Editing Ethnography (section)

== Differences across disciplines ==
The ethnographic method is used across a range of different disciplines, primarily by anthropologists/ethnologists but also occasionally by sociologists. [[Cultural studies]], [[occupational therapy]], [[economics]], [[social work]], [[education]], [[design]], [[psychology]], [[computer science]], [[human factors and ergonomics]], [[ethnomusicology]], [[folkloristics]], [[religious studies]], [[geography]], [[history]], [[linguistics]], [[communication studies]], [[performance studies]], [[advertising]], [[accounting research]], [[nursing]], [[urban planning]], [[usability]], [[political science]],<ref>Schatz, Edward, ed. ''Political Ethnography: What Immersion Contributes to the Study of Power''. University Of Chicago Press. 2009.</ref> [[social movement]],<ref>{{cite book |last1=Balsiger |first1=Philip |last2=Lambelet |first2=Alexandre |chapter=Participant observation |pages=144–172 |date=2014 |editor1-first=Donatella |editor1-last=Della Porta |editor1-link=Donatella della Porta |title=Methodological practices in social movement research |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-871957-1 |hdl=1814/33395 }}</ref> and [[criminology]] are other fields which have made use of ethnography.

===Cultural and social anthropology===
[[Cultural anthropology]] and [[social anthropology]] were developed around ethnographic research and their [[canon (basic principle)|canonical]] texts, which are mostly ethnographies: e.g. ''[[Argonauts of the Western Pacific]]'' (1922) by [[Bronisław Malinowski]], ''Ethnologische Excursion in Johore'' (1875) by [[Nicholas Miklouho-Maclay]], ''[[Coming of Age in Samoa]]'' (1928) by [[Margaret Mead]], ''[[The Nuer]]'' (1940) by [[E. E. Evans-Pritchard]], ''Naven'' (1936, 1958) by [[Gregory Bateson]], or "[[The Lele of the Kasai]]" (1963) by [[Mary Douglas]]. Cultural and social anthropologists today place a high value on doing ethnographic research. The typical ethnography is a document written about a particular people, almost always based at least in part on [[emic]] views of where the culture begins and ends. Using language or community boundaries to bound the ethnography is common.<ref>Naroll, Raoul. ''Handbook of Methods in Cultural Anthropology.''</ref> Ethnographies are also sometimes called "case studies".<ref>Chavez, Leo. ''Shadowed Lives: Undocumented Workers in American Society'' (Case Studies in Cultural Anthropology). 1997, Prentice Hall.</ref> Ethnographers study and interpret culture, its universalities, and its variations through the ethnographic study based on [[fieldwork]]. An ethnography is a specific kind of written observational science which provides an account of a particular culture, society, or community. The fieldwork usually involves spending a year or more in another society, living with the local people and learning about their ways of life. Ruth Fulton Benedict uses examples of Enthrotyhy in her serious of field work that began in 1922 of Serrano, of the Zuni in 1924, the Cochiti in 1925 and the Pina in 1926. All being people she wished to study for her anthropological data. Benedict's experiences with the Southwest Zuni pueblo is to be considered the basis of her formative fieldwork. The experience set the idea for her to produce her theory of "culture is personality writ large" (modell, 1988). By studying the culture between the different Pueblo and Plain Indians, She discovered the culture isomorphism that would be considered her personalized unique approach to the study of anthropology using ethnographic techniques.

[[File:Bronisław Malinowski among Trobriand tribe.jpg|thumb|right|[[Bronisław Malinowski]] among [[Trobriand Islands|Trobriand]] tribe]]
[[File:Noć muzeja 2014, Čakovec - poljoprivredni izlošci.jpg|thumb|right|Part of the ethnographic collection of the [[Međimurje County Museum]] in [[Croatia]]]]
A typical ethnography attempts to be [[holistic]]<ref name="Ember 2006">Ember, Carol and Melvin Ember, ''Cultural Anthropology'' (Prentice Hall, 2006), chapter one.</ref><ref name="Heider, Karl 2001">Heider, Karl. ''Seeing Anthropology''. 2001. Prentice Hall, Chapters One and Two.</ref> and typically follows an outline to include a brief history of the culture in question, an analysis of the [[physical geography]] or terrain inhabited by the people under study, including [[climate]], and often including what biological anthropologists call [[habitat]]. Folk notions of botany and zoology are presented as ethnobotany and ethno-zoology alongside references from the formal sciences. Material culture, technology, and means of subsistence are usually treated next, as they are typically bound up in physical geography and include descriptions of infrastructure. Kinship and social structure (including age grading, peer groups, gender, voluntary associations, clans, moieties, and so forth, if they exist) are typically included. Languages spoken, dialects, and the history of language change are another group of standard topics.<ref>cf. Ember and Ember 2006, Heider 2001 op cit.</ref> Practices of child rearing, acculturation, and emic views on personality and values usually follow after sections on social structure.<ref>Ember and Ember 2006, op cit., Chapters 7 and 8</ref> Rites, rituals, and other evidence of religion have long been an interest and are sometimes central to ethnographies, especially when conducted in public where visiting anthropologists can see them.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Turner |first1=Victor |last2=Turner |first2=Victor Witter |title=The Forest of Symbols: Aspects of Ndembu Ritual |date=1970 |publisher=Cornell University Press |isbn=978-0-8014-9101-6 }}{{page needed|date=February 2020}}</ref>

As ethnography developed, anthropologists grew more interested in less tangible aspects of culture, such as values, worldview and what [[Clifford Geertz]] termed the "ethos" of the culture. In his fieldwork, Geertz used elements of a [[Empirical research|phenomenological]] approach, tracing not just the doings of people, but the cultural elements themselves. For example, if within a group of people, winking was a communicative gesture, he sought to first determine what kinds of things a wink might mean (it might mean several things). Then, he sought to determine in what contexts winks were used, and whether, as one moved about a region, winks remained meaningful in the same way. In this way, cultural boundaries of communication could be explored, as opposed to using linguistic boundaries or notions about the residence. Geertz, while still following something of a traditional ethnographic outline, moved outside that outline to talk about "webs" instead of "outlines"<ref>Geertz, Clifford. ''The Interpretation of Culture,'' Chapter one.</ref> of culture.

Within cultural anthropology, there are several subgenres of ethnography. Beginning in the 1950s and early 1960s, anthropologists began writing "bio-confessional" ethnographies that intentionally exposed the nature of ethnographic research. Famous examples include ''[[Tristes Tropiques]]'' (1955) by Lévi-Strauss, ''The High Valley'' by Kenneth Read, and ''The Savage and the Innocent'' by [[David Maybury-Lewis]], as well as the mildly fictionalized ''Return to Laughter'' by Elenore Smith Bowen ([[Laura Bohannan]]).

Later "[[reflexivity (social theory)|reflexive]]" ethnographies refined the technique to translate cultural differences by representing their effects on the ethnographer. Famous examples include ''Deep Play: Notes on a Balinese Cockfight'' by [[Clifford Geertz]], ''Reflections on Fieldwork in Morocco'' by [[Paul Rabinow]], ''The Headman and I'' by Jean-Paul Dumont, and ''Tuhami'' by Vincent Crapanzano. In the 1980s, the rhetoric of ethnography was subjected to intense scrutiny within the discipline, under the general influence of [[literary theory]] and [[postcolonial|post-colonial]]/[[post-structuralist]] thought. "Experimental" ethnographies that reveal the ferment of the discipline include ''Shamanism, Colonialism, and the Wild Man'' by [[Michael Taussig]], ''Debating Muslims'' by Michael F. J. Fischer and Mehdi Abedi, ''A Space on the Side of the Road'' by Kathleen Stewart, and ''Advocacy after Bhopal'' by Kim Fortun.

This critical turn in sociocultural anthropology during the mid-1980s can be traced to the influence of the now classic (and often contested) text, ''Writing Culture: The Poetics and Politics of Ethnography'', (1986) edited by [[James Clifford (historian)|James Clifford]] and [[George E. Marcus|George Marcus]]. ''Writing Culture'' helped bring changes to both anthropology and ethnography often described in terms of being 'postmodern,' 'reflexive,' 'literary,' 'deconstructive,' or 'poststructural' in nature, in that the text helped to highlight the various epistemic and political predicaments that many practitioners saw as plaguing ethnographic representations and practices.<ref>Olaf Zenker & Karsten Kumoll. ''Beyond Writing Culture: Current Intersections of Epistemologies and Representational Practices.'' (2010). New York: Berghahn Books. {{ISBN|978-1-84545-675-7}}. pp. 1–4</ref>

Where Geertz's and [[Victor Turner|Turner's]] interpretive anthropology recognized subjects as creative actors who constructed their sociocultural worlds out of symbols, postmodernists attempted to draw attention to the privileged status of the ethnographers themselves. That is, the ethnographer cannot escape the personal viewpoint in creating an ethnographic account, thus making any claims of objective neutrality highly problematic, if not altogether impossible.<ref>Paul A. Erickson & Liam D. Murphy. ''A History of Anthropological Theory,'' Third Edition. (2008). Toronto: Broadview Press. {{ISBN|978-1-55111-871-0}}. p. 190</ref> In regards to this last point, ''Writing Culture'' became a focal point for looking at how ethnographers could describe different cultures and societies without denying the subjectivity of those individuals and groups being studied while simultaneously doing so without laying claim to absolute knowledge and objective authority.<ref>Erickson & Murphy (2008). A History of Anthropological Theory, pp. 190–191</ref> Along with the development of experimental forms such as 'dialogic anthropology,' 'narrative ethnography,'<ref>{{cite web |first1=Kristen |last1=Ghodsee |title=Writing Ethnographies that Ordinary People Can Read |work=Anthropology News |date=May 24, 2013 |url=https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/kristenghodsee/files/writing_ethnographies.pdf }}</ref> and 'literary ethnography',<ref>Literary Ethnography http://literary-ethnography.tumblr.com/</ref> ''Writing Culture'' helped to encourage the development of 'collaborative ethnography.'<ref name="ZenkerKumoll">Olaf Zenker & Karsten Kumoll. Beyond Writing Culture: Current Intersections of Epistemologies and Representational Practices. (2010). New York: Berghahn Books. {{ISBN|978-1-84545-675-7}}. p. 12</ref> This exploration of the relationship between writer, audience, and subject has become a central tenet of contemporary anthropological and ethnographic practice. In certain instances, active collaboration between the researcher(s) and subject(s) has helped blend the practice of collaboration in ethnographic fieldwork with the process of creating the ethnographic product resulting from the research.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Nolas |first=Sevasti-Melissa |last2=Varvantakis |first2=Christos |date=2019-09-01 |title=Field Notes for Amateurs |url=https://research.gold.ac.uk/id/eprint/27291/1/%5B15585727%20-%20Social%20Analysis%5D%20Field%20Notes%20for%20Amateurs.pdf |journal=Social Analysis |language=en |volume=63 |issue=3 |pages=130–148 |doi=10.3167/sa.2019.630308 |issn=0155-977X}}</ref><ref name="ZenkerKumoll"/><ref>{{cite journal | last1 = Lassiter | first1 = Luke E. | year = 2001 | title = From 'Reading over the Shoulders of Natives' to 'Reading alongside Natives', Literally: Toward a Collaborative and Reciprocal Ethnography | journal = Journal of Anthropological Research| volume = 57 | issue = 2| pages = 137–149 | doi=10.1086/jar.57.2.3631564| s2cid = 147547789 }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal | last1 = Lassiter | first1 = Luke E. | year = 2005| title = Collaborative Ethnography and Public Anthropology | journal = Current Anthropology | volume = 46 | issue = 1| pages = 83–106 | doi=10.1086/425658| s2cid = 147418975 }}</ref>

===Sociology===
{{Unreferenced section|date=August 2020}}
{{Sociology}}
[[Sociology]] is another field which prominently features ethnographies. [[Urban sociology]], Atlanta University (now Clark-Atlanta University), and the [[Chicago school (sociology)|Chicago School]], in particular, are associated with ethnographic research, with some well-known early examples being ''[[The Philadelphia Negro]]'' (1899) by W. E. B. Du Bois, ''[[Street Corner Society]]'' by [[William Foote Whyte]] and ''[[Black Metropolis]]'' by [[St. Clair Drake]] and [[Horace R. Cayton, Jr.]] Well-known is Jaber F. Gubrium's pioneering ethnography on the experiences of a nursing home, ''Living and Dying at Murray Manor''. Major influences on this development were anthropologist [[Lloyd Warner]], on the Chicago sociology faculty, and to [[Robert E. Park|Robert Park]]'s experience as a journalist. [[Symbolic interactionism]] developed from the same tradition and yielded such sociological ethnographies as ''Shared Fantasy'' by [[Gary Alan Fine]], which documents the early history of fantasy [[role-playing games]]. Other important ethnographies in sociology include [[Pierre Bourdieu]]'s work in Algeria and France.

Jaber F. Gubrium's series of organizational ethnographies focused on the everyday practices of illness, care, and recovery are notable. They include ''Living and Dying at Murray Manor,'' which describes the social worlds of a nursing home; ''Describing Care: Image and Practice in Rehabilitation,'' which documents the social organization of patient subjectivity in a physical rehabilitation hospital; ''Caretakers: Treating Emotionally Disturbed Children,'' which features the social construction of behavioral disorders in children; and ''Oldtimers and Alzheimer's: The Descriptive Organization of Senility,'' which describes how the Alzheimer's disease movement constructed a new subjectivity of senile dementia and how that is organized in a geriatric hospital. Another approach to ethnography in sociology comes in the form of [[institutional ethnography]], developed by [[Dorothy E. Smith]] for studying the social relations which structure people's everyday lives.

Other notable ethnographies include [[Paul Willis (cultural theorist)|Paul Willis]]'s ''Learning to Labour,'' on working class youth; the work of [[Elijah Anderson (sociologist)|Elijah Anderson]], [[Mitchell Duneier]], and [[Loïc Wacquant]] on black America, and Lai Olurode's ''Glimpses of Madrasa From Africa''. But even though many sub-fields and theoretical perspectives within sociology use ethnographic methods, ethnography is not the ''[[sine qua non]]'' of the discipline, as it is in cultural anthropology.

=== Communication studies ===
Beginning in the 1960s and 1970s, ethnographic research methods began to be widely used by communication scholars. As the purpose of ethnography is to describe and interpret the shared and learned patterns of values, behaviors, beliefs, and language of a culture-sharing group, Harris, (1968), also Agar (1980) note that ethnography is both a process and an outcome of the research. Studies such as [[Gerry Philipsen]]'s analysis of cultural communication strategies in a [[blue-collar]], working-class neighborhood on the south side of Chicago, ''Speaking 'Like a Man' in Teamsterville'', paved the way for the expansion of ethnographic research in the study of communication.

Scholars of [[communication studies]] use ethnographic research methods to analyze communicative behaviors and phenomena. This is often characterized in the writing as attempts to understand taken-for-granted routines by which working definitions are socially produced. Ethnography as a method is a storied, careful, and systematic examination of the reality-generating mechanisms of everyday life (Coulon, 1995). Ethnographic work in communication studies seeks to explain "how" ordinary methods/practices/performances construct the ordinary actions used by ordinary people in the accomplishments of their identities. This often gives the perception of trying to answer the "why" and "how come" questions of human communication.<ref>Rubin, R. B., Rubin, A. M., and Piele, L. J. (2005). ''Communication Research: Strategies and Sources.'' Belmont, California: Thomson Wadworth. pp. 229.</ref> Often this type of research results in a [[case study]] or [[field study]] such as an analysis of speech patterns at a protest rally, or the way firemen communicate during "down time" at a fire station. Like anthropology scholars, communication scholars often immerse themselves, and participate in and/or directly observe the particular [[social group]] being studied.<ref>Bentz, V. M., and Shapiro, J. J. (1998). ''Mindful Inquiry in Social Research.'' Thousand Oaks, California: Sage. p. 117.</ref>

===Other fields===
The American anthropologist [[George Spindler]] was a pioneer in applying the ethnographic methodology to the classroom.

Anthropologists such as [[Daniel Miller (anthropologist)|Daniel Miller]] and [[Mary Douglas]] have used ethnographic data to answer academic questions about consumers and consumption. In this sense, Tony Salvador, [[Genevieve Bell]], and Ken Anderson describe design ethnography as being "a way of understanding the particulars of daily life in such a way as to increase the success probability of a new product or service or, more appropriately, to reduce the probability of failure specifically due to a lack of understanding of the basic behaviors and frameworks of consumers."<ref>Salvador, Tony; Genevieve Bell; and Ken Anderson (1999) "Design Ethnography," ''Design Management Journal'' (pp. 35–41). p. 37</ref> Sociologist Sam Ladner argues in her book,<ref>{{cite book|title =Practical Ethnography|first = Sam|last = Ladner|isbn = 978-1-61132-390-0|date = 2014| publisher=Left Coast Press }}</ref> that understanding consumers and their desires requires a shift in "standpoint", one that only ethnography provides. The results are products and services that respond to consumers' unmet needs.

Businesses, too, have found ethnographers helpful for understanding how people use products and services. By assessing user experience in a "natural" setting, ethnology yields insights into the practical applications of a product or service. It is one of the best ways to identify areas of friction and improve overall user experience.<ref>A Simple Guide For Conducting Consumer Research by Brian Lischer http://www.ignytebrands.com/customer-research/</ref> Companies make increasing use of ethnographic methods to understand consumers and consumption, or for new product development (such as [[video ethnography]]). The ''Ethnographic Praxis in Industry'' (EPIC) conference is evidence of this. Ethnographers' systematic and holistic approach to real-life experience is valued by product developers, who use the method to understand unstated desires or cultural practices that surround products. Where focus groups fail to inform marketers about what people really do, ethnography links what people say to what they do—avoiding the pitfalls that come from relying only on self-reported, focus-group data.

=== Evaluating ethnography ===
The ethnographic methodology is not usually evaluated in terms of philosophical standpoint (such as [[positivism]] and [[Appearance emotionalism|emotionalism]]). Ethnographic studies need to be evaluated in some manner. No consensus has been developed on evaluation standards, but Richardson (2000, p.&nbsp;254)<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Richardson |first1=Laurel |title=Evaluating Ethnography |journal=Qualitative Inquiry |date=29 June 2016 |volume=6 |issue=2 |pages=253–255 |doi=10.1177/107780040000600207 |s2cid=220899430 }}</ref> provides five criteria that ethnographers might find helpful. Jaber F. Gubrium and James A. Holstein's (1997) monograph, ''The New Language of Qualitative Method,'' discusses forms of ethnography in terms of their "methods talk".

# ''Substantive contribution'': "Does the piece contribute to our understanding of social life?"
# ''Aesthetic merit'': "Does this piece succeed aesthetically?"
# ''Reflexivity'': "How did the author come to write this text...Is there adequate self-awareness and self-exposure for the reader to make judgments about the point of view?"<ref>For post-colonial critiques of ethnography from various locations, see essays in Prem Poddar et al, ''Historical Companion to Postcolonial Literatures--Continental Europe and its Empires,'' Edinburgh University Press, 2008.</ref>
# ''Impact'': "Does this affect me? Emotionally? Intellectually?" Does it move me?
# ''Expresses a reality'': "Does it seem 'true'—a credible account of a cultural, social, individual, or communal sense of the 'real'?"