ETHNOGRAPHY - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

About This Presentation
Title:

ETHNOGRAPHY

Description:

Title: Ethnography Author: ChacoLEx Last modified by: William J. McLaughlin Created Date: 10/5/2006 2:56:29 AM Document presentation format: On-screen Show – PowerPoint PPT presentation

Number of Views:463
Avg rating:3.0/5.0
Slides: 29
Provided by: Chac9
Category:

less

Transcript and Presenter's Notes

Title: ETHNOGRAPHY


1
ETHNOGRAPHY
Ethno people or folk Graphy describe
something Ethnography describing and
understanding another way of life from the native
point of view (Neuman, 2007)
  • Aim
  • Alexis
  • History
  • Ardis/Kofi
  • Methodology
  • Katie
  • Examples
  • Alexis
  • Strengths Weaknesses
  • Exercise

2
What is an Ethnography?
  • It documents routine daily lives of people
    (Fetterman,1998)
  • Explores a cultural group
  • Lives with people, or spends a lot of time with
    them
  • Has a guiding question that evolves during the
    study (Hall, 2003)

3
Aim
  • Aim of Ethnography
  • Unobtrusive
  • Identifies geographical and temporal coordinates
  • Makes visible lives of those not normally told
    (Williams, 2000)
  • Tries to obtain insiders view of how a group
    manages and organizes their time (Viller, 2004)
  • Understands the point of view from inside the
    group (McCleverty, 1997)

4
Aim
  • To identify behavior patterns and predict to
    make the reader understand the perspective of the
    native to the culture studied (Fetterman, 1998)
  • Understand context, complexity, and politics of
    social processes (Warren, 2004)

5
History of Anthropology/Ethnography (USA)
  • Morgan
  • Lawyer and anthropologist
  • In 1851 he published an ethnography about Indians
    in the USA. He didn't gather the information
    himself- was a sofa anthropologist

6
History of Anthropology (United Kingdom)
  • The first ethnographies in Britain were published
    in 1898-1899. They were built on field research
    like we know it today
  • Malinowski
  • Considered the father of modern anthropology
  • Wrote numerous ethnographies that are well known
    still today

7
Sir Frazer about Malinowskis Methods in
Argonauts of the Western Pacific.
  • Malinowskis work was done under the best
    conditions and provided the best possible results
    at that time
  • Good theoretical training
  • Stayed with the Trobriands for a great time
  • Lived as a native among natives
  • Watched them daily at work and at play
  • Had conversations with them in their own language
  • Derived information from personal observation
  • Statements directly by the natives
  • Characteristics of Malinowskis method
    (Malinowski, 1922)

8
Malinowskis Methods.
  • I consider that only such ethnographic sources
    are of unquestionable scientific value, in which
    we can clearly draw the line between, on the one
    hand, the results of direct observations and of
    native statements and interpretations, and on the
    other hand, the inferences of the author, based
    on his common sense and psychological insight
    (Malinowski, 1922, p. 3)

9
Malinowski - Important for Ethnographic Work
  • Accurate information
  • Complex information
  • Observation
  • Speaking the native language is important
  • No contact with white people
  • Seek information naturally, instead of having
    informants
  • Should have a strong theoretical background
  • Join yourself with the natives
  • Typical ways of thinking and feeling
  • Use the native language as an instrument
    (Malinowski, 1922)

10
Evans-Pritchards Methodology
  • Malinowskis student
  • Did research among the Azande 1926-1930
  • 1930 published his ethnography Witchcraft,
    oracles, and magic among the Azande
  • Used informants
  • Native language
  • Length of stay 1-2 years
  • Get to know natives through the children
  • Live like the natives (Evans-Pritchard, 1988)

11
1950s-1980s Ethnography as thick description
(Clifford Geertz)
  • Culture based
  • Meaning oriented. Meaning is a set of culturally
    constructed and historically specific guides,
    frames, or models of and for human feeling,
    intention, and action (Ortner 1999 137)
  • Specific to time and place (i.e. cultural
    relativism)
  • Opposed to power and politics. Culture is not
    power, something to which social events,
    behaviours, institutions, or processes can be
    causally attributed it is a context, something
    within which they can be intelligibly-that is,
    thickly-described( Geertz 197314)
  • Opposed to the thin description of
    post-positivism

12
Attributes of Thick Description
  • Hermeneutics
  • Semiotics
  • Data our own constructions of other peoples
    constructions of what they and their compatriots
    are up to (Geertz 19739)
  • Analysis guessing at meanings, assessing the
    guesses, and drawing explanatory conclusions for
    the better guesses (p. 20)
  • Theory a General Theory of Cultural
    Interpretation is not possible, but a cultural
    theory could be derived
  • Generalization not possible across cases but
    within cases
  • Prediction not prediction but anticipation

13
From 1980s Re-emergence of politics and power in
cultural/historical analysis of social Phenomena
(Edward Said and Michel Foucault)
  • social phenomena as effects of external power
    structures (e.g. political and economic
    institutions at the national and international
    level)
  • Influenced by the rise of new perspectives such
    as critical theory and neo-Marxist ideology
  • cultural universalism

14
Todays Ethnography Holistic and Evolutionary in
nature
  • Characterised by a lack of consensus
  • Dissolving conceptual oppositions (Sahlins 1993)
  • Departure from the approach of searching under
    the disturbed topsoil of modernity for the traces
    of a pristine and primitive existence (Sahlins
    1993)
  • Analysis of local situations with reference to
    relevant external institutional/political
    structures
  • Eclecticism of methodologies/ methods

15
The Effects of Post-Modernism on Ethnography
  • Postmodernist came into anthropology around 1980
  • Interpretation on interpretation on
    interpretation
  • Reflexivity
  • Generalizations
  • Power
  • (Bowmann 1997, Layton 1997, Nugent 1996)

16
Methodology
  • Outline of Process
  • Identifying problem or topic of interest
  • Fieldwork Data collection and analysis
  • Participant Observation Individuals and groups
  • Analysis Holistic
  • Report (Fetterman, 1998)

17
Methodology
  • Definition Documents the culture by studying
    the routine, daily lives of people (Fetterman,
    1998), (Morse and Richards, 2002)

18
Methodology
  • Ethnographers Jargon
  • Emic inside (Hall, 2003)
  • Etic outside (Hall, 2003)
  • Key informant / key actor individual of group
    who closely interacts with ethnographer
    (Fetterman, 1998)
  • Culture - beliefs, values, behaviors of a
    cohesive people (Morse and Richards, 2002)

19
Methodology
  • Characteristics of Ethnographies
  • Holistic
  • Data collection and analysis occur together
  • Data collection oscillates between individuals
    and groups (Fetterman, 1998)

20
Negotiate Access
21
Methodology
  • Fieldwork (Morse and Richards, 2002), (Fetterman,
    1998)
  • Stages
  • Negotiating entry the Gatekeeper, Key Actors,
    Key Informants
  • Introductory period routines, roles,
    relationships
  • Participatory observation important! (Hall,
    2003)
  • Withdrawal Focus on analysis

22
Methodology
  • Fieldwork Methods
  • Selection and sampling
  • Participant observation
  • Interviewing
  • Autobiographical interviewing
  • Questionnaires
  • Projective techniques
  • Participants classification
  • Outcropping
  • Existing documented information
  • Proxemics and kinesics
  • Folktales
  • Notes, notes, notes!!! (Fetterman, 1998)

23
Methodology
  • Analysis
  • Evaluating relevance
  • Looking for patterns
  • Considering phenomena through the cultural
    perspective
  • Thick description (Morse and Richards, 2002)
  • Classifications, parameters, etic observations
  • Maps, drawings, charts (Fetterman, 1998)

24
Methodology
  • A few words on writing
  • Writing must be good from the field notes to the
    final product
  • Write for your audience
  • Write for the objective to make the etic
    perspective see the emic perspective

25
Methodology
  • Software
  • Dictation software
  • MicNotePad
  • Power Secretary
  • IBM Voice Type Gold
  • File-transfer Software
  • File Transfer Protocol Software
  • Telnet Software
  • Timbukto Pro
  • Fetch (Fetterman, 1998)
  • Analysis Software
  • NUDIST NVIVO

26
Examples
  • The National Park System Anthropology Background
  • Embedding Cultural Anthropology in NPS
  • Introduction of ERI (Ethnographic Resources
    Inventory) (Everett, 2006)
  • Sense of Place
  • By Keith Basso
  • Anarcho-Environmentalism Study
  • By Nicole Shepherd
  • Gaining Access

27
Advantages and Disadvantages
  • Advantages
  • In-Depth understanding of a culture amongst a
    group of people (detailed and more likely valid
    interpretations)
  • Gives a voice to a culture to express their
    views, which might not otherwise be heard
  • Influential in creating an understanding among
    outsiders
  • Also may reveal embedded cultural values that
    were not obvious to the group

28
Advantages and Disadvantages
  • Disadvantages
  • Cumbersome and Time-consuming, and can be
    expensive
  • Possibility that researcher is changing the
    natural way a culture behaves by being present
  • Not really able to generalize findings
  • Inappropriate for analyzing complex environmental
    problems whose cause-effect relationships are
    external to the place and time of study (e.g.,
    climate change)
  • Difficulty of reconciling constructive engagement
    with critical reflection
Write a Comment
User Comments (0)
About PowerShow.com