Outline and application of method

Ethnography is a methodology, encompassing many constantly evolving qualitative methods, adopted by researchers in the quest to understand social contexts, socially derived meanings, and the significance of human activities.  It can be broadly described as the process of paying sustained analytical attention to social phenomena through immersive relational research.  Ethnographic methods include long-term immersive fieldwork, participant observation, the writing of field notes, and the recording of interactions with research participants in the form of conversations and interviews.  Although these methods are diverse and deployed in different ways by each researcher, all are founded on personal observation and active participation in a given social context.  Participant observation involves living alongside people and taking part in their daily lives and practices, often whilst learning a new language or set of skills.

This methodology stems historically from Social Anthropology, as it was developed and codified as a set of practices in the early 20^th century by anthropologists such as Malinowski, for the study of remote and bounded communities (see Kuper, 2018 for a primer in the history of the discipline, including its roots in the maintenance of imperial power, and further exploration of Malinowski’s methodological innovation and its relationship to Functionalist theory). Ethnographic methods have since been adopted and adapted by disciplines such as Sociology, and the Humanities and Arts more broadly. The racialized and colonialist roots of Anthropology have also been subject to ongoing critique, through which greater reflexivity and attention to researcher positionality and power flows has been encouraged.

Adjacent methods could include:

Narrative Research - the analysis of a range of texts, which could include stories, journals, conversations, letters and life histories, to understand how people construct meaning through narrative.  NB. Some of these distinctions are quite arbitrary, and attempting to draw clear boundaries can result in circular arguments, for instance, field notes or interview text could be considered as types of narrative research data, whether or not they were collected as part of a wider ethnographic project.

Grounded Theory - developed within the Social Sciences, in answer to academic anxieties about whether qualitative methods were sufficiently analytically rigorous.  Grounded Theory is an inductive method in which a hypothesis generated from qualitative data is repeatedly tested and accepted or rejected.  It aims to provide a codified process for approaching qualitative research data (for instance, through iteratively coding textual research data).

Case Study Research – the collection of single case studies to support, illustrate or triangulate research claims.  More tightly bounded and less expansively engaged in wider cultural and social factors than ethnographic research.

Why use this method? What areas of research is it appropriate for? 

Key strengths of ethnographic methods:

• Capturing richness of detail (‘Thick description’ for understanding nuance, specificity, complexity, and contradiction).
• Reflexive potential – to reflection on one’s own position as a researcher and evaluate the impact of one’s research.
• Differentiating between what people say and what people do in different situations.  Examining instances when these differ, and asking questions about why this might be, can offer fresh insights into complex issues.
• Allows research to proceed from a foundation of respect for the complexity of human experience, acknowledging the partiality of all accounts and the situatedness of researcher – in time, space, race, class, and power structures. 
• Offers the opportunity to include diverse voices and perspectives.
• Helps us to move between observing particularities and drawing broader theoretical insights that are useful for problem solving. Ethnography is a theoretical practice, in which the researcher abstracts from the qualitative detail of lived experiences in order to analyse ways of thinking and acting.
• Holds the potential for incorporating and addressing contradictions.

Who could be involved – research participants, communities?  

Defining the community within which an ethnographic study will be based can be complicated, as individuals’ membership in multiple groups is common, and some groups may be more (or less!) accessible to the researcher than others.  Choosing a ‘boundary’ for one’s research project is thus highly dependent on the nature of the research questions you are addressing.  This definition often involves consulting local, situated understandings of where a community begins and ends, and who is incorporated in, excluded from, or peripheral to the group. 

An ethnographic research project could be bounded by work with: 

• Communities of location, such as a rural community, village, mountainside or river basin, or an urban community or neighbourhood.   
• Communities of practice or occupation, such as water utility company workers (perhaps an organizational ethnography), a school or university class or year group, groups such as fishers, boat dwellers or poultry farmers, or members of a club or organization such as a canoe club. 

Research could also be centred on demographic subgroups or intersectional layers and markers of identity (for instance women, religious groups, LGBTQIA+, minority community groups). 

Critiques of this method

There is a vast critical literature on the origins of the ethnographic method in Anthropology, a discipline that was historically deployed as a colonial tool of domination (please see the links below for some suggested readings).  Classical ethnography – in the sense of researching and writing about a group - has been justifiably critiqued as a racialized process of othering (Linda Tuhiwai Smith’s seminal book Decolonizing Methodologies offers a thorough critique of colonization and othering-through-research) .  Questions and ambiguities regarding research as a potentially ‘othering’ process remain central to research that attempts to understand the lives, values and practices of other groups or communities through mutual engagement.

Ethnographic practice has been repurposed for activist aims, as a tool for theorization by formerly marginalized groups, and the boundaries between researcher and researched have been productively rethought by ‘insider’ anthropologists.  Despite this diversification, Decolonization of knowledge production, hierarchies and institutions remains an ongoing process within the various disciplines that make claims to practicing ethnographic methods. 

Reflections: 

• How might ethnographic methods be useful to my research?   
• What difficulties might I encounter in using these methods within my research context?  For instance, think about access, ethics, security, and participant consent. 

• What would I really like to understand about (my specific research context/issue), and how would I go about finding this out using participant observation?  What groups would I approach, and what activities could I undertake with people?