with the author's own native theories in interviews. Learning local conventions of knowledge transmission thus becomes one of the major tasks for the field worker.