From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Ethnography (from
Greek ἔθνος ethnos "folk, people, nation" and
γράφω grapho "I write") is the systematic study of people and cultures. It is designed to explore
cultural
phenomena where the researcher observes society from the point of view
of the subject of the study. An ethnography is a means to represent
graphically and in writing the culture of a
group. The word can thus be said to have a double meaning, which partly depends on whether it is used as a
count noun or uncountable. The resulting field study or a case report reflects the knowledge and the system of meanings in the lives of a cultural group.
As a method of data collection, ethnography entails examining the
behaviour of the participants in a certain specific social situation
and also understanding their interpretation of such behaviour.
Dewan (2018) further elaborates that this behaviour may be shaped by
the constraints the participants feel because of the situations they are
in or by the society in which they belong. Ethnography, as the
presentation of
empirical data on human
societies and
cultures, was pioneered in the biological, social, and cultural branches of
anthropology, but it has also become popular in the
social sciences in general—
sociology,
communication studies, history—wherever people study ethnic groups,
formations, compositions, resettlements, social welfare characteristics,
materiality, spirituality, and a people's
ethnogenesis. The typical ethnography is a
holistic study and so includes a brief history, and an analysis of the
terrain, the
climate, and the
habitat.
In all cases, it should be reflexive, make a substantial contribution
toward the understanding of the social life of humans, have an aesthetic
impact on the reader, and express a credible reality. An ethnography
records all observed behavior and describes all symbol-meaning
relations, using concepts that avoid causal explanations. Traditionally,
ethnography was focussed on the western gaze towards the far 'exotic'
east, but now researchers are undertaking ethnography in their own
social environment. According to Dewan (2018), even if we are the other,
the ‘another’ or the ‘native’, we are still ‘another’ because there are
many facades of ourselves that connect us to people and other facades
that highlight our differences.
History and meaning
The word 'ethnography' is derived from the Greek ἔθνος (
ethnos), meaning "a company, later a people, nation" and
-graphy,
meaning "writing". Ethnographic studies focus on large cultural groups
of people who interact over time. Ethnography is a set of qualitative
methods that are used in social sciences that focus on the observation
of social practices and interactions.
Its aim is to observe a situation without imposing any deductive
structure or framework upon it and to view everything as strange or
unique.
The field of anthropology originated from Europe and England
designed in late 19th century. It spread its roots to the United States
at the beginning of the 20th century. Some of the main contributors like
E. B. Tylor (1832–1917) from Britain and
Lewis H. Morgan (1818–1881), an American scientist were considered as founders of cultural and social dimensions.
Franz Boas (1858–1942),
Bronislaw Malinowski (1884—1942),
Ruth Benedict (1887–1948), and
Margaret Mead (1901–1978), were a group of researchers from the United States who contributed the idea of
cultural relativism
to the literature. Boas's approach focused on the use of documents and
informants, whereas Malinowski stated that a researcher should be
engrossed with the work for long periods in the field and do a
participant observation by living with the informant and experiencing
their way of life. He gives the viewpoint of the native and this became
the origin of field work and field methods.
Since Malinowski was very firm with his approach he applied it practically and traveled to
Trobriand Islands which are located off the eastern coast of
New Guinea.
He was interested in learning the language of the islanders and stayed
there for a long time doing his field work. The field of ethnography
became very popular in the late 19th century, as many social scientists
gained an interest in studying modern society. Again, in the latter
part of the 19th century, the field of anthropology became a good
support for scientific formation. Though the field was flourishing, it
had a lot of threats to encounter. Postcolonialism, the research climate
shifted towards post-modernism and feminism. Therefore, the field of
anthropology moved into a discipline of social science.
Origins
Gerhard Friedrich Müller developed the concept of ethnography as a separate discipline whilst participating in the
Second Kamchatka Expedition (1733–43) as a professor of history and geography. Whilst involved in the expedition, he differentiated
Völker-Beschreibung as a distinct area of study. This became known as "ethnography," following the introduction of the Greek neologism
ethnographia by Johann Friedrich Schöpperlin and the German variant by A. F. Thilo in 1767.
August Ludwig von Schlözer and
Christoph Wilhelm Jacob Gatterer of the
University of Göttingen introduced the term into the academic discourse in an attempt to reform the contemporary understanding of world history.
Herodotus,
known as the Father of History, had significant works on the cultures
of various peoples beyond the Hellenic realm such as the
Scythians, which earned him the title "philobarbarian", and may be said to have produced the first works of ethnography.
Forms
There are
different forms of ethnography: confessional ethnography; life history;
feminist ethnography etc. Two popular forms of ethnography are realist
ethnography and critical ethnography. (Qualitative Inquiry and Research
Design, 93)
Realist ethnography is a traditional approach used by cultural
anthropologists. Characterized by Van Maanen (1988), it reflects a
particular instance taken by the researcher toward the individual being
studied. It's an objective study of the situation. It's composed from a
third person's perspective by getting the data from the members on the
site. The ethnographer stays as omniscient correspondent of actualities
out of sight. The realist reports information in a measured style
ostensibly uncontaminated by individual predisposition, political
objectives, and judgment. The analyst will give a detailed report of the
everyday life of the individuals under study. The ethnographer also
uses standard categories for cultural description (e.g., family life,
communication network). The ethnographer produces the participant's
views through closely edited quotations and has the final word on how
the culture is to be interpreted and presented. (Qualitative Inquiry and
Research Design, 93)
Critical ethnography is a kind of ethnographic research in which
the creators advocate for the liberation of groups which are
marginalized in society. Critical researchers typically are politically
minded people who look to take a stand of opposition to inequality and
domination. For example, a critical ethnographer might study schools
that provide privileges to certain types of students, or counseling
practices that serve to overlook the needs of underrepresented groups.
(Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design, 94). The important components
of a critical ethnographer are to incorporate a value-laden
introduction, empower people by giving them more authority, challenging
the status quo, and addressing concerns about power and control. A
critical ethnographer will study issues of power, empowerment,
inequality inequity, dominance, repression, hegemony, and victimization.
(Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design, 94)
Features of ethnographic research
According
to Dewan (2018), the researcher is not looking for generalizing the
findings; rather, they are considering it in reference to the context of
the situation. In this regard, the best way to integrate ethnography in
a quantitative research would be to use it to discover and uncover
relationships and then use the resultant data to test and explain the
empirical assumptions:
- Involves investigation of very few cases, maybe just one case, in detail.
- Often involves working with primarily unconstructed data. This data
had not been coded at the point of data collection in terms of a closed
set of analytic categories.
- Emphasizes on exploring social phenomena rather than testing hypotheses.
- Data analysis involves interpretation of the functions and meanings
of human actions. The product of this is mainly verbal explanations,
where statistical analysis and quantification play a subordinate role.
- Methodological discussions focus more on questions about how to
report findings in the field than on methods of data collection and
interpretation.
- Ethnographies focus on describing the culture of a group in very
detailed and complex manner. The ethnography can be of the entire group
or a subpart of it.
- It involves engaging in extensive field work where data collection
is mainly by interviews, symbols, artifacts, observations, and many
other sources of data.
- The researcher in ethnography type of research looks for patterns of
the group's mental activities, that is their ideas and beliefs
expressed through language or other activities, and how they behave in
their groups as expressed through their actions that the researcher
observed.
- In ethnography, the researcher gathers what is available, what is
normal, what it is that people do, what they say, and how they work.
Procedures for conducting ethnography
- Determine
if ethnography is the most appropriate design to use to study the
research problem. Ethnography is suitable if the needs are to describe
how a cultural group works and to explore their beliefs, language,
behaviours and also issues faced by the group, such as power,
resistance, and dominance. (Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design, 94)
- Then identify and locate a culture-sharing group to study. This
group is one whose members have been together for an extended period of
time, so that their shared language, patterns of behaviour and attitudes
have merged into discernible patterns. This group can also be a group
that has been marginalized by society. (Qualitative Inquiry and Research
Design, 94)
- Select cultural themes, issues or theories to study about the group.
These themes, issues, and theories provide an orienting framework for
the study of the culture-sharing group. As discussed by Hammersley
and Atkinson (2007), Wolcott (1987, 1994b, 2008-1), and Fetterman
(2009). The ethnographer begins the study by examining people in
interaction in ordinary settings and discerns pervasive patterns such as
life cycles, events, and cultural themes. (Qualitative Inquiry and
Research Design, 94-95)
- For studying cultural concepts, determine which type of ethnography
to use. Perhaps how the group works need to be described, or a critical
ethnography can expose issues such as power, hegemony, and advocacy for
certain groups (Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design, 95)
- Should collect information in the context or setting where the group
works or lives. This is called fieldwork. Types of information
typically needed in ethnography are collected by going to the research
site, respecting the daily lives of individuals at the site and
collecting a wide variety of materials. Field issues of respect,
reciprocity, deciding who owns the data and others are central to
Ethnography (Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design, 95)
- From the many sources collected, the ethnographer analyzes the data
for a description of the culture-sharing group, themes that emerge from
the group and an overall interpretation (Wolcott, 1994b). The researcher
begins to compile a detailed description of the culture-sharing group,
by focusing on a single event, on several activities, or on the group
over a prolonged period of time.
- Forge a working set of rules or generalizations as to how the
culture-sharing group works as the final product of this analysis. The
final product is a holistic cultural portrait of the group that
incorporates the views of the participants (emic) as well as the views
of the researcher (etic). It might also advocate for the needs of the
group or suggest changes in society. (Qualitative Inquiry and Research
Design, 96)
As method
The ethnographic method is different from other ways of conducting social science approach due to the following reasons:
- It is field-based. It is conducted in the settings in which real
people actually live, rather than in laboratories where the researcher
controls the elements of the behaviors to be observed or measured.
- It is personalized. It is conducted by researchers who are in the
day-to-day, face-to-face contact with the people they are studying and
who are thus both participants in and observers of the lives under
study.
- It is multifactorial. It is conducted through the use of two or more
data collection techniques - which may be qualitative or quantitative
in nature - in order to get a conclusion.
- It requires a long-term commitment i.e. it is conducted by a
researcher who intends to interact with people they are studying for an
extended period of time. The exact time frame can vary from several
weeks to a year or more.
- It is inductive. It is conducted in such a way to use an
accumulation of descriptive detail to build toward general patterns or
explanatory theories rather than structured to test hypotheses derived
from existing theories or models.
- It is dialogic. It is conducted by a researcher whose
interpretations and findings may be expounded on by the study’s
participants while conclusions are still in the process of formulation.
- It is holistic. It is conducted so as to yield the fullest possible portrait of the group under study.
- It can also be used in other methodological frameworks, for
instance, an action research program of study where one of the goals is
to change and improve the situation.
Data collection methods
According to the leading social scientist,
John Brewer, data collection methods are meant to capture the "social meanings and ordinary activities" of people (informants) in "naturally occurring settings"
that are commonly referred to as "the field." The goal is to collect
data in such a way that the researcher imposes a minimal amount of
personal bias in the data.
Multiple methods of data collection may be employed to facilitate a
relationship that allows for a more personal and in-depth portrait of
the informants and their community. These can include participant
observation, field notes, interviews, and surveys.
Interviews are often taped and later transcribed, allowing the
interview to proceed unimpaired of note-taking, but with all information
available later for full analysis. Secondary research and document
analysis are also used to provide insight into the research topic. In
the past, kinship charts were commonly used to "discover logical
patterns and social structure in non-Western societies".
In the 21st century, anthropology focuses more on the study of people
in urban settings and the use of kinship charts is seldom employed.
In order to make the data collection and interpretation
transparent, researchers creating ethnographies often attempt to be
"reflexive". Reflexivity refers to the researcher's aim "to explore the
ways in which [the] researcher's involvement with a particular study
influences, acts upon and informs such research".
Despite these attempts of reflexivity, no researcher can be totally
unbiased. This factor has provided a basis to criticize ethnography.
Traditionally, the ethnographer focuses attention on a community,
selecting knowledgeable informants who know the activities of the
community well.
These informants are typically asked to identify other informants who
represent the community, often using snowball or chain sampling. This process is often effective in revealing common cultural denominators connected to the topic being studied.
Ethnography relies greatly on up-close, personal experience.
Participation, rather than just observation, is one of the keys to this
process. Ethnography is very useful in social research.
Ybema et al. (2010) examine the ontological and
epistemological presuppositions underlying ethnography. Ethnographic
research can range from a realist perspective, in which behavior is
observed, to a constructivist perspective where understanding is
socially constructed by the researcher and subjects. Research can range
from an objectivist account of fixed, observable behaviors to an
interpretive narrative describing "the interplay of individual agency
and social structure."
Critical theory researchers address "issues of power within the
researcher-researched relationships and the links between knowledge and
power."
Another form of data collection is that of the "image." The image
is the projection that an individual puts on an object or abstract
idea. An image can be contained within the physical world through a
particular individual's perspective, primarily based on that
individual’s past experiences. One example of an image is how an
individual views a novel after completing it. The physical entity that
is the novel contains a specific image in the perspective of the
interpreting individual and can only be expressed by the individual in
the terms of "I can tell you what an image is by telling you what it
feels like."
The idea of an image relies on the imagination and has been seen to be
utilized by children in a very spontaneous and natural manner.
Effectively, the idea of the image is a primary tool for ethnographers
to collect data. The image presents the perspective, experiences, and
influences of an individual as a single entity and in consequence, the
individual will always contain this image in the group under study.
Differences across disciplines
The
ethnographic method is used across a range of different disciplines,
primarily by anthropologists but also occasionally by sociologists.
Cultural studies, (European)
ethnology,
sociology,
economics,
social work,
education,
design,
psychology,
computer science,
human factors and ergonomics,
ethnomusicology,
folkloristics,
religious studies,
geography,
history,
linguistics,
communication studies,
performance studies,
advertising,
accounting research,
nursing,
urban planning,
usability,
political science,
social movement, and
criminology are other fields which have made use of ethnography.
Cultural and social anthropology
Cultural anthropology and
social anthropology were developed around ethnographic research and their
canonical texts, which are mostly ethnographies: e.g.
Argonauts of the Western Pacific (1922) by
Bronisław Malinowski,
Ethnologische Excursion in Johore (1875) by
Nicholas Miklouho-Maclay,
Coming of Age in Samoa (1928) by
Margaret Mead,
The Nuer (1940) by
E. E. Evans-Pritchard,
Naven (1936, 1958) by
Gregory Bateson, or "
The Lele of the Kasai" (1963) by
Mary Douglas.
Cultural and social anthropologists today place a high value on doing
ethnographic research. The typical ethnography is a document written
about a particular people, almost always based at least in part on
emic views of where the culture begins and ends. Using language or community boundaries to bound the ethnography is common. Ethnographies are also sometimes called "case studies." Ethnographers study and interpret culture, its universalities, and its variations through the ethnographic study based on
fieldwork.
An ethnography is a specific kind of written observational science
which provides an account of a particular culture, society, or
community. The fieldwork usually involves spending a year or more in
another society, living with the local people and learning about their
ways of life. Neophyte Ethnographers are strongly encouraged to develop
extensive familiarity with their subject prior to entering the field;
otherwise, they may find themselves in difficult situations.
Ethnographers are participant observers. They take part in events
they study because it helps with understanding local behavior and
thought. Classic examples are
Carol B. Stack's
All Our Kin, Jean Briggs'
Never in Anger,
Richard Lee's
Kalahari Hunter-Gatherers,
Victor Turner's
Forest of Symbols, David Maybry-Lewis'
Akew-Shavante Society,
E.E. Evans-Pritchard's
The Nuer, and
Claude Lévi-Strauss'
Tristes Tropiques.
Iterations of ethnographic representations in the classic, modernist
camp include Joseph W. Bastien's "Drum and Stethoscope" (1992),
Bartholomew Dean's recent (2009) contribution,
Urarina Society, Cosmology, and History in Peruvian Amazonia.
A typical ethnography attempts to be
holistic and typically follows an outline to include a brief history of the culture in question, an analysis of the
physical geography or terrain inhabited by the people under study, including
climate, and often including what biological anthropologists call
habitat.
Folk notions of botany and zoology are presented as ethnobotany and
ethnozoology alongside references from the formal sciences. Material
culture, technology, and means of subsistence are usually treated next,
as they are typically bound up in physical geography and include
descriptions of infrastructure. Kinship and social structure (including
age grading, peer groups, gender, voluntary associations, clans,
moieties, and so forth, if they exist) are typically included. Languages
spoken, dialects, and the history of language change are another group
of standard topics.
Practices of child rearing, acculturation, and emic views on
personality and values usually follow after sections on social
structure.
Rites, rituals, and other evidence of religion have long been an
interest and are sometimes central to ethnographies, especially when
conducted in public where visiting anthropologists can see them.
As ethnography developed, anthropologists grew more interested in
less tangible aspects of culture, such as values, worldview and what
Clifford Geertz termed the "ethos" of the culture. In his fieldwork, Geertz used elements of a
phenomenological
approach, tracing not just the doings of people, but the cultural
elements themselves. For example, if within a group of people, winking
was a communicative gesture, he sought to first determine what kinds of
things a wink might mean (it might mean several things). Then, he sought
to determine in what contexts winks were used, and whether, as one
moved about a region, winks remained meaningful in the same way. In this
way, cultural boundaries of communication could be explored, as opposed
to using linguistic boundaries or notions about the residence. Geertz,
while still following something of a traditional ethnographic outline,
moved outside that outline to talk about "webs" instead of "outlines" of culture.
Within cultural anthropology, there are several subgenres of
ethnography. Beginning in the 1950s and early 1960s, anthropologists
began writing "bio-confessional" ethnographies that intentionally
exposed the nature of ethnographic research. Famous examples include
Tristes Tropiques (1955) by Lévi-Strauss,
The High Valley by Kenneth Read, and
The Savage and the Innocent by
David Maybury-Lewis, as well as the mildly fictionalized
Return to Laughter by Elenore Smith Bowen (
Laura Bohannan).
Later "
reflexive"
ethnographies refined the technique to translate cultural differences
by representing their effects on the ethnographer. Famous examples
include
Deep Play: Notes on a Balinese Cockfight by
Clifford Geertz,
Reflections on Fieldwork in Morocco by
Paul Rabinow,
The Headman and I by Jean-Paul Dumont, and
Tuhami
by Vincent Crapanzano. In the 1980s, the rhetoric of ethnography was
subjected to intense scrutiny within the discipline, under the general
influence of
literary theory and
post-colonial/
post-structuralist thought. "Experimental" ethnographies that reveal the ferment of the discipline include
Shamanism, Colonialism, and the Wild Man by
Michael Taussig,
Debating Muslims by Michael F. J. Fischer and Mehdi Abedi,
A Space on the Side of the Road by Kathleen Stewart, and
Advocacy after Bhopal by Kim Fortun.
This critical turn in sociocultural anthropology during the
mid-1980s can be traced to the influence of the now classic (and often
contested) text,
Writing Culture: The Poetics and Politics of Ethnography, (1986) edited by
James Clifford and
George Marcus.
Writing Culture
helped bring changes to both anthropology and ethnography often
described in terms of being 'postmodern,' 'reflexive,' 'literary,'
'deconstructive,' or 'poststructural' in nature, in that the text helped
to highlight the various epistemic and political predicaments that many
practitioners saw as plaguing ethnographic representations and
practices.
Where Geertz's and
Turner's
interpretive anthropology recognized subjects as creative actors who
constructed their sociocultural worlds out of symbols, postmodernists
attempted to draw attention to the privileged status of the
ethnographers themselves. That is, the ethnographer cannot escape the
personal viewpoint in creating an ethnographic account, thus making any
claims of objective neutrality highly problematic, if not altogether
impossible. In regards to this last point,
Writing Culture
became a focal point for looking at how ethnographers could describe
different cultures and societies without denying the subjectivity of
those individuals and groups being studied while simultaneously doing so
without laying claim to absolute knowledge and objective authority. Along with the development of experimental forms such as 'dialogic anthropology,' 'narrative ethnography,' and 'literary ethnography',
Writing Culture helped to encourage the development of 'collaborative ethnography.'
This exploration of the relationship between writer, audience, and
subject has become a central tenet of contemporary anthropological and
ethnographic practice. In certain instances, active collaboration
between the researcher(s) and subject(s) has helped blend the practice
of collaboration in ethnographic fieldwork with the process of creating
the ethnographic product resulting from the research.
Sociology
Sociology is another field which prominently features ethnographies.
Urban sociology, Atlanta University (now Clark-Atlanta University), and the
Chicago School, in particular, are associated with ethnographic research, with some well-known early examples being
The Philadelphia Negro (1899) by W. E. B. Du Bois,
Street Corner Society by
William Foote Whyte and
Black Metropolis by
St. Clair Drake and
Horace R. Cayton, Jr.. Major influences on this development were anthropologist
Lloyd Warner, on the Chicago sociology faculty, and to
Robert Park's experience as a journalist.
Symbolic interactionism developed from the same tradition and yielded such sociological ethnographies as
Shared Fantasy by
Gary Alan Fine, which documents the early history of fantasy
role-playing games. Other important ethnographies in sociology include
Pierre Bourdieu's work in Algeria and France.
Jaber F. Gubrium's series of organizational ethnographies focused
on the everyday practices of illness, care, and recovery are notable.
They include
Living and Dying at Murray Manor, which describes the social worlds of a nursing home;
Describing Care: Image and Practice in Rehabilitation, which documents the social organization of patient subjectivity in a physical rehabilitation hospital;
Caretakers: Treating Emotionally Disturbed Children, which features the social construction of behavioral disorders in children; and
Oldtimers and Alzheimer's: The Descriptive Organization of Senility,
which describes how the Alzheimer's disease movement constructed a new
subjectivity of senile dementia and how that is organized in a geriatric
hospital. Another approach to ethnography in sociology comes in the
form of
institutional ethnography, developed by
Dorothy E. Smith for studying the social relations which structure people's everyday lives.
Other notable ethnographies include
Paul Willis's
Learning to Labour, on working class youth; the work of
Elijah Anderson,
Mitchell Duneier, and
Loïc Wacquant on black America, and Lai Olurode's
Glimpses of Madrasa From Africa.
But even though many sub-fields and theoretical perspectives within
sociology use ethnographic methods, ethnography is not the
sine qua non of the discipline, as it is in cultural anthropology.
Communication studies
Beginning
in the 1960s and 1970s, ethnographic research methods began to be
widely used by communication scholars. As the purpose of ethnography is
to describe and interpret the shared and learned patterns of values,
behaviors, beliefs, and language of a culture-sharing group, Harris,
(1968), also Agar (1980) note that ethnography is both a process and an
outcome of the research. Studies such as
Gerry Philipsen's analysis of cultural communication strategies in a
blue-collar, working-class neighborhood on the south side of Chicago,
Speaking 'Like a Man' in Teamsterville, paved the way for the expansion of ethnographic research in the study of communication.
Scholars of
communication studies
use ethnographic research methods to analyze communicative behaviors
and phenomena. This is often characterized in the writing as attempts to
understand taken-for-granted routines by which working definitions are
socially produced. Ethnography as a method is a storied, careful, and
systematic examination of the reality-generating mechanisms of everyday
life (Coulon, 1995). Ethnographic work in communication studies seeks to
explain "how" ordinary methods/practices/performances construct the
ordinary actions used by ordinary people in the accomplishments of their
identities. This often gives the perception of trying to answer the
"why" and "how come" questions of human communication. Often this type of research results in a
case study or
field study
such as an analysis of speech patterns at a protest rally, or the way
firemen communicate during "down time" at a fire station. Like
anthropology scholars, communication scholars often immerse themselves,
and participate in and/or directly observe the particular
social group being studied.
Other fields
The American anthropologist
George Spindler was a pioneer in applying the ethnographic methodology to the classroom.
Anthropologists such as
Daniel Miller and
Mary Douglas have used ethnographic data to answer academic questions about consumers and consumption. In this sense, Tony Salvador,
Genevieve Bell,
and Ken Anderson describe design ethnography as being "a way of
understanding the particulars of daily life in such a way as to increase
the success probability of a new product or service or, more
appropriately, to reduce the probability of failure specifically due to a
lack of understanding of the basic behaviors and frameworks of
consumers." Sociologist Sam Ladner argues in her book,
that understanding consumers and their desires requires a shift in
"standpoint," one that only ethnography provides. The results are
products and services that respond to consumers' unmet needs.
Businesses, too, have found ethnographers helpful for
understanding how people use products and services. Companies make
increasing use of ethnographic methods to understand consumers and
consumption, or for new product development (such as
video ethnography). The
Ethnographic Praxis in Industry
(EPIC) conference is evidence of this. Ethnographers' systematic and
holistic approach to real-life experience is valued by product
developers, who use the method to understand unstated desires or
cultural practices that surround products. Where focus groups fail to
inform marketers about what people really do, ethnography links what
people say to what they do—avoiding the pitfalls that come from relying
only on self-reported, focus-group data. Modern developments in
computing power and AI have enabled higher efficiencies in ethnographic
data collection via multimedia and computational analysis using machine
learning.
Evaluating ethnography
The ethnographic methodology is not usually evaluated in terms of philosophical standpoint (such as
positivism and
emotionalism).
Ethnographic studies need to be evaluated in some manner. No consensus
has been developed on evaluation standards, but Richardson (2000,
p. 254) provides five criteria that ethnographers might find helpful. Jaber F. Gubrium and James A. Holstein's (1997) monograph,
The New Language of Qualitative Method, discusses forms of ethnography in terms of their "methods talk."
- Substantive contribution: "Does the piece contribute to our understanding of social life?"
- Aesthetic merit: "Does this piece succeed aesthetically?"
- Reflexivity: "How did the author come to write this text…Is
there adequate self-awareness and self-exposure for the reader to make
judgments about the point of view?"
- Impact: "Does this affect me? Emotionally? Intellectually?" Does it move me?
- Expresses a reality: "Does it seem 'true'—a credible account of a cultural, social, individual, or communal sense of the 'real'?"
Advantages and challenges
Ethnography, which is a method dedicated entirely to field work, is
aimed at gaining a deeper insight of a certain people's knowledge and
social culture.
Ethnography's advantages are:
- It can open up certain experiences during group research that other research methods fail to cover.
- Notions that are taken for granted can be highlighted and confronted.
- It can tap into intuitive and deep human understanding of and
interpretations of (by the ethnographer) the accounts of informants
(those who are being studied), which goes far beyond what quantitative
research can do in terms of extracting meanings.
- Ethnography allows people outside of a culture (whether of a
primitive tribe or of a corporation's employees) to learn about its
members' practices, motives, understandings, and values.
However, there are certain challenges or limitations for the ethnographic method:
- Deep expertise is required: Ethnographers must accumulate
knowledge about the methods and domains of interest, which can take
considerable training and time.
- Sensitivity: The ethnographer is an outsider and must exercise
discretion and caution to avoid offending, alienating or harming those
being observed.
- Access: Negotiating access to field sites and participants can be
time-consuming and difficult. Secretive or guarded organizations may
require different approaches in order for researchers to succeed.
- Duration and cost: Research can involve prolonged time in the field,
particularly because building trust with participants is usually
necessary for obtaining rich data.
- Bias: Ethnographers bring their own experience to bear in pursuing
questions to ask and reviewing data, which can lead to biases in
directions of inquiry and analysis.
- Descriptive approach: Ethnography relies heavily on storytelling
and the presentation of critical incidents, which is inevitably
selective and viewed as a weakness by those used to the scientific
approaches of hypothesis testing, quantification and replication.
Among the dangers of ethnography are that it can become indistinguishable from a kind of
embedded journalism or
blog
with academic jargon giving it the veneer of academic legitimacy but
without actually meeting the classic requirements for ethnography.
A series of tests can be applied to determine whether work is actually
ethnography or academic journalism depending on the focus of the study
(an "ethnos"), the scientific hypotheses and questions, whether there is
model building, whether there are cross-cultural comparisons, and the
purpose, uses and forms of the work.
Ethics
Gary Alan Fine
argues that the nature of ethnographic inquiry demands that researchers
deviate from formal and idealistic rules or ethics that have come to be
widely accepted in qualitative and quantitative approaches in research.
Many of these ethical assumptions are rooted in positivist and
post-positivist
epistemologies
that have adapted over time but are apparent and must be accounted for
in all research paradigms. These ethical dilemmas are evident throughout
the entire process of conducting ethnographies, including the design,
implementation, and reporting of an ethnographic study. Essentially,
Fine maintains that researchers are typically not as ethical as they
claim or assume to be — and that "each job includes ways of doing things
that would be inappropriate for others to know".
Fine is not necessarily casting blame at ethnographic researchers
but tries to show that researchers often make idealized ethical claims
and standards which in are inherently based on partial truths and
self-deceptions. Fine also acknowledges that many of these partial
truths and self-deceptions are unavoidable. He maintains that
"illusions" are essential to maintain an occupational reputation and
avoid potentially more caustic consequences. He claims, "Ethnographers
cannot help but lie, but in lying, we reveal truths that escape those
who are not so bold".
Based on these assertions, Fine establishes three conceptual clusters
in which ethnographic ethical dilemmas can be situated: "Classic
Virtues", "Technical Skills", and "Ethnographic Self".
Much debate surrounding the issue of ethics arose following revelations about how the ethnographer
Napoleon Chagnon conducted his ethnographic fieldwork with the
Yanomani people of South America.
While there is no international standard on Ethnographic Ethics,
many western anthropologists look to the American Anthropological
Association for guidance when conducting ethnographic work.
In 2009 the Association adopted a code of ethics, stating:
Anthropologists have "moral obligations as members of other groups, such
as the family, religion, and community, as well as the profession".
The code of ethics notes that anthropologists are part of a wider
scholarly and political network, as well as human and natural
environment, which needs to be reported on respectfully.
The code of ethics recognizes that sometimes very close and personal
relationship can sometimes develop from doing ethnographic work.
The Association acknowledges that the code is limited in scope;
ethnographic work can sometimes be multidisciplinary, and
anthropologists need to be familiar with ethics and perspectives of
other disciplines as well.
The eight-page code of ethics outlines ethical considerations for
those conducting Research, Teaching, Application and Dissemination of
Results, which are briefly outlined below.
- "Conducting Research" - When conducting research Anthropologists
need to be aware of the potential impacts of the research on the people
and animals they study.
If the seeking of new knowledge will negatively impact the people and
animals they will be studying they may not undertake the study according
to the code of ethics.
- "Teaching" - When teaching the discipline of anthropology,
instructors are required to inform students of the ethical dilemmas of
conducting ethnographies and field work.
- "Application" - When conducting an ethnography, Anthropologists must
be "open with funders, colleagues, persons studied or providing
information, and relevant parties affected by the work about the
purpose(s), potential impacts, and source(s) of support for the work."
- "Dissemination of Results" - When disseminating results of an
ethnography, "[a]nthropologists have an ethical obligation to consider
the potential impact of both their research and the communication or
dissemination of the results of their research on all directly or
indirectly involved."
Research results of ethnographies should not be withheld from
participants in the research if that research is being observed by other
people.
Classic virtues
- "The
kindly ethnographer" – Most ethnographers present themselves as being
more sympathetic than they are, which aids in the research process, but
is also deceptive. The identity that we present to subjects is different
from who we are in other circumstances.
- "The friendly ethnographer" – Ethnographers operate under the
assumption that they should not dislike anyone. When ethnographers find
they intensely dislike individuals encountered in the research, they may
crop them out of the findings.
- "The honest ethnographer" – If research participants know the
research goals, their responses will likely be skewed. Therefore,
ethnographers often conceal what they know in order to increase the
likelihood of acceptance by participants.
Technical skills
- "The
Precise Ethnographer" – Ethnographers often create the illusion that
field notes are data and reflect what "really" happened. They engage in
the opposite of plagiarism, giving undeserved credit through loose
interpretations and paraphrasing. Researchers take near-fictions and
turn them into claims of fact. The closest ethnographers can ever really
get to reality is an approximate truth.
- "The Observant Ethnographer" – Readers of ethnography are often led
to assume the report of a scene is complete – that little of importance
was missed. In reality, an ethnographer will always miss some aspect
because of lacking omniscience. Everything is open to multiple
interpretations and misunderstandings. As ethnographers' skills in
observation and collection of data vary by individual, what is depicted
in ethnography can never be the whole picture.
- "The Unobtrusive Ethnographer" – As a "participant" in the scene,
the researcher will always have an effect on the communication that
occurs within the research site. The degree to which one is an "active
member" affects the extent to which sympathetic understanding is
possible.
Ethnographic self
The following are commonly misconceived conceptions of ethnographers:
- "The Candid Ethnographer" – Where the researcher personally
situates within the ethnography is ethically problematic. There is an
illusion that everything reported was observed by the researcher.
- "The Chaste Ethnographer" – When ethnographers participate within
the field, they invariably develop relationships with research
subjects/participants. These relationships are sometimes not accounted
for within the reporting of the ethnography, although they may influence
the research findings.
- "The Fair Ethnographer" – Fine claims that objectivity is an
illusion and that everything in ethnography is known from a perspective.
Therefore, it is unethical for a researcher to report fairness in
findings.
- "The Literary Ethnographer" – Representation is a balancing act of
determining what to "show" through poetic/prosaic language and style,
versus what to "tell" via straightforward, 'factual' reporting. The
individual skills of an ethnographer influence what appears to be the
value of the research.
According to Norman K. Denzin, ethnographers should consider the
following eight principles when observing, recording, and sampling data:
- The groups should combine symbolic meanings with patterns of interaction.
- Observe the world from the point of view of the subject, while
maintaining the distinction between everyday and scientific perceptions
of reality.
- Link the group's symbols and their meanings with the social relationships.
- Record all behavior.
- The methodology should highlight phases of process, change, and stability.
- The act should be a type of symbolic interactionism.
- Use concepts that would avoid casual explanations.