Ethnography is a branch of anthropology and the systematic study of individual cultures. It explores cultural phenomena from the point of view of the subject of the study. Ethnography is also a type of social research that involves examining the behavior of the participants in a given social situation and understanding the group members' own interpretation of such behavior.
Ethnography is a form of inquiry that relies heavily on participant observation. In this method, the researcher participates in the setting or with the people being studied, often in a marginal role, to document detailed patterns of social interaction and the perspectives of participants within their local contexts. It had its origin in social and cultural anthropology in the early twentieth century, but has since then, spread to other social science disciplines, notably in sociology.
Ethnographers mainly use qualitative methods, though they may also include quantitative data. The typical ethnography is a holistic study and so includes a brief history, and an analysis of the terrain, the climate, and the habitat. A wide range of groups and organisations have been studied by this method, including traditional communities, youth gangs, religious cults, and organisations of various kinds. While, traditionally, ethnography has relied on the physical presence of the researcher in a setting, there is research using the label that has relied on interviews or documents, sometimes to investigate events in the past such as the NASA Challenger disaster. There is also ethnography done in "virtual" or online environments, sometimes labelled netnography or cyber-ethnography.
Origins
The term ethnography is from Greek ( éthnos "folk, people, nation" and gráphō "I write") and encompasses the ways in which ancient authors described and analyzed foreign cultures. Anthony Kaldellis loosely suggests the Odyssey as a starting point for ancient ethnography, while noting that Herodotus' Histories is the usual starting point; while Edith Hall has argued that Homeric poetry lacks "the coherence and vigour of ethnological science". From Herodotus forward, ethnography was a mainstay of ancient historiography.
Tacitus has ethnographies in the Agricola, Histories, and Germania. Germania "stands as the sole surviving full-scale monograph by a classical author on an alien people." Ethnography formed a relatively coherent subgenre in Byzantine literature.
Development as a science
While ethnography ("ethnographic writing") was widely practiced in antiquity, ethnography as a science (cf. ethnology) did not exist in the ancient world. There is no ancient term or concept applicable to ethnography, and those writers probably did not consider the study of other cultures as a distinct mode of inquiry from history. Gerhard Friedrich Müller developed the concept of ethnography as a separate discipline whilst participating in the Second Kamchatka Expedition (1733–43) as a professor of history and geography. Whilst involved in the expedition, he differentiated Völker-Beschreibung as a distinct area of study. This became known as "ethnography", following the introduction of the Greek neologism ethnographia by Johann Friedrich Schöpperlin and the German variant by A. F. Thilo in 1767. August Ludwig von Schlözer and Christoph Wilhelm Jacob Gatterer of the University of Göttingen introduced the term into the academic discourse in an attempt to reform the contemporary understanding of world history.Vermeulen, Han F., 2008, Early History of Ethnography and Ethnology in the German Enlightenment, Leiden, p. 199.
Features of ethnographic research According to Dewan (2018), the researcher is not looking for generalizing the findings; rather, they are considering it in reference to the context of the situation. In this regard, the best way to integrate ethnography in quantitative research would be to use it to discover relationships and then use the resultant data to test and explain the empirical assumptions.(Dewan M. (2018) Understanding Ethnography: An 'Exotic' Ethnographer's Perspective. In: Mura P., Khoo-Lattimore C. (eds) Asian Qualitative Research in Tourism. Perspectives on Asian Tourism. Springer, Singapore).
In ethnography, the researcher gathers what is available, what is normal, what it is that people do, what they say, and how they work.Preece, J., Sharp, H., & Rogers, Y. (2015). Interaction Design: Beyond Human-Computer Interaction (4th edition). Wiley.
Ethnography can also be used in other methodological frameworks, for instance, an action research program of study where one of the goals is to change and improve the situation.
Ethnographic research is a fundamental methodology in cultural ecology, development studies, and feminist geography. In addition, it has gained importance in social, political, cultural, and nature-society geography. Ethnography is an effective methodology in qualitative geographic research that focuses on people's perceptions and experiences and their traditionally place-based immersion within a social group.
Data collection methods
According to John Brewer, a leading social scientist, data collection methods are meant to capture the "social meanings and ordinary activities"[Brewer, John D. (2000). Ethnography. Philadelphia: Open University Press. p.10.] of people (informants) in "naturally occurring settings" that are commonly referred to as "the field". The goal is to collect data in such a way that the researcher imposes a minimal amount of personal bias in the data. Multiple methods of data collection may be employed to facilitate a relationship that allows for a more personal and in-depth portrait of the informants and their community. These can include participant observation, field notes, interviews and surveys, as well as various visual methods.
Interviews are often taped and later transcribed, allowing the interview to proceed unimpaired of note-taking, but with all information available later for full analysis. Secondary research and document analysis are also used to provide insight into the research topic. In the past, kinship charts were commonly used to "discover logical patterns and social structure in non-Western societies". In the 21st century, anthropology focuses more on the study of people in urban settings and the use of kinship charts is seldom employed.
In order to make the data collection and interpretation transparent, researchers creating ethnographies often attempt to be "reflexive". Reflexivity refers to the researcher's aim "to explore the ways in which [the] researcher's involvement with a particular study influences, acts upon and informs such research".[Nightingale, David & Cromby, John. Social Constructionist Psychology: A Critical Analysis of Theory and Practice. Philadelphia: Open University Press. p. 228.][Marvasti, Amir & Gubrium, Jaber. 2023. Crafting Ethnographic Fieldwork: Sites, Selves & Social Worlds. Routledge. Despite these attempts of reflexivity, no researcher can be totally unbiased. This factor has provided a basis to criticize ethnography.
Traditionally, the ethnographer focuses attention on a community, selecting knowledgeable informants who know the activities of the community well. These informants are typically asked to identify other informants who represent the community, often using snowball or chain sampling. This process is often effective in revealing common cultural denominators connected to the topic being studied. Ethnography relies greatly on up-close, personal experience. Participation, rather than just observation, is one of the keys to this process. Ethnography is very useful in social research.
An inevitability during ethnographic participation is that the researcher experiences at least some resocialization. In other words, the ethnographer to some extent "becomes" what they are studying. For instance, an ethnographer may become skilled at a work activity that they are studying; they may become members of a particular religious group they are interested in studying; or they may even inhabit a familial role in a community they are staying with. Robert M. Emerson, Rachel Fretz, and Linda Shaw summarize this idea in their book Writing Ethnographic Field Notes using a common metaphor: "the fieldworker cannot and should not attempt to be a fly on the wall."
Ybema et al. (2010) examine the ontological and epistemological presuppositions underlying ethnography. Ethnographic research can range from a realist perspective, in which behavior is observed, to a constructivist perspective where understanding is socially constructed by the researcher and subjects. Research can range from an objectivist account of fixed, observable behaviors to an interpretive narrative describing "the interplay of individual agency and social structure."S. Ybema, D. Yanow, H. Wels, & F. Kamsteeg (2010). "Ethnography." In A. Mills, G. Durepos, & E. Wiebe (Eds.), Encyclopedia of Case Study Research. (pp. 348–352). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, Inc. Critical theory researchers address "issues of power within the researcher-researched relationships and the links between knowledge and power."
Another form of data collection is that of the "image". The image is the projection that an individual puts on an object or abstract idea. An image can be contained within the physical world through a particular individual's perspective, primarily based on that individual's past experiences. One example of an image is how an individual views a novel after completing it. The physical entity that is the novel contains a specific image in the perspective of the interpreting individual and can only be expressed by the individual in the terms of "I can tell you what an image is by telling you what it feels like." The idea of an image relies on the imagination and has been seen to be utilized by children in a very spontaneous and natural manner. Effectively, the idea of the image is a primary tool for ethnographers to collect data. The image presents the perspective, experiences, and influences of an individual as a single entity and in consequence, the individual will always contain this image in the group under study.
Interview types One possible ethnographic method is interviewing. However, there are different classifications and types of interviews ethnographers may use.
There are informal interviews which don't have much structure to them. During informal interviews, the researcher must remember conversations they hear. However, the goal isn't to memorize conversations word-for-word. Instead, the goal is to authentically recreate the meaning and tone of the conversation. One benefit that Jon Swain and Brendan King convey about the informal interview, is that there is a greater ease in communication and the participant feels less like they must perform. On the other hand, though, there are also aspects to watch out for while informal interviewing. Swain and King also mention the possibility of unreliable memory and researcher bias.
The next type of interview is the unstructured interview. An unstructured interview is based on a plan that the researcher keeps in mind. During this type of interview, the researcher sits down with the participant for a period of time and the participant knows that they are being actively interviewed.
Another type of interview is the semi-structured interview. Semi-structured interviews are also ones where the interview actually sits down with the participants. However, in a semi-structured interview, the interviews utilizes an interview guide. An interview guide is a written list of questions that need to be covered over the course of the interview.
Finally, there are structured interviews where people are asked to as closely identical to a set of stimuli as they can. One example of this is a self-administered questionnaire.
Differences across disciplines