Ethnography

Definition

Ethnography (from the Greek words ethnos = nation, and graphein = writing) refers to the qualitative research method of describing human social phenomena, based on data obtained primarily from fieldwork. The ethnographer immerses him or herself in the life of the social group in order to collect the necessary data. The roots of ethnographic studies are found in the reports of travelers and historians as far back as the Greek writer Heroditus, and, more recently, of traders and colonial administrators. The inherent difficulty of ethnographic studies is immediately apparent in these reports, as the writers often misinterpreted, for various reasons, the activities they witnessed in foreign cultures.

Ethnography has been the fundamental research method of cultural anthropology. It relies primarily on detailed descriptions of the social life and cultural phenomena of a particular group of people. Paul Leedy, a famous ethnographer, writes: "In an ethnography, the researcher looks at an entire group – more specifically, a group that shares a common culture – in depth. The researcher studies the group in its natural setting for a lengthy period of time, often several months or even years. The focus ... is on the everyday behaviors of the people in the group, with an intent to identify cultural norms, beliefs, social structures, and other cultural patterns."

In order to collect valid data, ethnographers engage in participant observation – spending significant amount of time with the people they study. They use observational methods, interviews with open-ended questions, audio and video recordings of behavior, and collect all other data relevant to the culture studied. Ethnographers engage in social events, rituals and customs, in order to understand the point of view of a person of that particular group. That "native's point of view" is called an emic perspective, as opposed to the etic perspective, or the outsider's point of view. The goal of an emic perspective is to acquire data that are free of the observer's own concepts and assumptions.

Ethnography is a holistic research method based on the idea that a system's properties cannot be accurately understood as the sum of its individual elements. Therefore, the ethnographer not only observes every individual aspect of the society but also aims for complete immersion in order to experience the society as a whole.

Application

Anthropology

Cultural anthropology, one of the four fields of anthropology, grew up around the practice of ethnography. Its canonical texts are mostly ethnographies, e.g. Argonauts of the Western Pacific by Bronislaw Malinowski, The Nuer by E. E. Evans-Pritchard, and Coming of Age in Samoa by Margaret Mead.

Within cultural anthropology, there are several sub-genres of ethnography. Beginning in the late 1950s and early 1960s, anthropologists began writing "confessional" ethnographies that intentionally exposed the nature of ethnographic research. Famous examples include Tristes Tropiques by Claude 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 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.

Other related fields

Sociology and other cultural studies often use ethnographic method in their research. The sociology of urban cultures, and the Chicago school of sociology in particular, are associated with ethnographic research. Some of the most well-known examples (including Street Corner Society by William Foote Whyte and Black Metropolis by Clair Drake) were influenced by Lloyd Warner, professor of anthropology and sociology at the University of Chicago, who adapted research methods from cultural anthropology to sociological research. The symbolic interaction approach to sociological studies developed from the same tradition and yielded several excellent sociological ethnographies, including Shared Fantasy by Gary Alan Fine, which documents the early history of fantasy/role-playing games. Even though many sociologists use ethnographic methods, ethnography is not the sine qua non of the discipline, as it is in cultural anthropology.

Education, ethnomusicology, and folklore are others fields which have made extensive use of ethnography. The American anthropologist George Spindler from Stanford University was a pioneer in applying ethnographic methodology to the classroom. James Spradley is another well-known ethnographer, especially for his book, The Ethnographic Interview, published in 1979.

In recent times, many businesses have invested large amounts of money in market research, where the ethnographic method is used to investigate the preferences of specific populations. The ethnoghraphic method is also used extensively in psychological research, politics, and other spheres of life.

Netnography is a new form of ethnography, which involves conducting ethnographic studies on the Internet.

Difficulties of ethnographic research

Since ethnographic research takes place in natural surroundings and aims to discover the local person's point of view, ethnographers mingle with local people and spend long periods of time with them. The inevitable consequence of this process is that two different cultures – one of the local people and the other of the ethnographer – meet and interact. Several different problems arise during this interaction:

• Observer bias: The researcher's own subjectivity may influence the objectivity of the data. In ethnographic research, the people being studied are described by the researcher through his own cultural thought system, using the researcher's own terminology. In a sense, they are "observer's actors" (see Galibert, 2004). One of the first to address this problem was E.E. Evans-Pritchard. He objected against the predominant view of anthropology as a "natural science" espoused by Radcliffe-Brown), in which the observer directly contrasts his own culture with that of the people being studied. The result of such contrast was that other cultures were often measured with measuring tools from the researcher's culture. Evans-Pritchard claimed instead that anthropolocical research is not an exact science, but an "art", in which researchers need to put themselves in the "shoes" of the subjects, looking through their eyes.
• Impact of observer: The presence of the observer, and the interaction between the observer and the people being studied, may result in changes in the behavior of the people being studied. The mere act of introducing an outsider into a group, who then explain the behaviors and relationships within that group, requires a level of reflection that may lead to change.
• Manipulation by subjects: The people under observation, consciously or unconsciously, may act in order to please the researcher, or to better perform their supposed roles.
• Ethics: Often researchers are faced with ethical issuess during their research. They have to decide whether or not to interfere when encountering behavior that is considered unethical in their own culture. In some cultures incest or even canibalism may be considered an acceptable form of behavior. Certain cultures may conduct rituals that involve physical injury to the person. In these cases the researcher is confronted with the dilemma of whether to interfere in the customs of a particular culture, or to leave it intact and allow behavior considered unethical in other cultures to continue. Researchers are also faced with the question of whether it is ethical to use deception to obtain accurate data. For example, a researcher may go undercover, infiltrating into the certain group of people, in order to gain better understanding of that group.

Importance of ethnography

The ethnographic method is becoming increasingly important in the modern world. It has closed the gap between cultures, enabling people to better understand the true meaning and value of different customs and practices in once distant cultures. In doing ethnographic research one must subdue one's own cultural views in order to enter into the mindset of the people one studies. Only by putting oneself into the "shoes" of others, one can understand the meaning of another's thoughts and behavior.

Further Reading

Galibert, C. (2004). Some preliminary notes on actor–observer anthropology. International Social Science Journal, 56(181), 455-467

Hamabata, M. M. (1990). Crested Kimono: Power and Love in the Japanese Business Family. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.

Kutz, E., & Roskelly, H. (1991). An Unquiet Pedagogy. NH: Boynton/Cook Publishers, Inc.

Leedy, P., & Ormrod, J. (2001). Practical Research. NJ: Prentice-Hall Inc.

Public Interest Anthropology at University of Pennsilvania. Methods: What is Ethnography? from: http://www.sas.upenn.edu/anthro/CPIA/METHODS/Ethnography.html