Ethnohistory fuses historical and ethnographical approaches of study to enable scholars to study ethnographic history despite the gaps in documentation supporting research. The study also uses misrepresentations of indigenous people as authored by non-natives to link information with additional sources. The process could apply downstream, upstream, or side stream techniques to gather additional information about native communities. Upstreaming uses contemporary observations to theorize about past occurrences. On the other hand, down streaming explains cause and effect from the past while working to more recent times. Lastly, side streaming looks at comparable and related groups to understand the community under study.
According to the information provided about the three types of ethnohistorical techniques, upstreaming is the most effective way of studying history. The technique uses contemporary information to fill missing information about a subject. The current behavior of people in a community must be associated with certain historical events. Upstreaming helps scholars to speculate and understand some of the events that could affect have caused the current situation in society. For instance, upstreaming can help anthropologists to understand colonial events of India by looking at the current lifestyle of Indians (Stremlau, 2011). Each major event in a community has lasting effects that will be visible in future. Consequently, by looking at some of the lifestyles of the Indian community currently, it becomes possible to understand the country’s history. Side streaming might not be effective because people change differently. Using a different group to compare the one under study might not be effective because the characteristics of a different group do not necessarily apply to both groups. Likewise, using down streaming might not be effective because of the possibility of bias. The historical information provided about a group might depict only one side of the story ( Hansen and Curtis, 2017 ). In most instances, the information available about an ethnic group might be negative. Likewise, some traditional information might show positivity wrongfully.
Delegate your assignment to our experts and they will do the rest.
References
Hansen, V., & Curtis, K. R. (2017). Voyages in world history (3rd ed., Vol. 1). Boston, MA: Cengage Learning. Retrieved September 17, 2020, from https://ebooks.cenreader.com/#!/reader/f7edb740-6df0-4265-9738-7e4caa44d639/page/91d74226e220c70dd1403c4b4dd1a68a?search=urban%20center http://library.lol/main/78E989BF426A5E93173CBD5E94B547B3
Stremlau, R. (2011, October 8). The meaning of Ethnohistory . History and a Cookie. https://rosestremlau.wordpress.com/2011/10/08/the-meaning-of-ethnohistory/
