1. Introduction to Ethnographic Research
22 January 2018
Biranda Ford

2. What is ethnography?
‘a method of research often used to explore the shared culture of a group of people’ (Kruger 2008:18)
(...to be unpicked later...)

3. Origins
19th century western anthropology, study of non-western cultures
a descriptive account of a community or a culture
‘archiving the archaic’ (Mauss in Atkinson 2015: 1)
methods: first-hand empirical investigation, fieldwork, researcher integration into a culture (e.g. living with a tribe), direct participation and observation

4. But... over time, in different disciplinary contexts, ethnography
‘has been reinterpreted and recontextualised in various ways, in order to deal with particular circumstances.’ (Hammersley and Atkinson, 1995)

5. Empirical settings: from ethno- (ethnos = nation) to the everyday
Origins
Developments
Non-western
Folk
Sub-cultures
Unfamiliar
Western
Cities
Mainstream culture
Familiar

6. Characteristics? What questions do ethnographers seek to answer?
What do ethnographers do?
What sorts of data do they collect?
What kind of analysis do they deploy?
Which ideas inform ethnographic practice?
In the face of No standard well defined meaning, I’ll ask:

7. Research focus
Aim to access human actions, institutional practices in their local (and sometimes wider) contexts
Research questions not clear at the outset, but develop in iterative process throughout research process

8. A collection of methods
‘In ethnography, the researcher is the primary tool for data collection, using methods of cultural participant-observation and open-ended interviewing, while becoming a cultural insider among the people studied. The ethnographic process typically includes the collection of text-based data including fieldnotes, transcribed audio- and video recordings and images during fieldwork....’ (Kruger 2008)

9. What ethnographers do Participation in people's daily lives
Overt/covert participation
People's actions and accounts studied in everyday contexts rather than situations created by researcher - research 'in the field'
Insider perspective informs research account (‘emic’ / ‘etic’)

10. ‘Ethnography is not far removed from the means that we all use in everyday life to make sense of our surroundings, of other people's actions, and perhaps even of what we do ourselves.’ (Hammersley and Atkinson, 2007: chapter 1)

11. Take a moment:
With what you know so far, discuss similarities and differences between narrative and ethnographic research
Go back to last 2 points on slide

12. What separates an ethnographic view from that used in everyday life?
deliberate and systematic approach
data specifically sought to illuminate research questions, carefully recorded
process of analysis draws on previous studies and involves reflection/ critical assessment of competing interpretations
(Hammersley and Atkinson, 2007: chapter 1)

13. ‘Ethnography exploits the capacity that any social actor possesses for learning new cultures, and the objectivity to which this process gives rise. Even where he or she is researching a familiar group or setting, the participant observer is required to treat this as ‘anthropologically strange’, in an effort to make explicit the presuppositions he or she takes for granted as a culture member. In this way, the culture can be turned into an object available for study.’ (Hammersley and Atkinson, 2007: chapter 1)

14. Sampling: Often small scale: single setting e.g. Henry Kingsbury 1988
organisation e.g. Geoff Baker, El Sistema
institution: Bruno Nettl, 1995
group of people: Stephen Cottrell, 2004
Scope characteristic of emic/insider research
Strength or limitation?

15. Type of data collected Observations (watching/listening: c/overt)
Asking questions informally ...
... or through interview
Collecting documents/ artefacts
Data collection relatively unstructured - hard to predict in advance exact research design
Data collection does not presuppose categories for analysis (c.f. questionnaires)

16. Bruno Nettl, Heartland Excursions, 1994

19. Data analysis Qualitative analysis
Participant observer-researcher treats situation as ‘sociologically strange’
Categories for interpreting data are generated out of process of analysis
Description vs analysis or theory

20. Description
‘...the description of cultures becomes the primary goal. The search for universal laws is downplayed in favour of detailed accounts of the concrete experience of life within a particular culture and of the beliefs and social rules that are used as resources within it. Indeed, attempts to explain particular cultural forms, are sometimes discouraged.’ (Hammersley and Atkinson, chapter 1)

21. Ethnomusicology/ethnography
According to Stephen Cottrell:
Ethnomusicology and musicology use methods which now overlap significantly
BUT:
traditional musicology – ‘dehumanized’
musicologists cast themselves as informed experts
Ethnomusicologists, informed experts + the ‘folk view’ – plurality of viewpoints of people and why music is significant to them
‘makes room for the voices of all the people who consider the music to be theirs’ (Cottrell, 2004: 4)
Brought about by long term immersion in fieldwork and contrasted against ‘more subjective approaches’ of musicologists

22. ‘the discipline’s focus on understanding the emic (insider’s) point of view has often resulted in studies which emphasize the roles and meanings of musical sound within particular locales, or for relatively clearly-defined groups, rather than theorizing about global or even national trends’ (Cottrell, 2004: 4)
With caveats of studies which try and weave local view into wider, more over-arching ones...

26. Your turn> design a study:
Open ended approach to research
Begin with interest in a particular area of social research
Find a role in the setting
Exploratory beginnings, refine (transform) interests and questions as you go along
Inquiry becomes focused on specific research questions, strategic data collection

27. Problems with ethnography?
Insider view as expert view?
Conflicts between participant and researcher views
Social construction of reality?
Ethics?
Informed consent, privacy, harm, exploitation, consequences for future research

28. Recontextualisation
In process of mediating the empirical setting into a research account, researcher changes that which is being researched
Researcher imposes principles of selection/ organisation on what's being studied

29. Post-structuralist challenge
can ethnographers capture the meanings on the basis of which people act if meanings are not stable or properties of individuals?
How do we interpret data if meanings reflect the shifting constitutive role of language?
Reality rejected in favour of 'regimes of truth' which structure institutional practices