Week 4 Lecture 4: Ethnography Flashcards
Ethnography
= studying people in their own environments in order to understand the meanings they give to their activities
is both the approach and the method
Ethnographic fieldwork quote
“… a powerful way of opening up an extending understandings of how human beings live in the world … It is a relational approach to social life in which the researcher is fully implicated. Unlike some methods, ethnography is not a technique that can be mastered and then applied because in some ways every ethnography is unique, it is something the ethnographer does, a particular mode of attention that requires skills of patience, endurance, perspicacity, diplomacy - and most importantly perhaps for the western academic the willingness to unlearn.”
History of ethnography
(overview)
- originated from cultural anthropology with Malinowski, Boas, Mead
- initially study of other cultures (coloniser viewpoint) but shifted to include own cultures
- Chicago School of Sociology pioneered use of ethnography
- Psychology uses ethnography when examining ways in which individuals understand norms
- Health research uses ethnography to collect data
Cultural anthropology
= the study of cultural variation among humans
Brewer (2000:10) on the ethnographic approach
studies people in their “… naturally occuring settings or ‘fields’ by means of methods which capture their social meanings and ordinary activities, involving the researcher participating directly in the setting…” (Brewer, 2000:10)
Key elements/features of ethnography (5)
- data derived from direct observation and interpretation of behaviour in a particular society
- researcher is immersed in the social setting for an extended period
- task of ethnographer to make, report and evaluate observations
- mainly use participant observation and interviewing, also use documents, audio, visual, electronic data
- researcher seeks to understand norms and values of the group being studied (5)
Hammersley and Atkinson (1995:1) on ethnography
sociologists who used ethnography
“…In its most characteristic form it involves the ethnographer participating, overtly or covertly, in peoples lives for an extended period of time, watching what happens, listening to what is said, asking questions - in fact, collecting whatever data are available to throw light on the issues that are the focus of the research”
Willis (2007:237) on ethnography
“Ethnography is… an umbrella term for fieldwork, interviewing, and other means of gathering data in authentic (e.g. real-world) envionments … [that] puts the researcher in the settings that he or she wants to study. The research is conducted in the natural environment rather that in an artificially contrived setting” (Willis 2007:237)
2 perspectives in ethnography
- Emic perspective
- Etic perspective
Emic perspective
= the ethnographic research approach to the way members (insiders) of the given culture perceive their world
- usually the main focus of ethnography
- researchers participate and are immersed
Etic perspective
= ethnographic research approach to the way non-members (outsiders) perceive and interpret behaviours and phenomena associated with a given culture
- researchers observe from a distance, keep ‘researcher hat’ on to make objective judgements
‘going native’
in emic ethnography, researcher takes on characteristics of study population –> less objective viewpoint
Macro-ethnography
= the study of broadly-defined cultural groupings
e.g. ‘‘the English’ or ‘New Yorkers’
Micro-ethnography
= the study of narrowly-defined cultural groupings
e.g. ‘local bikie gang members’ or ‘members of parliament’
Ethnography benefits (5)
- quintessential qualitative research method
- dep and rich understanding of people
- prevent false interpretation of group being studied
- assists formulation of more appropriate questions for qualitative research (use as preliminary research)
- assist social change
Ethnography limitations/cons
- requires researcher to be able to see world from participants’ perspective, may clash with researcher world view
- requires long immersion in the field (time, budget)
- gaining entry is most difficult part
- may not be generalizable to wider population (don’t know if its same)
- harmful physical and emotional effects
Key methodological issues/steps to ethnography (8)
- defining a research problem
- choosing a research site
- gaining access
- finding an identity (researcher, member)
- looking as well was listening
- recording observations (in action?)
- analysing field data
- using theory (developing substansive theories, moving to formal theories)
Examples of ethnography in health an medicine
- Becker et al (1961) ‘Boys in White’: med student professional socialisation
- Goffman (1961) ‘Asylums’: experience of patienthood
- Sudnow (1967) ‘Passing On: The Social Organisation of Dying’ –> development of palliative care wards
- Gubrium (1975) Doing care plans in patiet conferences –> framing of patient rehabilitation
Classification of participant observer roles (Gold, 1958)
continuum
involvement <—————————————————————————————–> detachment
complete participant participant as observer observer as participant complete observer
(Gold, 1958)
Complete participant
= fully functioning member of social setting, identity unknown to members, ‘gone native’
Participant as observer
= members of social setting aware of researcher’s status as researcher
Observer as participant
= researcher mainly an interviewer with less participation
Complete observer
= researcher does not interact with members
Researcher is the research instrument
Overt role
= participants aware of researcher’s identity
- using a sponsor can lessen hostility/increase trust
(+) avoidance of ethical issues
(+) observe in natural setting
(+) data can be openly recorded
(-) Observer effect
Researcher is the research instrument
Covert role
= researcher’s identity and aims undisclosed
(+) removes need to negotiate access
(+) gain access to groups that would otherwise not consent
(+) avoidance of observer effect
(-) difficulties taking notes/collecting data
anxiety about blowing cover
(-) ethical issues: deception, no informed consent, protection of privacy
(-) researcher having to be involved in criminal or dangerous activities
(-) emotional strain from forming close relationships with members
(-) going native
Observer effect
= behaviour of those under study altered due to presence of researcher
Closed settings
= need permission and introductions by gatekeepers
e.g. schools, hospitals, businesses
Open settings/ open communities
= permission not required but researcher must be accepted by group
e.g. malls
‘On being sane in insane places’ (Rosenhan, 1973)
aimed to test hypothesis that psychiatrists cannot reliably tell difference between people who are sane and those who are insane
- 8 sane people attempted to gain admission to 12 different hospitals
- once in, acted normally
- had to get out on their own by convincing staff they were sane
- could write notes in open as nobody cared
- none of pseudo-patients detected, all but one admitted with schizophrenia and discharged with schizophrenia in remission
- remained in hospital for 7-52 days (average 19 days)
- although not detected by staff, detected by 35/118 patients
- normal behaviours seen as pathological
tips for writing field notes (5)
- write notes as soon as possible after events
- write up full notes at end of every day
- be vivid and provide detailed descriptions
- gradually narrow your focus
- dictaphone (or phone recordings) can be useful
Questions of what to include in fieldnotes (Emerson et al, 1995:146) (5)
- what are people doing?
- how are they doing this?
- how do people characterise and understand what is going on?
- what assumptions do they make?
- analytic questions: what do i see going on here? what did i learn from these notes? why did I include them?
Situational reduction
(Collinns, 1981, 1988)
= the view of ethnographers that social structures and social dynaics emerge from and may be reduced analytically to the accumulated effects of mico situational interactions
(Collins, 1981,1988)
Symbols
= material artefacts of culture, e.g. art, clothing, technology
- ethnographer strives to understand cultural connotations associated with symbols
- ethnographic research is holistic, believing that symbols cannot be understood in isolation but instead are elements of a whole
Cultural patterning
= observations of cultural patterns forming relationships involving 2 or more symbols
Methods of patterning
- conceptual mapping
- learning processes
- sanctioning processes
conceptual mapping
(in context of cultural patterning)
= using the terms members of the culture themselves use to relate symbols across varied forms of behaviour and in varied contexts
learning processes
(in context of cultural patterning)
= focussed on in order to understand how a culture transmits what is perceived to be important across generations
sanctioning processes
(in context of cultural patterning)
= focussed on in order to understand which cultural elements are formally (legally) prescribed or proscribed and which are informally prescribed or proscribed, and of these which are enforced through sanction and which are unenforced etc.
tacit knowledge
= deeply embedded cultural beliefs which are assumed in a culture’s way of perceiving the world
- rarely or never discussed explicitly by members of a culture, must be inferred by ethnographer
Assumptions of ethnography
- principle research interest is primarily affected by community cultural understandings (can overlook objective influences)
- an ability to identify relevant community of interest (overestimate role of community culture, underestimate individual psych forces)
- researcher is capable of understanding cultural mores. mastered language and bases findings on comprehensive knowledge of the culture (falsely assume things have same emaning across cultures)
Ethical issues in participant observation (7)
- consent
- privacy
- anonymity and confidentiality
- control over process
- variations in power between participant and researcher at different stages of research
- usurping of interpretive authority (deciding what matters)
- participant autonomy vs societal benefit
Advantages of participant observation
- can be used to check against what participants report they beleive they do
- helps understanding of physical, social, cultural and economic contexts in which study participants live
- enables researchers to develop familiarity with cultural milieu (social environment)
- allows for interaction between people, places, things, states of being
- integral in understanding the breadth and complexity of human experiences
- uncovers research problems
- better understanding of collected data
- better designing methods that give best understanding of phenomena under study
Disadvantages of participant observation
- time consuming
- difficulty documenting data
- can “go native”
- can miss meanings that are evident to insiders
Triangulation
= synthesis and integration of data from multiple sources through collection, examination, comparison and interpretation
- comparison of different data sources
- comparison of different methods to investigate same data
used to enhance validity or gain further insights into phenomena
