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Material revised and reorganized from that found
on the website Created By Barbara L. Hall
In order to answer their research questions and gather research material, ethnographers (sometimes called fieldworkers) often live among the people they are studying, or at least spend a considerable amount of time with them. While there, ethnographers engage in "participant observation", which means that they participate as much as possible in local daily life (everything from important ceremonies and rituals to ordinary things like meal preparation and consumption) while also carefully observing everything they can about it. Through this, ethnographers seek to gain what is called an "emic" perspective, or the "native's point(s) of view" without imposing their own conceptual frameworks. The emic world view, which may be quite different from the "etic", or outsider's perspective on local life, is a unique and critical part of anthropology. Through the participant observation method, ethnographers record detailed fieldnotes, conduct interviews based on open-ended questions, and gather whatever site documents might be available in the setting as data.
Since everyone is cultural, the ways of life of all groups - familiar, unfamiliar, rich, poor, popular, unpopular - are potential ethnographic topics. One of the first things we need early on in order to conduct a successful ethnographic project is an appropriate guiding question. Having a guiding question before beginning fieldwork is a good idea because it gives you some way to focus your attention productively in early visits to your fieldsite. Of course, this question might change in the course of the research as more is learned; this happens often and can be a step towards especially insightful research! Guiding questions are aimed at the basic point of ethnography: gaining the world view of a group of people. Common formats for guiding questions might be: Modern ethnographies focus on a central guiding question that connects the local fieldsite to larger anthropological questions about how culture works. Guiding questions should encode larger questions regarding culture or social practice within them. In choosing a guiding question, be sure first that it is answerable through ethnographic research. Quantitative research, public policy research, and journalism may seem similar but are importantly distinct from ethnography. To help you make that distinction, see below: Quantitative research usually arrives at percentages (of people
who believe certain premise
Example: Which birth control methods are most widely used in Puerto Rico, and how are birth rates affected over a five year period? Public policy research, which might be performed either qualitatively or quantitatively or both, is generally geared towards providing information that helps policy makers decide how a certain phenomenon might be understood in terms of better or worse social outcomes. Example: What kinds of access do Cuban women have to what kinds of birth control, and is this appropriate from public health, religious, and cultural standpoints? Should government do something to affect this situation, and if so what and how? Journalism attempts to provide objective (not interpretive) outsider
news information in a
Example: What is newsworthy about current Cuban family planning for
the particular group(s) who are likely to read my story?
Students learning about ethnography for the first time are often tempted
to promise fervently to be "objective" in their research and to learn what
is "really" happening in the field. However, anthropologists have long
since acknowledged that ethnographic research is not objective research
Ethnography is an interpretive endeavor undertaken by human beings with multiple and varied commitments which can and do affect how the research is done and reported. We all have backgrounds, biographies, and identities which affect what questions we ask and what we learn in the field, how our informants let us in to their lives, and how our own interpretive lenses work. Not all fieldsites are "foreign" for ethnographers in the same
way. Some ethnographers are
Ethnography is not replicable research (like many kinds of science). Ethnography is not based on large numbers of cases (like quantitative
research).
Anthropologists generally subscribe to some form of cultural relativism, meaning that we believe that there is no one standpoint from which to judge all cultures and ways of being in the world. Because of this, we are conditioned to see various perspectives as "positioned" (Abu-Lughod 1991), and the things that we learn in the field as "partial truths" (Clifford 1986). Therefore, there is not one single truth to be uncovered in a research situation; there are many. Ethnographers are expected to be "reflexive" in their work, which means that we should provide our readers with a brief, clear picture of how the research we have done has been or could have been affected by what we bring to it. This can take the form of revealing details of our own experience or background to readers up front. Ethnographers should have more than one way to show how we arrived at the conclusions of our research; we expect to have a collection of fieldnotes, interviews, and site documents (where possible) which work together to support our claims. This is called triangulation. Ethnographic research takes place in depth and over a great deal
of time, often months or
Sanjek (1990) recommends that readers and writers of ethnography
focus on what he calls the "validity" of ethnography. In this way,
we can judge the clarity with which decisions regarding the application
of theory to data are explained as well as follow ways in which events
in the text are persuasively linked in making the conclusions presented
there.
Fieldnotes should be written as soon as possible after leaving the fieldsite, immediately if possible. Even though we may not think so when we are participating and observing, we are all very likely to forget important details unless we write them down very quickly. Since this may be very time- consuming, students should plan to leave a block of time for writing after leaving the research context. Chiseri-Strater and Sunstein (1997) have developed a list of what should be included in all fieldnotes: •Date, time, and place of observation
There are four major parts of fieldnotes, which should be kept distinct from one another in some way when we are writing them:
Example #1: an ethnography of waitresses in an all-night diner. Notice how the writer, Reah Johnson, keeps description separate from analysis by italicizing the analysis of this specificincident. Further analysis of the entire sequence of events (only a portion of which are included here) are kept separate from description and analysis by adding an extra section at the end. "Two men came into the restaurant with the intent of trying to sell things to the customers. They each have plastic sacks filled with random objects that they are showing to the customers in the bar area. Bernie sees them from where she is sitting with Jay. She stands up and asks one of them, 'Are you buy'n somethin' baby?' The man gives Bernice a mean look and she tells them they both can leave, adding, 'I done you a favor.' The man Bernie spoke directly to turns to his friend and says something negative while making a gesture towards Bernie. 'Don't take it personal,' she tells him. 'Well I did,' he yells back. As the two men walk out of the diner, Bernie warns them not to get her upset. After they are gone she lights a cigarette and says out loud, 'I ain't gonna be get'n hurt by this dumb shit.' Jay has been sitting still and has said nothing throughout this entire encounter. I was amazed at how Bernie handles the two men and she did so entirely by herself, without the help of any male employee in the diner. Her language accomplished two things. Firstly, she avoided taking the role of an uncompassionate member of her establishment by claiming, ' I done you a favor.' In this respect it might also be argued she was protecting her reputation. Secondly, her language managed to serve as self-protection when she said 'I ain't gonna be get'n hurt by this dumb shit.' Bernie, like Debbie also revealed in her interview, doesn't let herself get hurt by others." Further analysis: "A lot took place in regards to protection. ... I have heard many of the graveyard shift waitresses at St. George's comment on how the cooks are always there to protect them, but in this case it seems they were there solely to take the credit for protecting the waitresses. Bernie is, however, a very unique waitress in the way she powerfully expresses herself. Perhaps the events of this evening unfolded the way they did because of Bernie's strong and unyielding character."
Example # 2: an ethnography of an adult English as a Second Language class by Hallie Mittleman. Hallie, too, chooses to italicize analysis. "In order to encourage the other students to speak, Karen (the teacher) asks them about their favorite American movies, or alternatively their favorite American tv shows. ... Borach (new class tonight, Turkish) says that he feels that American movies are very important in portraying American relationships and politics for the world. But Alison, motioning to Joanna when she speaks, points out that the difference between TV and real life is significant. She speaks of the glamour and wealth portrayed on Dynasty and describes how this is definitely not real life and Joanna nods her head in agreement. Borach attempts to illustrate this point by describing a movie he watched about Vietnam. He says that watching this movie was key in his understanding of American history. He then speaks to Memet, who is Turkish, in Turkish and says (to the group that) only one or two Turkish movies are produced and released internationally every year. Joanna is asked about Polish movies and their international release, and together Joanna and Alison say, 'of course, Roman Polansky'." "Discussion of material culture is often, as in this case, labeled
'American.' These goods enforce a 'here vs. there' dichotomy, because if
something is labeled as 'American' there must be a contrast to what is
not American. Although there could be multiple constructions of what is
'not American' through constantly asking students to define the American
product in terms of 'what x is like in your country', categories of what
culture can be are defined in terms of American cultural categories. Additionally,
a notion of difference is always implied if something is labeled 'American';
because there is something (product z) American, there must therefore be
a corresponding, but necessarily different product z in 'your' country.
'Your country' is becoming a category possessing something analogous but
different."
Organizing the Journal Obviously there are lots of ways to do anything, but one way to organize
the notebook is called a "dual entry notebook." To show how journals organized
in this way work, we have reproduced the notes by Reah Johnson above in
a double entry notebeeok format:
In ethnography, data analysis most usually takes place throughout the project. That is to say, we learn from the data we gather during one visit to the field helps us learn what to watch for, notice, or ask during the next visit. As fieldwork progresses, constantly refining our ideas of what might be happening at the site. At this level, data analysis is ongoing and helps fieldwork gain momentum toward useful information. Presumably, however, there eventually comes a point when we turn our attention more fully to working with the data we have gathered already, often after leaving or limiting visits to the fieldsite. What does our data mean? What have we learned? What can we say regarding our guiding question, or others that we may know how to ask now based on the research? In short, how might we best analyze the data we have gathered? While there is no single canonical way to approach ethnographic data, the following points may be useful in helping us arrive at some conclusions: Read through the fieldnotes, notes on interviews, interview transcripts,
site documents, or
Mark the data and take notes on any patterns, connections, similarities, or contrastive points in the data. Does anything stand out as a usual way of doing things at the site? What seems unusual, and why? What becomes clear analytically that was not clear before? Follow up on what you noticed above by looking for "local categories of meaning" in the data. What terms do the informants have for things? What can you as a researcher identify as themes, even if the informants don't? Remember that the main purpose of ethnography is eliciting "native points of view"; these "local categories" are its components. Try to come up with a list of "local categories" from the data. Test the categories and explanations you have started to draw out
of the data against the
Try triangulating among the various forms of data you have gathered. If a point or an explanation holds across several sources you have gathered - if, for example, it can be supported by fieldnotes, interviews, and/or site documents - then you can be more sure that you have found something integral to understanding your site. Consider trying "respondent validation," or explaining your developing
conclusions to your
Once we have arrived at some conclusions regarding the data gathered, we must consider the question of how to focus on the guiding question which drove the research. Can that question be answered from what we learned? Is another question more appropriate? What other questions has the research provoked? Remembering that the thesis sentence must be an answer to the guiding question, it is important to work back and forth between our emerging conclusions and guiding question to produce a cohesive paper. Drafting the Paper Writing is a process. By carefully attending to each stage of this process in our work, we all increase our chances of writing lively, interesting papers that easily communicate what we would like to say. There are three general stages of writing to consider. Pre-writing: the time spent organizing and planning what we want
to say. Some people find
Draft writing: the first attempt to actually write the full paper. At this stage, it is more useful to focus on getting our ideas across clearly and effectively than on producing a well-polished product. Following the plan created during pre-writing but changing it as it seems necessary to do so can make this stage easier. Sometimes, it is useful to write a section, take a break to do something else for a few minutes, and then return to write the next section. Revising: cleaning up the draft for the purpose of handing it
in. It is advisable to finish the draft at
Ethnographic papers are generally centered around presenting a problem or issue in the guiding question. They then proceed to explore this question or problem and analyze it in light of fieldwork. It is, therefore, very useful to clarify early in the paper why the selected problem is important (both generally and anthropologically) and why it is worthy of investigation. Evidence for the thesis sentence and its supporting points is drawn from the author's fieldwork. Be sure that the points presented as evidence are based upon description and analysis from fieldnotes and interviews and from what you learned through site documents (if available). Be clear about how you learned the information described in the paper, what it means, and how it contributes to your central point. Remember that this information and your use of it in the paper is the heart of the argument being presented! Since ethnographic evidence is both found and presented by the author of the paper, it will sometimes be necessary to use the first person in ethnographic papers. Usually, "I" statements are useful when discussing both our own positioning in our research and in presenting some data. This is in contrast to other kinds of academic papers in which the author's voice is not personalized, and reflects the fact that who we are as individuals affects our ethnography. Ethnographic writing is evocative, descriptive, and lively. It
is academic writing that requires creativity in rendering scenes, sights,
smells, feelings, and individuals as lifelike as possible on the page.
Help the reader to be where you were and to understand as realistically
as possible what it was really like.
It is necessary to attribute ideas that are not one's own to their authors. References should be cited in a consistent bibliographic style. (In the case of the Cuba/Puerto Rico DIS, that style will be MLA--click here for a simplified version of MLA citation.) Note that even unpublished materials (as many site documents may be) should be accounted for in the bibliography. Since much of the data supporting ethnographic papers is oral and not written, writers should be clear about how the information learned orally was gained and attribute it to that person in the text of the paper (using a pseudonym as appropriate.) The following is a slightly revised version of a checklist developed by Dr. Julia Paley for things which should be included in good ethnographic writing (not as subheadings, but somewhere in the paper):
References Abu-Lughod, Lila 1991 "Writing Against Culture" In Recapturing Anthropology: Working in the Present, Richard G.Fox, ed. Pp. 137-162. Santa Fe, NM: School of American Research Press. Chiseri-Strater, Elizabeth and Bonnie Stone Sunstein 1997 FieldWorking: Reading and Writing Research. Pp. 73. Blair Press: Upper Saddle River, NJ. Clifford, James 1986a. "Introduction: Partial Truths" In Writing Culture: the Poetics and Politics of Ethnography,James Clifford and George E. Marcus, eds. Pp. 1-26. Berkeley: U. California Press. Emerson, Robert M., Rachel I. Fretz, and Linda L. Shaw 1995 Writing Ethnographic Fieldnotes. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Hammersley, Martyn and Paul Atkinson 1995 "Documents" In Ethnography: Principles in Practice. Pp. 157-174. Second edition. New York: Routledge. Sanjek, Roger, ed. 1990 Fieldnotes: The Makings of Anthropology. Ithaca:
Cornell University Press.
Material revised from that found on
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