Week 4 Lecture 4: Ethnography

Question 1

Ethnography

Answer 1

= studying people in their own environments in order to understand the meanings they give to their activities
is both the approach and the method

Question 2

Ethnographic fieldwork quote

Answer 2

“… 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.”

Question 3

History of ethnography

(overview)

Answer 3

• 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

Question 4

Cultural anthropology

Answer 4

= the study of cultural variation among humans

Question 5

Brewer (2000:10) on the ethnographic approach

Answer 5

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)

Question 6

Key elements/features of ethnography (5)

Answer 6

• 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)

Question 7

Hammersley and Atkinson (1995:1) on ethnography

sociologists who used ethnography

Answer 7

“…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”

Question 8

Willis (2007:237) on ethnography

Answer 8

“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)

Question 9

2 perspectives in ethnography

Answer 9

• Emic perspective
• Etic perspective

Question 10

Emic perspective

Answer 10

= 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

Question 11

Etic perspective

Answer 11

= 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

Question 12

‘going native’

Answer 12

in emic ethnography, researcher takes on characteristics of study population –> less objective viewpoint

Question 13

Macro-ethnography

Answer 13

= the study of broadly-defined cultural groupings
e.g. ‘‘the English’ or ‘New Yorkers’

Question 14

Micro-ethnography

Answer 14

= the study of narrowly-defined cultural groupings
e.g. ‘local bikie gang members’ or ‘members of parliament’

Question 15

Ethnography benefits (5)

Answer 15

• 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

Question 16

Ethnography limitations/cons

Answer 16

• 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

Question 17

Key methodological issues/steps to ethnography (8)

Answer 17

• 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)

Question 18

Examples of ethnography in health an medicine

Answer 18

• 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

Question 19

Classification of participant observer roles (Gold, 1958)

Answer 19

continuum
involvement <—————————————————————————————–> detachment
complete participant participant as observer observer as participant complete observer

(Gold, 1958)

Question 20

Complete participant

Answer 20

= fully functioning member of social setting, identity unknown to members, ‘gone native’

Question 21

Participant as observer

Answer 21

= members of social setting aware of researcher’s status as researcher

Question 22

Observer as participant

Answer 22

= researcher mainly an interviewer with less participation

Question 23

Complete observer

Answer 23

= researcher does not interact with members

Question 24

Researcher is the research instrument

Overt role

Answer 24

= 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

Question 25

Researcher is the research instrument

Covert role

Answer 25

= 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

Question 26

Observer effect

Answer 26

= behaviour of those under study altered due to presence of researcher

Question 27

Closed settings

Answer 27

= need permission and introductions by gatekeepers
e.g. schools, hospitals, businesses

Question 28

Open settings/ open communities

Answer 28

= permission not required but researcher must be accepted by group
e.g. malls

Question 29

‘On being sane in insane places’ (Rosenhan, 1973)

Answer 29

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

Question 30

tips for writing field notes (5)

Answer 30

• 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

Question 31

Questions of what to include in fieldnotes (Emerson et al, 1995:146) (5)

Answer 31

• 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?

Question 32

Situational reduction

(Collinns, 1981, 1988)

Answer 32

= 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)

Question 33

Symbols

Answer 33

= 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

Question 34

Cultural patterning

Answer 34

= observations of cultural patterns forming relationships involving 2 or more symbols

Question 35

Methods of patterning

Answer 35

• conceptual mapping
• learning processes
• sanctioning processes

Question 36

conceptual mapping

(in context of cultural patterning)

Answer 36

= using the terms members of the culture themselves use to relate symbols across varied forms of behaviour and in varied contexts

Question 37

learning processes

(in context of cultural patterning)

Answer 37

= focussed on in order to understand how a culture transmits what is perceived to be important across generations

Question 38

sanctioning processes

(in context of cultural patterning)

Answer 38

= 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.

Question 39

tacit knowledge

Answer 39

= 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

Question 40

Assumptions of ethnography

Answer 40

• 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)

Question 41

Ethical issues in participant observation (7)

Answer 41

• 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

Question 42

Advantages of participant observation

Answer 42

• 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

Question 43

Disadvantages of participant observation

Answer 43

• time consuming
• difficulty documenting data
• can “go native”
• can miss meanings that are evident to insiders

Question 44

Triangulation

Answer 44

= 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