M8 Ethnography

Ethnography

The study of social interactions, behaviour, and perceptions within cultures, organizations, or groups

Ethnography Purpose

Document the culture from the perspective of the ‘insiders’

• Involves observing and explaining interactions in ordinary settings w/o interruption or alterration

Ethnography Etymology

From Greek:

• ETHNOS - people

• GRAPHING - writing

literally means ‘writing about a people’

Bronislaw Malinowski 1915

Invented ethnography and the modern form of fieldwork

• Spent 3 years on the Trobriand Islands (New Guinea)

Malinowski Types of Data

Identified 3 types of data that good fieldwork must have:

1. Description of day-to-day activities and interaction

2. Documented stories, myths, narratives, norms, expectations

3. Synoptic charts (tables of observations)

Description of Day-to-Day Activities

Refers to the everyday, lived reality of people.

• What people actually do

• How they interact

• Routines, habits, gestures

• Informal conversations

• Social organization in practice

Documented Stories, Myths, Narratives, Norms, Expectations

This is what people say about their world.

• Myths and legends

• Cultural stories

• Explanations of customs

• Social rules and expectations

• Values and beliefs

Synoptic Charts

These are systematic summaries that organize messy field data into a structured form

Conducting Ethnography Rationale

Ethnographies should be conducted because

• Things aren’t always what they seem

• Insiders may be too close to their culture to see it for its entirety/all its details

• Allows for discovery through a “beginner’s mind”

Things Aren’t Always What They Seem

Ethnography helps uncover the gap between:

• What people say they do

• What they think they do

• What they actually do

Insiders May Be Too Close

Cultural rules feel “natural,” preventing insiders from consciously noticing them

Discovery Through a “Beginner’s Mind”

Approaching a different culture with openness and willingness to understand new things

• Entering without fixed expectations allows you to reveal potentially hidden meanings and assumptions

Ethnography Results

By the end of an ethnography you should

• Have a deep understanding of a people and their culture

• Able to put behaviours/beliefs/interactions into context

Ethnography Characteristics

• Exploratory in nature

• Conducted in a natural setting

• Aimed at discovering a local’s point of view

• Data gathered from a wide range of sources, mainly observation and information conversations

• Unstructured data collection (but not necessarily unsystematic)

Exploratory in Nature

Ethnography usually

• Starts with broad questions

• Does not begin with rigid hypothesis

• Allows themes to emerge from the field (inductive)

Conducted in a Natural Setting

Ethnographic research happens in settings where people naturally live, work, or interact

• No alterations done by researchers, occurs in real-life contexts

Aimed at Discovering the Local’s Point of View

Ethnographic research seeks to understand how a group interprets their own world

• Includes their meanings, values, beliefs, lived experiences

Data Gathered from a Wide Range of Sources

Main methods include:

• Participant observation

• Information conversations

• Interviews

• Field notes

• Documents, artifacts, rituals, stories

Unstructured But Not Unsystematic

Ethnography is:

• Flexible

• Open-ended

• Adaptive

But it is NOT random.

Researchers still:

• Keep detailed field notes

• Track themes

• Look for pattern

Mini Ethnography

An ethnography study that takes place over a couple of days or weeks

• Less rich data

• Typical ethnographies take place over months or years

When to use Ethnographies

Uses:

• Understand roles of families or institutions

• Examine social interactions

• Observe impacts of new policies

• Search for meaning in cultural norms and views

• To explore new cultures (different from your own)

Macro-ethnography

An ethnography that studies a broadly defined cultural grouping

• e.g. Torontonians

Micro-ethnography

An ethnography that studies a narrowly-defined cultural grouping

• e.g. Undergrad students at UofT

Two Perspectives in Cultural Research

Emic Perspective

Etic Perspective

Emic Perspective

A perspective whose goal is to understand how members of a given culture perceive their world

• Insider view

• e.g. studying a rugby team by conducting an ethnography of the rugby team

Etic Perspective

A perspective whose goal is to understand how non-members perceive and interpret the behaviours and phenomena of a given culture

• Outsider view

• e.g. studying rugby players by conducting an ethnography of the fans

Skills for Ethnography

The following are essential skills to have for researchers conducting ethnographies

• Interpretive agility

• Familiarity with social settings

• Respect for the culture (even if you don’t like it)

• Good interactional and interpersonal skills

• Sensitivity toward the culture, values, and norms

• Open-mind

• Focus (ability to stick with it for a long time)

• Patience

• Ability to put people at ease

Interpretive Agility

The ability to shift between different perspectives and meanings when analyzing social situations

Ethnography Pros

1. In-depth findings

2. Possibility to uncover new info (finding new questions, not just answers)

3. Shares cultural understandings and builds empathy

4. Experiential (researcher becomes fully immersed in the culture)

Ethnography Cons

1. Researcher bias

2. Mostly qualitative data (requires a lot of writing)

3. Time-consuming (many visits, long study time)

4. Non-replicable (results cannot be reproduced exactly)

5. Non-generalizable

Documentary Cinema

A method to present an ethnography; broadly encompasses all “non-fiction” films

• Covers issues in general (not just focused on one particular culture or group)

• May argue a position

Ethnographic Cinema

A subgenre of documentary cinema that focuses on a particular culture or group

• Culture and meaning-driven

• Aims to explore social life

Ethnographic Cinema Specifics

Uses the camera as a tool to collect ethnographic data

• Requires same anthropological rigor as other data collection methods

  • Filmmakers spend a long time in the field (~ 1 year) before shooting

    • By then, they will possess an intimate understanding of the community and will master film/sound recording skills

Ethnographic Cinema Contention

Scholars debate whether filmmaking is a tool for scientific rigor or primarily a medium for storytelling and presenting data

Problems with Ethnographic Cinema

1. The presence of a camera can alter people’s behaviour

2. The camera person dictates what the viewer gets to see

3. Ethnographic films were historically shot by Western filmmakers/researchers and focused on non-Western subjects (this is changing)