8. Scientific Fraud and Ethnography

Question 1

What is ethnography?

Answer 1

Qualitative research with origins in anthropology. The study of a group/culture/issue/behaviour. Extended period of immersion within a field of study.

Question 2

What is methodology?

Answer 2

How and why you use specific methods to inform research

Question 3

What is a method?

Answer 3

What you do when in the field or gathering data

Question 4

What is an emic perspective?

Answer 4

Prioritises the view of a cultural phenomenon from the insiders view

Question 5

What is an etic perspective?

Answer 5

The view of a cultural phenomenon from an outsiders view

Question 6

What is the difference between participant observation and observant participation?

Answer 6

Participant observation = prioritises participation, researcher adopts an unfamiliar role in an unfamiliar setting while maintaining a familiar researcher identity.

Observant participation = prioritses observation, researcher adopts a familiar research role in an unfamiliar setting

Question 7

What is triangulation?

Answer 7

Testing one source of ethnographic information with another and another. Creates a multi-person perspective of shared phenomenon. Central to validating ethnographic research.

Question 8

What are some issues in ethnography?

Answer 8

Ethics, how to gain access to a field, role of researcher being covert or overt, legality of behaviours observed, disclosure of harm, management of self-care for the researcher, establishing rapport with people never met before.

Question 9

What are some ways scientific fraud is caught?

Answer 9

Absurd claims, impossible data, hiding in plain sight, sheer audacity