What is ethnography? Explain its significance in sociological research.
Anthropologists, ethnographers, and other social scientists
may engage in something called ethnography. Ethnography, simply stated, is that
the study of individuals in their own environment through the utilization of
methods like participant observation and face-to-face interviewing. As
anthropologist H. Sidky suggests, ethnography documents cultural similarities
and differences through empirical fieldwork and may help with scientific
generalizations about human behavior and therefore the operation of social and
cultural systems (2004:9). Because anthropology as a discipline is holistic
(meaning it's at the past, present and way forward for a community across time
and space), ethnography as a primary hand, detailed account of a given
community or society attempts to urge a comprehensive understanding of the
circumstances of the people being studied. What is ethnography? Explain its significance in sociological research. Ethnographers, then, check out and
record a people’s way of life as seen by both the people and therefore the
anthropologist; they take an emic (folk or inside) and etic (analytic or
outside) approach to describing communities and cultures.
Classic ethnographic research involves an in depth
description of the entire of a culture outside of the country of origin of the
researcher. Traditionally those engaging in ethnographic research spend years
within the place of study, also referred to as the “field.” What is ethnography? Explain its significance in sociological research. As a results of the
time spent living among communities, ethnographers are ready to produce thick
written cultural descriptions referred to as ethnographies that communicate the
knowledge found within the field.
Contemporary ethnographic research has the added dimension
of not only watching people outside of the county of origin of the researcher,
but also seeks to raised understand those that reside within the county of
origin. Contemporary ethnographic research looks at what could also be
considered ordinary or mundane to those living within a community, What is ethnography? Explain its significance in sociological research. for instance
shopping malls, corporations, towns, cities, cyberspace, garbage, libraries,
parks, etc. Contemporary ethnographic research also differs from classic
ethnographic research therein researchers may have limited amounts of your time
during which to conduct research. This, however, doesn't detract from the
standard of labor produced.
Ethnographic accounts, classic and contemporary, are both
descriptive and interpretive; descriptive, because detail is so crucial, and
interpretive because the ethnographer must determine the importance of what he
or she observes without gathering broad, statistical information. Clifford Geertz
is legendary for coining the term “thick description” in discussing the
methodology of the ethnographer. In essence, ethnography is completed to urge
the story of nation from those people and has been mentioned as “culture
writing.”
A researcher who has been trained in ethnographic field
methods and theoretical perspectives, then, carries out ethnographic research.
Before getting to the particular place of study, those engaging in ethnographic
studies conduct library and other archival research to find out a number of
what's already known about the place and other people they're curious about so
as to not enter the “field” unprepared. The researcher then spends time with
the group of individuals under study to urge a way of how they live, their beliefs
and rituals, and their interactions with one another and people around them.
Traditional ethnographic research usually requires a minimum of a year within
the field to urge a transparent understanding of the group; however, rapid
ethnographic assessments, like many of the ethnographic studies administered by
the park Service, also are conducted.
Ethnography, emerging from anthropology, and adopted by
sociologists, may be a qualitative methodology that lends itself to the study
of the beliefs, social interactions, and behaviours of small societies,
involving participation and observation over a period of your time , and
therefore the interpretation of the info collected (Denzin and Lincoln, 2011;
Reeves, Kuper and Hodges, 2008; Berry, 1991). In its early stages, there was a
desire by researchers to form ethnography appear scientific, and with this in
mind a manual was produced for people within the field, with a group of
instructions on how ethnography should be ‘done’ (Denzin and Lincoln, 2011).
intrinsically it had been seen to be more accurate than the descriptions of
travellers, although not within the sense that scientific experiment or
quantitative measurement is deemed accurate. What is ethnography? Explain its significance in sociological research. A feature of positivism, the
scientific approach, is that results are often tested, and therefore the
researcher is break away the research. This was seen by ethnographers as
failing to capture aspects of the way humans behave, the setting being
artificial (Atkinson and Hammersley, 1994). On the opposite hand a naturalist
approach is more interpretive, can't be verified by tests, and therefore the
researcher ‘s own interpretation is a component of the method (Mackenzie,
1994). The goal of ethnography then was to offer an analytical description of
other cultures (Barbour, 2007), a search of a specific phenomenon, instead of
the testing of an hypothesis (Atkinson and Hammersley, 1994). the info
consisted of unstructured accounts and therefore the analysis, which provided
interpretation of meaning, was done by the researcher, using observation,
description and explanation (Reeves, Kuper & Hodges, 2008).
Ethnography developed because the tool of science , and
involved the social scientific observer, the observed, the research report as
text, and therefore the audience to which the text is presented (Denzin &
Lincoln, 2011). it had been hoped that the social sciences would gain the type
of credibility of physics , and therefore the initial approach was like physics
therein it had been assumed that the researcher had the proper to review any
phenomenon provided it led to new knowledge (Denzin and Lincoln, 2011), and
therefore the only point of view was that of the researcher. There was a bent
to ignore the topic or to be critical of their claims (Katz and Csordas, 2003;
What is ethnography? Explain its significance in sociological research. Denzin and Lincoln, 2011), they were, rather, seen as passive participants
within the research, with no impact on the content of the study. the road
between the researcher and therefore the researched was clearly defined, and
this was also true of the text produced and therefore the audience that it had
been produced. Only the researcher had input into the ultimate report, and this
product successively , became for the foremost part the property of the
scholarly community (Denzin and Lincoln, 2011)
As already mentioned, there was no attempt within the
nineteenth century to represent the purpose of view of the people being
observed, ethnography was conducted by outsiders providing a view of the
actions of the people under study (Reeves, Kuper and Hodges, 2008; Denzin and
Lincoln, 2011). it had been etic, instead of emic – or as Geertz (cited in
Denzin and Lincoln, 2011), puts it, the difference between a wink and a blink.
The functional significance of an action was ignored, the ‘raw facts’ simply described
‘objectively’. Malinowski is credited with creating a shift in ethnography,
when he sought to introduce into his accounts the purpose of view of these
being studied, and therefore the cultural significance of the actions described
(Denzin and Lincoln, 2011), going thus far on say that the researcher must
immerse himself within the culture in order that ‘they’ becomes ‘we’ (Elliott
and Jankel-Elliott, 2003, p.216). Abu-Lughod (2000, p. 263) applauded, in
ethnographic research, “the use of the poignant pronoun: we”, seeing it as
symbolic of the importance of location. instead of represent cultures as alien,
by creating hierarchical discourses that excluded the familiar, accentuating
differences and distance, it's important to spot with those being studied
instead of turning them into objects (Abu-Lughod, 2000). Hence, immersion
within a culture means having the ability to discern the importance of the
blink therein culture, and becomes the ‘thick’ description of ethnography
(Rosen, 1991).
The idea of a way that had shifted faraway from the
scientific, and was thorough and broad, and topic oriented, lent itself to a
broader application and has appeared in other research areas like nursing,
education, welfare work , planning, and marketing (Devault, 2006). The
advantage of using such a way to research work practices is that some
organisations recognise some work and not other work, whereas ethnography
What is ethnography? Explain its significance in sociological research. tracks all that's done whether it's recognised or not, and by analysing the
social relationships, the relevance of experiences are often highlighted. Texts
and discourses in organisations are often a way of maintaining control, and
researchers can track the way this happens , through seemingly neutral
documentation like funding proposals, planning documents and accounts (Devault,
2006)
The researcher as participant observer has the advantage of
being immersed within the culture over an extended period and thus during a
position to get what was ‘hidden’, but it became clear that the subjectivity of
the researcher also has got to be taken under consideration . Ethnography is
linked to the lived experience of the ethnographer (Berry, 2011). Rosen (1991)
comments that there's no absolute truth of interpretation, but rather the worth
of the account lies in whether it's a plausible explanation for the info
collected. The aim is to supply meaning for the culture under study, and
therefore the strength of ethnography lies within the use of quite one method
(Reeves, Kuper and Hodges, 2008), this flexibility allowing change because the
research continues over time. the method involves the gathering of knowledge
via field notes, journals, audio visual material and cultural artefacts, and
therefore the analysis of this data using codes and references. this is often
then strengthened by triangulation and analysis, using such techniques as
interviews – both individual and group, and informal dialogue. The
epistemological framework of ethnography encompasses meaning and behavior in
any situation, and therefore the way these are linked; the notice of changes in
behaviour that occur when understanding others; the various perspectives
existing in situations; the necessity to know behaviour and beliefs within the
context of the culture or organisation and the got to study the group or culture
‘as it is’ (Mackenzie, 1994).
When people within a gaggle or culture are studied, they're
invariably being ‘represented’, and this raises the moral and ethical issue of
the aim of ethnography. Whilst it had been perceived that there was some value
in doing ethnography to feature to the sum of data , ethnography came under
criticism for being a tutorial exercise with little constructive value
(Atkinson & Hammersley, 1994). there's a shift to a critical ethnography
(Denzin and Lincoln, 2011; Atkinson and Hammersley, 1994) and a move to supply
practical solutions to problems that emerge from the study. As Madison puts it
(cited in Chari and Donner, 2010, p.76) critical ethnography …begins with an
ethical responsibility to deal with processes of unfairness or injustice within
a specific lived domain. By ‘ethical responsibility’ I mean a compelling sense
of duty and commitment supported moral principles of human freedom and
well-being, and hence a compassion for the suffering of living being. What is ethnography? Explain its significance in sociological research. The conditions
for existence within a specific context aren't as they might be for specific
subjects; as a result, the researcher feels an ethical obligation to form a
contribution towards changing those conditions toward greater freedom and
equity…the critical ethnographer resists domestication and moves from ‘what is’
to ‘what could be’.
This goes beyond reflexive ethnography, which provides a
critical appraisal of the facility relations and injustice which will exist
during a culture, rather it involves writing against injustice and denouncing
it (Bourgois, in Chari & Donner, 2010). Barbour (2007) within What is ethnography? Explain its significance in sociological research. the context
of coaching people for college leadership, also says there's a requirement for
ethnographers to review the uses and abuses of power in any organisation, and
goes on to guage the utilization of ethnographic narrative so as to know the
problems involved in observing a cultural group, and in aligning with the
members of the group