What is ethnography
In ng at marshall term ethnography has come to be equated with virtually any qualitative research project where the intent is to provide a detailed, in-depth description of everyday life and practice. Quantitative and qualitative, while often complementary, ultimately have different that you can view and download my detailed guide to ethnography and ethnographic fieldwork, including lists of questions and tips for fieldwork notes. If you would like to use and cite my work on this subject, this is the best way to an ethnographic approach to social research is no longer purely that of the cultural anthropologist, a more precise definition must be rooted in ethnography’s disciplinary home of anthropology. Thus, ethnography may be defined as both a qualitative research process or method (one conducts an ethnography) and product (the outcome of this process is an ethnography) whose aim is cultural interpretation. Specifically, he or she attempts to explain how these represent what we might call “webs of meaning” (geertz again), the cultural constructions, in which we raphers generate understandings of culture through representation of what we call an emic perspective, or what might be described as the “‘insider’s point of view. Using these data sources as a foundation, the ethnographer relies on a cultural frame of -term engagement in the field setting or place where the ethnography takes place, is called participant observation. To develop an understanding of what it is like to live in a setting, the researcher must both become a participant in the life of the setting while also maintaining the stance of an observer, someone who can describes the experience with a measure of what we might call “detachment. This has meant that much of the ethnography done in the united states today is now being done outside of its disciplinary home. Increasing numbers of cultural anthropologists, however, have begun doing fieldwork in the communities where they themselves live and iews provide for what might be called “targeted” data collection by asking specific but open-ended questions. First of these is that, at its heart, ethnographic writing is a means of expressing a shared interest among cultural anthropologists for telling stories – stories about what it means to be human. Good ethnography recognizes the transformative nature of fieldwork where as we search for answers to questions about people we may find ourselves in the stories of others. Ethnography should be acknowledged as a mutual product born of the intertwining of the lives of the ethnographer and his or her subjects (for more on these points, please see hoey 2008). Do you get told what the good life is, or do you figure it out for yourself”? Stories told here are parts of a larger moral story about what constitutes the good life at a time of economic uncertainty coupled with shifting social categories and cultural meanings. All rights counter provided by wikipedia, the free to: navigation, the journal, see ethnography (journal). An ethnography is a means to represent graphically and in writing the culture of a group. 6] the typical ethnography is a holistic study[7][8] and so includes a brief history, and an analysis of the terrain, the climate, and the habitat. An ethnography records all observed behavior and describes all symbol-meaning relations, using concepts that avoid causal explanations. Word 'ethnography' is derived from the greek ἔθνος (ethnos), meaning "a company, later a people, nation" and -graphy meaning "field of study".
Ethnography is a set of qualitative methods that are used in social sciences that focus on the observation of social practices and interactions. The field of ethnography became very popular in the late 19th century, as many social scientists gained an interest in studying modern society. Therefore, the field of anthropology moved into a discipline of social d 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. This became known as "ethnography," following the introduction of the greek neologism ethnographia by johann friedrich schöpperlin and the german variant by a. Known as the father of history had significant works on the cultures of various peoples beyond the hellenic realm such as nations in scythia, which earned him the title "barbarian lover" and may have produced the first ethnographic of ethnography[edit]. Ethnography: is a kind of ethnographic research in which the creators advocate for the liberation of groups which are marginalized in society. The ethnography can be of the entire group or a subpart of involves engaging in extensive field work where data collection is mainly by interviews, symbols, artifacts, observations, and many other sources of 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 ethnography, the researcher gathers what is available, what is normal, what it is that people do, what they say, and how they work. 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. 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). 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). Ethnography museum (i̇zmir etnografya müzesi), izmir, turkey, from the raphy museum, budapest, ing to the leading social scientist, john brewer, data collection methods are meant to capture the "social meanings and ordinary activities"[13] of people (informants) in "naturally occurring settings"[13] that are commonly referred to as "the field. 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 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. An ethnography is a specific kind of written observational science which provides an account of a particular culture, society, or community. Typical ethnography attempts to be holistic[7][8] 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. 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. 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.
Geertz, while still following something of a traditional ethnographic outline, moved outside that outline to talk about "webs" instead of "outlines"[30] of cultural anthropology, there are several subgenres of ethnography. 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. Fischer and mehdi abedi, a space on the side of the road by kathleen stewart, and advocacy after bhopal by kim 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. 33] along with the development of experimental forms such as 'dialogic anthropology,' 'narrative ethnography,'[34] and 'literary ethnography',[35] writing culture helped to encourage the development of 'collaborative ethnography. Another approach to ethnography in sociology comes in the form of institutional ethnography, developed by dorothy e. 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 ication studies[edit]. 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. Ethnography as a method is a storied, careful, and systematic examination of the reality-generating mechanisms of everyday life (coulon, 1995). 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. 41] sociologist sam ladner argues in her book,[42] that understanding consumers and their desires requires a shift in "standpoint," one that only ethnography provides. Companies make increasing use of ethnographic methods to understand consumers and consumption, or for new product development (such as video ethnography). 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 ting ethnography[edit]. Holstein's (1997) monograph, the new language of qualitative method, discusses forms of ethnography in terms of their "methods talk. Which is a method dedicated entirely to field work, is aimed at gaining a deeper insight of a certain people's knowledge and social raphy's advantages are:It can open up certain experiences during group research that other research methods fail to s that are taken for granted can be highlighted and 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 raphy 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 r, 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 ivity: the ethnographer is an outsider and must exercise discretion and caution to avoid offending, alienating or harming those being : negotiating access to field sites and participants can be time-consuming and difficult. And cost: research can involve prolonged time in the field, particularly because building trust with participants is usually necessary for obtaining rich : 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 ptive 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 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. 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. 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. Therefore, ethnographers often conceal what they know in order to increase the likelihood of acceptance by participants.
The precise ethnographer" – ethnographers often create the illusion that field notes are data and reflect what "really" happened. The observant ethnographer" – readers of ethnography are often led to assume the report of a scene is complete – that little of importance was missed. As ethnographers' skills in observation and collection of data vary by individual, what is depicted in ethnography can never be the whole picture. Following are commonly misconceived conceptions of ethnographers:"the candid ethnographer" – where the researcher personally situates within the ethnography is ethically problematic. 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. 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. Of ethnography: a form of ethnography that involves conducting ethnographic studies on the ipant observation. From 'reading over the shoulders of natives' to 'reading alongside natives', literally: toward a collaborative and reciprocal ethnography", in journal of anthropologcal research, 57(2):137-149. For post-colonial critiques of ethnography from various locations, see essays in prem poddar et al, historical companion to postcolonial literatures--continental europe and its empires, edinburgh university press, 2008. Of the most influential ethnographies and anthropology raphic praxis in industry , michael (2003) a synthesis of ethnographic on of anthropology, american museum of natural history - over 160,000 objects from pacific, north american, african, asian ethnographic collections with images and detailed description, linked to the original catalogue pages, field notebooks, and photographs are available archive of african raphic material collection from northern anatolia and caucasus -photo zealand museum images of objects from pacific sity of pennsylvania's "what is ethnography? University library southeast asia raphy for the masses 2cv's practical application of ethnography in market polar research institute arctic material culture , otis tufton (1905). Inguistic ps and al e-bonded interest ries: ethnographyanthropologyethnologyhidden categories: cs1 uses russian-language script (ru)cs1 russian-language sources (ru)articles containing ancient greek-language textarticles needing additional references from april 2015all articles needing additional referenceswikipedia external links cleanup from may 2013wikipedia spam cleanup from may 2013wikipedia articles incorporating a citation from the new international encyclopediawikipedia articles incorporating a citation from the 1911 encyclopaedia britannica with wikisource referencewikipedia articles incorporating a citation from the encyclopedia americana with a wikisource referencewikipedia articles incorporating a citation from collier's logged intalkcontributionscreate accountlog pagecontentsfeatured contentcurrent eventsrandom articledonate to wikipediawikipedia out wikipediacommunity portalrecent changescontact links hererelated changesupload filespecial pagespermanent linkpage informationwikidata itemcite this a bookdownload as pdfprintable version. Ethnography, simply stated, is the study of people in environment through the use of methods such as participant observation -to-face interviewing. Because a discipline is holistic (meaning it looks at the past, present and a community across time and space), ethnography as a first hand, t of a given community or society attempts to get a comprehensive the circumstances of the people being studied. Raphic research looks at what may be considered ordinary or mundane living within a community, for example shopping malls, corporations, towns,Cities, cyberspace, garbage, libraries, parks, etc. Because detail is so crucial, and interpretive because the determine the significance of what he or she observes without , statistical information. Thick description” in discussing the methodology of the essence, ethnography is done to get the story of a people from those has been referred to as “culture writing.
Before going to the of study, those engaging in ethnographic studies conduct library and al research to learn some of what is already known about the place they are interested in so as not to enter the “field” researcher then spends time with the group of people under study to get. Importance of ethnographic kuhn suggests that what people see depends on what “ and conceptual experience has taught” them. Rice of ia university give an excellent example of how what we look at and see can be different things, depending on who perceives a situation two to three people and mentally place an apple on a table in t any prior discussion, each group member should take a moment dually write down what it is he or she a few minutes, compare notes. What about the type of apple on the table, did anyone there was a difference between a golden delicious and a macintosh? Preservation ting indigenous peoples laws, policies and executive raphy and heritage ng resources raphy in the raphic ethnographers ting ng and ion, what's trending more trending words. Known use: words from the same ethnography defined for english-language e r 2017 words of the day quiz. Things you do every day without even knowing examples of ethnography from the explore the ethnography of jazz music in detroit and new orleans by partnering with the national parks foundation and louis armstrong park to present workshops and a free concert and lecture t free press staff, detroit free press, "2017 detroit knight arts challenge finalists announced," 14 aug. In's journal of his travels in alaska's y-k delta from 1842 to 1844 remains a seminal work of alaska history and troll, alaska dispatch news, "the russians are coming (back)," 24 june museum houses objects related to ethnography, culture and arts, such as a traditional kazakh yurt, furniture and pickup, cnn, "beyond expo 2017: what can astana visitors expect? 30 may is burning jennie livingston’s groundbreaking drag ethnography was among the films selected for preservation in the national film registry at the end of 2016, and for good reason—. Is burning jennie livingston’s groundbreaking drag ethnography was among the films selected for preservation in the national film registry at the end of 2016, and for good reason—. Livingston’s groundbreaking drag ethnography was among the films selected for preservation in the national film registry at the end of 2016, and for good reason—. Architecturally impressive moesgaard museum is an innovative, interactive museum dedicated to archaeology and holland, condé nast traveler, "what to do in aarhus, denmark, 2017's european capital of culture," 20 jan. Ology, ecology, anthropology, archival studies and lately ethnography have provided new strategies for emerging plagens, wsj, "the wide, weird world of contemporary art," 18 nov. Example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'ethnography. Send us and etymology of ethnographie, from ethno- + -graphie - known use: words from the same anthropology rph, prehistory, raphy defined for english language tion of ethnography for english language learners. I-kəl\ more about nica english: translation of ethnography for arabic made you want to look up ethnography? Ethnography is the recording and analysis of a culture or society, usually based on participant-observation and resulting in a written account of a people, place or institution". The concept of ethnography has been developed within social anthropology; but the term is now sometimes used in a looser way in for example opinion and market are ethnographies important? As texts offer excellent insight into how social anthropologists undertake their fieldwork, what it is like to experience daily life in an environment that may be initially unfamiliar, and the political, economic and social dynamics involved in collecting ‘data’.
Through the ensuing negotiations ton learns how baluan people perform and develop their traditions and not least what role he plays himself. R (chicago guides to writing, editing, and publishing,1995) tales of the field: on writing ethnography 2nd editionmaanenn, j.
