Ethnography

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Ethnography

• Dr Saharnaz Nedjat

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Goals For Today

• What is Ethnography?
• Types of Ethnography
• Characteristics of Ethnography
• Selection of Ethnography as Method
• Steps for Conducting ethnographic Research

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What is Ethnography?Writing Culture

• A means of studying groups of individuals'
  Iifeways or patterns.
• Anthropology is synonymous with the term
  ethnography. The product of anthropologists'
  work is ethnography.
• "Ethnography is the work of describing culture.
• ethnography is more than the study of the people
  rather, "ethnography means learning from people.

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What is Ethnography?

• Ethnography is the study of any given group of
  people be it a tribal group, a church group, or
  even one class.
• Ethnographer is the middle person who,
  transcribing what they see and hear into writing.

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What is Ethnography?

• The ethnographer participates, overtly or
  covertly, in peoples daily lives for an extended
  period of time, watching what happens, listening
  to what is said, asking questions in fact
  collecting whatever data are available to throw
  light on the issues with which he or she is
  concerned.

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How should ethnography be conducted?

• "there is not a single standard form of
  ethnography.
• "the style and method of ethnography are a
  function of the ethnographer, who brings her or
  his own scientific traditions, training, and
  socialization to the research.

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Goals For Today

• What is Ethnography?
• Types of Ethnography
• Characteristics of Ethnography
• Selection of Ethnography as Method
• Steps for Conducting ethnographic Research

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Four Major Type of Ethnography

• Classical ethnography requires that the study
  "include both a description of behavior and
  demonstrate why and under what circumstances the
  behavior took place.
• The objective of systematic ethnography is "to
  define the structure of culture, rather than to
  describe a people and their social interaction,
  emotions, and materials.
• The aim of interpretive or hermeneutic
  ethnography is to "discover the meanings of
  observed social interactions.
• Critical ethnographers do not believe there is a
  culture out there to be known but, rather, that
  researchers and members of a culture together
  create a cultural schema.

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Goals For Today

• What is Ethnography?
• Types of Ethnography
• Characteristics of Ethnography
• Selection of Ethnography as Method
• Steps for Conducting ethnographic Research

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Characteristics of Ethnography

• (1) researcher as instrument
• (2) fieldwork
• (3) the cyclic nature of data collection and
  analysis.
• (4) the focus on culture
• (5) cultural immersion
• (6) the tension between researcher as researcher
  and researcher as cultural member, also called
  reflexivity.

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The focus on culture

• Unique to ethnography is the focus on the
  culture. Ethnography is the only research method
  whose sole purpose is to understand the lifeways
  of individuals connected through group
  membership.

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cultural immersion

• Another characteristic of ethnography is the
  depth and length of participation ethnographers
  must have with the culture under study. The
  researcher's participation has been called
  cultural immersion, which requires that
  researchers live among the people being studied.

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Reflexivity

• The struggle for objectivity in collecting and
  analyzing data while being so closely involved
  with the group is a characteristic unique to
  ethnography.
• Also of concern is the researcher's knowledge
  that just being present in the culture on some
  level affects its character.
• The duality of being both researcher and
  participant provides opportunities to capitalize
  on insights derived from datum sources.

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Goals For Today

• What is Ethnography?
• Types of Ethnography
• Characteristics of Ethnography
• Selection of Ethnography as Method
• Steps for Conducting ethnographic Research

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Selection of Ethnography as Method

• 1. to document "the existence of alternative
  realities and to describe these realities in the
  terms of the people studied Much of what
  individuals know about other cultures they
  interpret based on their own culture.
• 2. to discover grounded theories
• 3. to better understand complex societies
• 4. to understand human behavior. Human behavior
  has meaning, and ethnography is one way to
  discover that meaning.

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Selection of Ethnography as Method

• If your research question requires an in depth
  understanding of social context, then ethnography
  is an important method through direct
  observation of behaviors and through interaction
  with others.

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Ethnographer ask questions such as

• How do individuals view their world?
• What is their story?
• How is a custom understood by members of a given
  culture?

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Goals For Today

• What is Ethnography?
• Types of Ethnography
• Characteristics of Ethnography
• Selection of Ethnography as Method
• Steps for Conducting ethnographic Research

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Researcher roles

• To participate in the culture,
• Observe the participants,
• Document observations,
• Collect artifact,
• Interview members of the cultural group,
• Analyze the findings, and
• Report the findings.

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Steps for Conducting ethnographic Research

• 1. Do participant observation.
• 2. Make an ethnographic record.
• 3. Make descriptive observations.
• 4. Make a domain analysis.
• 5. Make a focused observation.
• 6. Make a taxonomic analysis.
• 7. Make selected observations.
• 8. Make a componential analysis.
• 9. Discover cultural themes.
• 10.Take a cultural inventory.
• 11.write an ethnography.

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Observations

• Three types of observations are descriptive,
  focused, and Selective. Descriptive observations
  start when the researcher enters the social
  situation
• Space - Event
• Actors - Time
• Activities - Goals
• Objects - feeling
• Act (any single action)

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Steps for Conducting ethnographic Research

• 1. Do participant observation.
• 2. Make an ethnographic record.
• 3. Make descriptive observations.
• 4. Make a domain analysis.
• 5. Make a focused observation.
• 6. Make a taxonomic analysis.
• 7. Make selected observations.
• 8. Make a componential analysis.
• 9. Discover cultural themes.
• 10.Take a cultural inventory.
• 11.write an ethnography.

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Make an ethnographic record

• not to focus too soon and also not to assume that
  any comment, artifact, or interaction is
  incidental.
• Researchers should document experiences to create
  a thick or rich description of the culture.
• In addition to recording explicit details of a
  situation, ethnographers also will record
  personal insights.

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Steps for Conducting ethnographic Research

• 1. Do participant observation.
• 2. Make an ethnographic record.
• 3. Make descriptive observations.
• 4. Make a domain analysis.
• 5. Make a focused observation.
• 6. Make a taxonomic analysis.
• 7. Make selected observations.
• 8. Make a componential analysis.
• 9. Discover cultural themes.
• 10.Take a cultural inventory.
• 11.write an ethnography.

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Disadvantages

• Not lead to generalizable finding
• Considerable time
• Costly
• Ethical Issues

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Goals For Today

• What is Ethnography?
• Types of Ethnography
• Characteristics of Ethnography
• Selection of Ethnography as Method
• Steps for Conducting ethnographic Research