or more generally, sites for observation. Towards the end of the twentieth century, methodological discussions in ethnography more and more shifted from issues of data collection and finding a role in the field to questions of writing about and reporting from the field, the research and the experiences in it. Analyzing ethnographic data is often oriented towards searching for patterns of behaviours, interactions and practices.
In this book such key topics of doing ethnography are unfolded in some detail. Whereas the other books are more focused on verbal data, like interviews (Brinkmann and Kvale, 2018) or focus groups (Barbour, 2018), or concentrate on analyzing conversations (Rapley, 2018) or images (Banks, 2018), Doing Ethnography brings the pragmatics of field research into the scope of The SAGE Qualitative Research Kit. At the same time, it can be complemented by more detailed analysis of using these sources (from interviews to visual data) in the more general context of ethnography. The books on analyzing data (Gibbs, 2018), designs and quality in qualitative research (Flick, 2018a, 2018b) triangulation (Flick, 2018c) and grounded theory (Flick, 2018d) add some extra context to what is outlined here in some detail. Together these books and this one allow us to decide when to use ethnography and observation and provide a methodological and theoretical basis for using this strategy in the field. The exemplary studies repeatedly used for illustration in this book are helpful for seeing ethnography not so much as a method but more as a strategy, and when it is appropriate to issues and fields under study.
Acknowledgements
I am very grateful to Uwe Flick for the invitation to write this volume and to contribute to The SAGE Qualitative Research Kit. I would like to particularly acknowledge his patience and support during the writing process. I would like to thank colleagues in the School of Social Sciences at Cardiff University for their continuing collegiality and support. Much love and thanks to Julian Pitt for keeping heart and home together, and to my wonderful children Jake and Thomas, just for being you.
Chapter One Introduction The foundations of ethnography
contents
What is ethnography? 2
A brief history of ethnography 3
The methodological contexts of ethnography 6
Feminist ethnography 8
Postmodernism 10
Principles and practices 11
Objectives
After reading this chapter, you will:
have a working definition of the term ‘ethnography’;
be able to differentiate between ethnography as a description of a research method and as a research product;
have an appreciation of the historical context of ethnography;
know about some of the key theoretical and disciplinary influences on the development of ethnography; and
understand some of the key principles and practices that underpin ethnographic work.
What is ethnography?
Ethnography is a term used within the social sciences and humanities to describe and define a social research method, or more accurately a set of methods for understanding and making sense of cultural and social worlds. In literal translation ethnography means the writing (‘graphy’) of people (‘ethno’). Ethnography encompasses a range of data collection techniques for gathering qualitative information about a setting, and usually incorporates some kind of researcher participation within the daily life of the setting. Data collection in ethnographic research actually draws on many of the skills and methods social actors routinely use to navigate their own daily lives – for example, using techniques such as observation, listening, asking questions, gathering documents and recording information. In ethnography such routine and everyday practices are used, in systematic and reflective ways, in order to generate analyses and understanding.
Ethnographic methods are part of a broad umbrella of qualitative research approaches for documenting and understanding social and cultural life. Indeed, the terms ‘ethnography’ and ‘qualitative research’ are often used interchangeably. Moreover, ethnography is often viewed as a foundation stone of contemporary, and increasingly varied, qualitative research practices. Qualitative research in general, encompassing and drawing on ethnographic methods, has become increasingly utilized across many areas of social science, humanities and cognate fields including social anthropology, sociology, criminology, religious studies, health studies and education.
Ethnography is, then, a term used to describe a set of methods for collecting qualitative information, in order to develop and inform our understandings of everyday lives and cultures. Ethnography is also a term that is used to describe the product of, or outcome from, ethnographic research. The production or writing of ethnography is a craft skill, enabling the researcher (as author) to draw together both diverse materials and interpretation in ways that tell of a place and people. ‘Ethnographies’ in this sense of the term, are crafted reports of research, utilizing qualitative data and analysis in order to provide rich descriptions of the social setting being studied. Such reportage is usually in the form of a written text, which provides narration, but can also include other kinds of data display – photographs, moving images, poetry, documents, performance pieces and artefacts – in order to ‘write’ of and re-present the setting.
A brief history of ethnography
The ethnographic approach to studying people in their social and cultural context has a long history, most readily traced back to the work of social and cultural anthropology of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries; where anthropological scholars became concerned with studying and understanding ‘other’ societies through close, lived engagement. For example, scholars in the first quarter of the twentieth century, among them the Polish anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski and the English social anthropologist Alfred Radcliffe-Brown, developed the idea of immersion and engagement in a setting in order to understand the human condition. Reflecting their time, such scholars drew on particular understandings and experiences of colonial life, undertaking anthropological fieldwork, often for extended periods of time, in places such as Africa and the Pacific Islands, in order to examine the ways in which ‘other’ societies functioned and were structured. The approach they took was, at the time in question, a significant departure in relation to researching traditional cultures, representing a move away from an evolutionary approach to societal development, towards a more detailed exploration of the everyday, practical accomplishment of social life through institutions and relationships. With the benefit of hindsight, it is clear that colonial influences had significant impact on the ways in which these ‘traditional’ societies operated, and indeed came to be understood by anthropological inquiry. That is, there is a persuasive argument that the anthropological gaze served to compound some of the very impact of colonial rule; extended anthropological field trips, often including long periods of residence, arguably did much to perpetuate the colonial ‘othering’ of particular cultures and people. A specific example of this is Malinowski’s ethnographies of the Trobriand Islands in the Pacific Ocean, of which one of the most cited works was titled The Sexual Life of Savages in North-Western Melanesia (1929); such a title is almost unthinkable in contemporary postcolonial times.
In North America, the anthropological interest at the turn of the twentieth century was somewhat closer to home.
