Ethnography


 * Ethnography**


 * Ethnography** refers to the qualitative research method of describing human social phenomena, based on data obtained primarily from fieldwork. It is a qualitative research design that describes and interprets the shared patterns of values, behaviors and beliefs or culture of a group of individuals (Creswell, 2007). The researcher resides within the culture in order to extract the authentic accounts from the participants through close observations and interviews of native group members. Fetterman (2010) tells us that ethnography is the telling of a “credible, rigorous, and authentic story”.

The history of ethnography can be traced to late nineteenth-century anthropologists who engaged in participant observation in the field (Merriam, 2009). Modern day ethnography research can represent a group of individuals as small as a group of special education students or teachers who share a cultural behavior.


 * Ethnographic Research Methodology**

According to Tedlock (2000), ethnography involves an ongoing attempt to place specific encounters, events, and understandings into a fuller, more meaningful context. Ethnography combines research design, fieldwork, and various methods of inquiry to produce historically, politically, and personally situated accounts, descriptions, interpretations and representations of human lives.

The purpose of ethnography is to describe and interpret the shared and learned patterns, values, behaviors, beliefs, and language of a culture sharing group. The intent of the researcher is to provide a thick description of everyday life practice. The term “thick description” was coined by ethnographer Clifford Geertz.

Merriam (2009) states that the factor that unites all forms of ethnography is its focus on human society and **CULTURE→referring to the beliefs, values, and attitudes that structure the behavior patterns of a specific people.** Wolcott (1999, as cited in Merriam, 2009) purports that for something to be an ethnography it must provide the kind of account of human social activity out of which cultural patterning can be discerned. VanMaanen (1982, as cited in Merriam, 2009) states that the result of ethnographic inquiry is cultural description. A cultural description that can only occur from a deep reliance on intensive work with participants in their setting.


 * Forms of Ethnography**

Confessional Ethnography—appeared in the late 1950s-1960s—these intentionally exposed the nature of ethnographic research

Life History—Frames a participant’s life history within the influence of the culture

Auto ethnography—explores the researcher’s personal experience and connects the autobiographical story to wider cultural, political and social meanings and understandings (Marechal, 2010)

Feminist Ethnography—According to McNamera (2009) feminist ethnography helps to give women a voice; empowers women to overcome the patriarchy that continues to cast long shadows across even the most gender sensitive of qualitative research methodology

Ethnographic Novels—Allow the researcher to tell the story through a novel

Visual Ethnography—found in photography and video and electronic media

Realist Ethnography—Provides a narration of what is seen and heard; reports an objective account of the information that is usually written in the third person (Creswell, 2007)

Critical Ethnography—Focuses on empowering and exposing inequalities of a group. Addresses power and control within a cultural setting (Creswell, 2007)


 * Procedures for Conducting an Ethnographic Study**

The design that this type of qualitative research uses is situated within the context of the members of a cultural-sharing group. The focus of the research investigates the experiences, problems, or concerns of the group members as they exist within their daily life activities. Ethnographers study the first-hand accounts of their subjects through a cultural-sharing lens (Creswell, 2007).


 * When to use an ethnographic study** (Schensul, 2005)**:**

· Differences among people such as ethnicity, age, gender

· Different behaviors, cultural beliefs, attitudes, norms

· Relationships

· Processes

· Structures such as policies, norms, rules

· Historical factors or variables in background

· Statuses in areas such as health, educational, economic, political

Creswell (2007) states that there is no single way to conduct the research in ethnographic study. The author recommends the following as a guideline:

· Determine if ethnography is the most appropriate design for your study (if the needs are to describe how a cultural group works and to explore the beliefs, language, behaviors, and issues such as power, resistance, and dominance).

· Identify and locate a culture-sharing group to study

· Select cultural themes or issues to study about the group

· Determine which type of ethnography to use

· Gather information where the group works and lives (conduct fieldwork)

· Forge a working set of rules and patterns as the final product

Spindler and Spindler (1987, as cited in Creswell, 2007) provide the following nine criteria for a “good ethnography”:

Criterion I: Observations are contextualized.

Criterion II: Hypotheses emerge in situ as the study goes on.

Criterion III: Observation is prolonged and repetitive.

Criterion IV: Through interviews, observations, and other eliciting procedures, the native view of reality is obtained.

Criterion V: Ethnographers elicit knowledge from informant-participants in a systematic fashion.

Criterion VI: Instruments, codes, schedules, questionnaires, agenda for interviews, and so forth are generated in situ as a result of inquiry.

Criterion VII: A transcultural, comparative perspective is frequently an unstated assumption.

Criterion VIII: The ethnographer makes explicit what is implicit and tacit to informants.

Criterion IX: The ethnographic interviewer must not predetermine responses by the kinds of questions asked.


 * Classic Ethnographic Methods (data collection):**

Secondary data analysis (review of existing data)

Fieldwork (essential to ethnography—immersion in the culture)

Observation of activities of interest

Recording field notes and observations

Participating in activities during observations

Informal and semi-structured ethnographic interviews


 * Difficulties of Ethnographic Research:**

Observer bias

Impact of observer on site and participants

Manipulation of subjects

Ethics

Researcher needs to have grounding in anthropology and the meaning of a social-cultural system

Time to collect data is extensive; requires prolonged time in the field

Narratives are usually written with a story telling approach; this can limit the audience


 * Benefits of Ethnographic Research:**

Because ethnography has its roots in anthropology, it seamlessly lends itself to cultural studies. Both anthropology and sociology use ethnographic data to analyze populations in a given culture (Wolcott, 2008). Ethnography provides a descriptive look into the daily lives and experiences of individuals or groups of people.

The rich, thick descriptions found in ethnographic studies allow readers to make decisions regarding transferability (Erlandson et al., 1993; Lincoln & Guba, 1985; Merriam 1998 as cited in Creswell, 2007). Erlandson et al. (1993), state that with detailed description, the researcher enables the readers to transfer information to other settings and to determine whether the findings can be transferred because of shared characteristics.


 * Notable Ethnographers**


 * Margaret Mead**

Coming of Age in Samoa (1928)

Growing Up in New Guinea (1930)

The Changing Culture of an Indian Tribe (1932)

Sex and Temperament in Three Primitive Societies (1935)

And Keep Your Powder Dry: An Anthropologist Looks at America (1942)

Male and Female (1949)

New Lives for Old: Cultural Transformation in Manus, 1928-1953 (1956)

People and Places (1959; a book for young readers)

Continuities in Cultural Evolution (1964)

Culture and Commitment (1970)

Blackberry Winter: My Earlier Years (1972; autobiography)

The Future as Frame for the Present (audio recording of a lecture delivered July 11, 1977)


 * Clifford Geertz**

The Religion of Java (1960)

Agricultural Involution, the Processes of Ecological Change in Indonesia (1963)

Peddlers and Princes (1963)

Person, Time and Conduct in Bali (1966)

Deep Play: Notes on a Balinese Cockfight (1972)

Myth, Symbol and Culture (1974)

Kinship in Bali (1975)

Negara, the Theater State in Nineteenth-Century Bali (1980)


 * David Maybury-Lewis**

Akwe-Shavante Society (1974)

Dialectical Societies: The Ge and Bororo of Central Brazil (1979)

Prospects for Plural Societies: 1982 Proceedings of the American Ethnological Society (1984)

The Attraction of Opposites: Thought and Society in the Dualistic Mode (1989)

Millennium: Tribal Wisdom and the Modern World (1992)

The Savage and the Innocent (2000)

Indigenous Peoples, Ethnic Groups, and the State (2001)

The Politics of Ethnicity:Indigenous Peoples in Latin American States (2003)


 * Bronisław Kasper Malinowski**

The Trobriand Islands (1915)

Argonauts of the Western Pacific (1922)

Myth in Primitive Psychology (1926)

Crime and Custom in Savage Society (1926)

Sex and Repression in Savage Society (1927)

The Sexual Life of Savages in North-Western Melanesia (1929)

Coral Gardens and their Magic: A Study of the Methods of Tilling the Soil and of Agricultural Rites in the Trobriand Islands (1935)

The Scientific Theory of Culture (1944)

"Freedom & Civilization" (1944)

Magic, Science, and Religion (1948)

The Dynamics of Culture Change (1945)

A Diary In the Strict Sense of the Term (1967//)//


 * Claude Levi-Strauss**

Tristes Tropiques (1955—example of a confessional ethnography)


 * Additional Resources:**

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[|www.indiana.edu/awanthro/theorypages]

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Video Clip on Video Ethnography

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This is an early film of historical significance by pioneers of visual anthropology, Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson, circa 1939. It explores the themes of trance and dance in the rituals and religion of Bali. The famous Kris Dance is performed. Narrated by Margaret Mead. Filmed by Gregory Bateson. Converted from 16mm film reel. Copyright 1988, NYU Film & Video Library.

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 * References**

Creswell, J.W. (2007). //Qualitative inquiry & research design: Choosing among five approaches.//

Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Fetterman, D.M. (2010). //Ethnography: step by step.// Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Marechal, G. (2010). Auto ethnography Encyclopedia of Case Study Research, 2(43-45).

Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Retrieved from

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Merriam, S.B. (2009). //Qualitative research: a guide to design and implementation.// San

Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

McNamera, P. (2009). Feminist ethnography: story telling that makes a difference. //Qualitative//

//Social Work// 8 (2-16).

Schensul, J. (2005, July). //What is Ethnography?//. Retrieved from

[|http://cira.med.yale.edu/events/mbseminars/mbs070705.pdf]

Tedlock, B. (2000). Ethnography and ethnographic representation. In N. K.

Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.), //Handbook of qualitative research// (2nd

ed., pp. 455–486). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Wolcott, H. (2005). //Ethnography a way of seeing//. New York: Rowman and Littlefield.

Five Approaches to Qualitative Research