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Ethnography

Ethnography. Joanne Weber, ED 910. ETHNOGRAPHY. DEFINITION.

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Ethnography

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  1. Ethnography Joanne Weber, ED 910

  2. ETHNOGRAPHY

  3. DEFINITION “Ethnography literally means to illustrate culture which makes it most suitable as a way of gathering data for research questions that require an understanding of cultural norms, politics or transitions.  Within ethnography, the way that culture is illustrated is through the process of observing, recording and writing.  At the base of the ethnographic method is systematic fieldwork.  Fieldwork means observing the practices of the culture and social interaction where they occur.” (Picken, 2009, p.338)

  4. PRINCIPLES • Way of seeing, thinking and writing • Aims to be an “uncomfortable science” – unconventional, exposed • Demands empathy – attentive to feelings to others on their terms (Mills & Morton, 2013, pp. 3-4)

  5. FOCUS “…look at social groups or culture, at actions and interactions of individuals and groups.” (Rossman and Rallis, 2012, p. 90)

  6. ROLE “Ethnography is actively situated between powerful systems of meaning. It poses its questions at the boundaries of civilisations, cultures, classes, races and genders.” (Clifford and Marcus, 1986, cited in Mills & Morton, 2013, p. 38)

  7. HISTORY

  8. ANTHROPOLOGY ROOTS • 19th Century Western Anthropology • descriptive account of a community or a culture • historical and and comparative analysis of Western and non-Western cultures • 20th Century - ethnography adopted as a research model for sociology • ie.  Chicago school • later half of 20th century - rise in cultural studies which overlapped with anthropology and sociology • - then spread into psychology and human geography (Hammersley& Atkinson, 2007, p.1)

  9. FAMOUS PEOPLE - MALINOWKSI • pioneer of ethnography • original ethnography done in exotic faraway places • concerned with the exotic, unusual and untoward rather than everyday life • set out the conditions for effective ethnography - Argonauts of the Western Pacific (1922) (Pole & Morrison, 2003, p. 12)

  10. MARGARET MEAD • First ethnographer of education • Much of her work is based on Freudian concepts • Focused on informal educational cultures • Specifically did ethnographic research on adolescent behaviour in Samoa and applied it to American mores • Became the “grande dame of American cultural anthropology and a sixties counter-culture icon” (Mills & Morton, 2013, p. 26)

  11. CHICAGO SCHOOL 1. Focus of research in 1920’s and 1930’s • anthropology turned its attention to documenting and understanding the mundane and everyday life • sociologists studied their own city (Chicago) • Albion Small,  Robert Park, Ernest Burgess • research based on participation in the rich and varied social life of Chicago (Pole & Morrison, 2003, pp.12-13)

  12. CHICAGO SCHOOL (2) • were outsiders attempting to become insiders, seeking first hand knowledge and experiences of the lives of citizens of Chicago.   • approach now known as 'participant observation’ (Pole & Morrison, 2003, pp.12-13)

  13. CHICAGO SCHOOL (3) • Studies: • homelessness (Anderson, 1923) • gangs (Thrasher, 1927) • life in the ghetto (Wirth, 1928) • crime and vice (Reckless, 1933)  • prostitutes (Cressey, 1932) • Gold Coast - prosperous area of Chicago (Zorbaugh, 1926)

  14. CHICAGO SCHOOL (4) 2. Methodology • qualitative • quantitative 3.  Influence on direction of research • areas of health, industry, work, deviance, social movements and education

  15. ETHNOGRAPHY IN RESEARCH DESIGN

  16. EVOLVING DESIGN IN ETHNOGRAPHY • Design has to be an ongoing concern - going back and forth between a “blueprint” and problems as they arise • Research questions and design can and should change over the course of the study • “Failure is at the heart of ethnography” (Mills & Morton, 2013, p. 43)

  17. ONTOLOGY “Generally speaking, ontology is the study of being (the word derives from the Greek for ‘existence’) and deals with questions concerning what things exist or can be said to exist.” (Bekerman& Zembylas, 2014, p. 53)

  18. ESSENTIALIST OR NON ESSENTIALIST? “The key issue is whether there is something ‘real out there’ that is independent of our knowledge of it (Hay, 2006). For example, are there essential differences between racial or ethnic identities that exist in all contexts and at all times? An essentialist or foundationalist ontological position would say ‘yes’, whereas an anti-foundationalist position would emphasize the social construction of these phenomena.” (Bekerman& Zembylas, 2014, p. 53)

  19. ONTOLOGICAL MODELS • “Ontology is that branch of philosophy that deals with the nature of reality and refers to the status of being in which a person exists.” • Objectivism • Subjectivism • Interpretivism • Ethnography • Relationalism • Constructionism (Soanes, 2004) (Hart, P., 2014, class notes) (Soanes, 2004 as cited in Milroy and Storbeck, found in Hammersley & Atkinson 2007, p. 2)

  20. INTERPRETIVIST ONTOLOGICAL FRAME • Attempts to understand the world from the perspective of individual experience • Predicting behaviours is not part of this research ontological frame; goal is to generate “thick description” of actor’s worldviews • Focus is on actor agency - how they create or shape their world • Research engages directly with participants (Rossman and Rallis, 2012, pp. 43-44)

  21. REFLEXIVITY • “…reflexivity denies the possibility of ethnographers ever achieving an entirely objective position in relation to research… because researchers are part of the social and educational worlds they are studying…such awareness is not just implicated in the kinds of ethnography… but also in the way such orientations affect all aspects of research design.” (Pole & Morrison, 2003, p. 103

  22. ETHNOGRAPHY IN RESEARCH DESIGN

  23. SAMPLE ONTOLOGICAL INTRODUCTION “This study is situated within the symbolic interactionist paradigm, whereby recognition is given to the importance that encounters have upon personal development and group dynamics (Berger and Luckmann 1966; Blumer 1969; Geertz 1973; LeCompte and Schensul 1999).” (Slobodzian, 2009, p. 183)

  24. EPISTEMOLOGY “Epistemology, on the other hand, is the study of knowledge … and reflects one's view of what we can know about the world and how we can know it (Audi, 2010). The key issue here is whether an observer can identify ‘real’ or ‘objective’ knowledge and if so, how. Evidently, this takes us back to ontology; if, for example, one adopts an anti-foundationalist position, then the assumption is that there is not a ‘real’ world out there which exists independently from the meaning we ascribe to it.” (Bekerman& Zembylas, 2014, p. 53)

  25. MULTIPLE EPISTEMOLOGIES “Most proponents of multiple epistemologies argue that knowledge is socially (or situationally, or contextually) constructed and is power oriented or power driven (i.e., constructed by a group or groups in power or with a high-status position in society). There is no separation of the knower and the knowledge/understanding that has been attained—which means, essentially, that all knowledge/understanding is biased, theory laden, and relative (typically with respect to the individual or group).” (Paul & Moores, 2010, p. 419)

  26. STANDARD EPISTEMOLOGY For sure, we can assert that Deaf epistemologies, like other multiple epistemologies, do not indiscriminately support the basic tenets of the standard epistemology such as objectivity, foundationalism, and generalization (beyond time, culture, situation, etc.; see, e.g., Lehrer, 2000; Noddings, 1995; Ritzer, 2001; Tanesini, 1999). (Paul & Moores, 2010, p. 419)

  27. THEORY – METHODOLOGY-ETHNOGRAPHY • Primary goal is to understand a phenomenon

  28. METHODOLOGY VS METHODS

  29. ETHNOGRAPHY AS PROCESS

  30. TOOLS • Participant observation • Cultural interviews • Formal and informal interviews • Interpretation of artifacts • Researcher’s experience of events and processes • Document reviews and analysis (Rossman and Rallis, 2012, p. 93 )

  31. SPACE • Ethnographic research design is not limited to physical space • Focus on “spheres of knowledge” - analytical and epistemological domains • This has lead to multi-sited ethnography • Test of time - different types of ethnography will become absorbed into mainstream over time (Morton and Mills, 2013, pg. 95)

  32. MULTIPLE SPACES • “Ethnographers are place makers… ethnography turns someone’s everyday place into another very particular sort of place” • Multi-stranded methodology - not limited to one location but to multiple locations, contexts and knowledges • Still need to delimit object or field of study, and gain access to critical social actors; need to consider ethics when doing this (Madden, 2010, p.38, cited in Mills & Morton, 2013. p. 61-64)

  33. SCHOOL AS AN INTERSECTION OF MULTIPLE SITES • school is an intersection between students, parents, school boards, companies, universities,  local and national organizations, professional organizations, parent organizations,  community based organizations, law enforcement, social services agencies.. • need to figure out new ways of doing school ethnographies that addresses the complexities of a school environment (Pole and Morrison, 2003, p.119)

  34. MULTIPLE SITES IN EDUCATIONAL ETHNOGRAPHY (1) • Can schools be explored as limited entities confined to a building or a geographical location? • Need to look at school’s relationship to other places and cultures, to history and to other academic disciplines (Mills & Morton, 2013, p. 65-66)

  35. MULTIPLE SITES IN EDUCATIONAL ETHNOGRAPHY (2) • Cannot ignore questions of scale – ie. National debates become connected to local agendas; global issues are often understand in local terms • Includes actor-network theory – human and non human agents together shape social worlds (Mills & Morton, 2013, p. 65-66)

  36. DATA COLLECTION

  37. PRIMARY DATA: FIELD NOTES • Issues of recording • Pen and pencil – what gets left out or included • Tone, narrative, style • Virtual, hyperlinked • Field notes speak for themselves vs. Ethnographer’s interpretation of field notes (and what gets left out or included) (Mills & Morton, 2013, p )

  38. PRIMARY DATA INCLUDES: • Linguistic terms, local language • Empirical detail with personal asides and impressions • Skills: active looking, improving memory (detailed social maps), informal interviewing, writing detailed field notes, and patience (Mills & Morton, 2013, p. 89-91)

  39. PARTICIPANT OBSERVATION – HOW TO START • Broad sweep and move to focusing on small units of detail • Thick description – copious detail - “preservation of concreteness” (Hammersley and Atkinson, 2007, cited in Mills & Morton, 2013, pg. 83-84)

  40. PRIMARY DATA: INFORMAL SOURCES • Headnotes – field knowledge that is never written down • Scratch notes - quick scribbles, drawings, sketches and jottings, mneumonics (that fix observation) • Encourages reflexivity and creativity • Draws attention to the tangential and unexpected • Captured embodied experiences in ways that transcend text (Mills & Morton, 2013, pg 89-91)

  41. SECONDARY DATA • Texts • Existing quantitative surveys • Official statistics • Diaries • Photographs • Art and Artefacts • Policies • Events • Social networks (Mills & Morton, 2013, pg. 90) (Pole & Morrison, 2003, pp. 50-72)

  42. ANALYSIS (1) • Analysis is an emergent and ongoing process • Iteration and recursivity become “embodied” in the researcher (don’t just consider relationship between data and theory) • Bibliography of a research piece indicates the theoretical influences upon the interpretation of the data (Madden 2010, p. 24, cited in Mills & Morton, 2013, p. 125)

  43. ANALYSIS (2) • Juxtaposition between what the data is saying and what the theory is saying • Creative and experimental • NOTE: If not informed by scientific principles (systematic data collection, analysis and presentation) - if not, it is not good ethnography (Madden 2010, p. 24, cited in Mills & Morton, 2013, p. 125)

  44. STAGES OF ANALYSIS (1) • Immersion – spend time with research materials – read and re read field notes, transcripts, diaries and artifacts - • open coding - don’t impose preconceived notions on data; sorting and labelling • Focused coding - further exploration of categories and themes in more depth – create an index • Compare data with other contexts and cases - see if there are relationships (Mills & Morton, 2013, pg. 120-123)

  45. STAGES OF ANALYSIS (2) • Continue to compare and contrast - spot the recurring themes and issues • move from description to concept and back again • Can write memos before formal fieldwork – make lists of different types of people in order to understand their “force fields”- political, economic and social (Mills & Morton, 2013, pg. 120-123)

  46. CAQDAS • Computer Assisted Qualitative Data Analysis Software • Assists in coding large amounts of data • More than 20 software packages available • How to pick the right software for you? • Read reviews at CAQDAS networking project - http://www.surrey.ac.uk/sociology/research/researchcentres/caqdas/support/choosing/index.htm (Mills & Morton, 2013, pg. 125-126)

  47. SOFTWARE RECOMMENDED FOR ETHNOGRAPHERS

  48. GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF ETHNOGRAPHIC WRITING (1) 1.  Gaze and theoretical frameworks -  must work from a theory i.e.  post structuralism,  post modernism, actor-network theory. 2.  Immersion -  fieldwork must be designed to collect information about what people say and do, how they represent themselves and others, what belief systems might underpin their actions, what actions constitutes processes and routines, and in these, what materials and technologies are important. (Picken, 2013, p. 342-344, cited in Walter, ed., 2013. Social Research Methods)

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