Ethnographic Research

Question 1

What is Ethnographic Research?

Answer 1

• Systematic study of people and cultures
• Ethnography is “the work of describing culture”.
• Studies human behaviour within the specific culture
• Tries to get insights. Discovery of the un-known
• Use “process of learning about people by learning from them”

Question 2

Ethnography

Answer 2

• Ethnographers occur in their natural setting, to gain an in-depth perspective
• Ethnographic research requires long-term immersion
• In a way comparative method: what people do and what people say
• “What people say, what people do, and what they say they do are entirely different things.” Margaret Mead
• Can discover unexpected issues from within
• Provides detailed representation of people’s behaviours, attitudes, values, emotions etc
• Does not only understand the practices, behaviours etc, but also what does it mean for people

Question 3

Main Ethnographic Research Data Collection Methods

Answer 3

• Interviews
• Documents, artifacts, government reports, newspaper and magazine articles (depending on a nature of specific study)
• Participant observation

Question 4

Ethnographic Research Data Collection – Participant Observation

Answer 4

• Data collection technique that requires the researcher to be involved in recording routine daily activities
• Aims to understand behaviour and interactions of people in natural settings
• Necessary to set up a system to be in a setting on regular basis
• Full immersion/experience the world like participants
• Active: ask questions

Question 5

Rapid Ethnography

Answer 5

• Focused/Rapid/Quick Ethnography
• Has same assumptions: learning about people, by learning from them
• Major difference: less time, but more intensity of data gathering
• Does not require long-term immersion into the setting
• Requires well planned pre-field preparation:
o specific research question,
o identified settings,
o identified/pre-identified informants,
o specific timeframe etc (Handwerker, 2001).
• The number of participants is usually limited
• Those who have in-depth knowledge about the phenomenon studied
• Usually selected by purposive sampling, or snowball sampling
• Not necessarily fieldnotes, but technological devices could be used
• In traditional ethnography lots of data generated could not relate to the research objectives.

Question 6

Autoethnography

Answer 6

• Seeks to describe and systematically analyze (graphy) personal experiences in order to understand cultural experiences (ethno)’( Ellis et al, 2011)
• Reveals personal experiences
• Connected with feminist research
• ‘views research and writing as socially-just acts; rather than preoccupation with accuracy, the goal is to produce analytical and accessible texts that change us and the world we live in for the better (Jones, 2005).
• Criticized for being focused on ‘self’ in isolation from others, which excludes deep interpretation and analysis of the research phenomena (Chang, 2007).