ethnographic research plan

How to Write an Ethnographic Research Proposal

How to Write a Study Report

As an ethnographer, you're concerned with studying a culture and writing about it. Your study may focus on human society and history (i.e., cultural anthropology) or might instead deal with a subset of society (for example, an institutional or business culture). Whatever the case, you will look at how culture and behavior are related, and conduct your research while living and/or working within the environment you study. This means you should have a plan for "blending in"; you should dress, communicate and engage in activities just as your subjects do. But first comes the research proposal.

Define what your study is and where it will happen. Explain your logic (i.e., why you will conduct your study this way and not that way) and include descriptions of how you will collect your data. Discuss the benefits of your proposed study and why it is important to you. Complete and include all of the necessary permission and release forms.

Organize your inquiry. Include research questions and try to answer them -- even if, at this point, you're making an educated guess. If you're studying village life, you may want to ask about hierarchy with regard to age and fitness or gender. If you plan to study the writing culture at a local company, you could ask how the presence or absence of resources or procedures affects written communication such as email and memos.

Create and describe your data collection plan. This section specifically describes what your research is and where you will engage in the study. Describe how you will conduct your research; do you have or need special access to the site? Blending in with the community you study is essential; there should be no plans to change anything in any way during the course of the study.

Mention authors and academics who inspire your study. It's critical to avoid doing the same research twice. Previous material published on your research subject -- academics call this "scholarship" -- will help you to frame your study.

Prepare for a variety of grading techniques. The nature of the ethnography varies, so don't get lost in the details. Instead, take into account any cues from your instructor. Some instructors focus on structure and methodology; others are more concerned with proposed benefits and discussion. Finally, ask yourself if your proposal is organized and easy to understand; make sure your plan is doable before you commit to it.

• Introduce the proposal with an anecdote. Providing a practical and/or interesting scenario in the beginning will help your reader understand the context of your study. A little entertainment never hurts, either.
• Don't get in over your head. Sometimes it's best to begin with a small and focused project rather than a broad and complex one. Take into consideration time frame and resources, and be able to juggle your other academic and life responsibilities accordingly.
• Don't spoil the results. Because clean ethnographic research depends on objectivity, don't do or say anything that could upset the natural flow of your subject community. For this type of research, it's best to be the proverbial fly on the wall.

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Christopher de la Torre has been writing about science and communication since 1998. His work appears on websites including Singularity Hub and in "Vogue." He holds a Bachelor of Science in biology and a Bachelor of Arts in English from Eastern Connecticut State University and is pursuing a master's degree in English from George Mason University.

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Home » Ethnographic Research -Types, Methods and Guide

Ethnographic Research -Types, Methods and Guide

Table of Contents

Ethnographic Research

Definition:

Ethnographic research is a qualitative research method used to study and document the culture, behaviors, beliefs, and social interactions of a particular group of people. It involves direct observation and participation in the daily life and activities of the group being studied, often for an extended period of time.

Ethnographic Study

An ethnographic study is a research method that involves the detailed and systematic study of a particular group, culture, or community. Ethnographic studies seek to understand the beliefs, values, behaviors, and social dynamics of a group through direct observation and participation in their daily life.

Ethnographic Research vs Ethnographic Study

here’s a table comparing ethnographic study and ethnographic research:

While there are some differences between the two, they are similar in that they both use qualitative research methods to study a particular group, culture, or community. The main difference is that an ethnographic study involves the researcher spending an extended period of time within the community being studied in order to develop a deep understanding, while ethnographic research is focused on documenting and analyzing the culture, beliefs, behaviors, and social interactions of the group being studied.

Ethnographic Research Types

Ethnographic research can be divided into several types based on the focus of the study and the research objectives. Here are some common types of ethnographic research:

Classic Ethnography

This type of ethnographic research involves an extended period of observation and interaction with a particular community or group. The researcher aims to understand the community’s culture, beliefs, practices, and social structure by immersing themselves in the community’s daily life.

Autoethnography

Autoethnography involves the researcher using their own personal experiences to gain insights into a particular community or culture. The researcher may use personal narratives, diaries, or other forms of self-reflection to explore the ways in which their own experiences relate to the culture being studied.

Participatory Action Research

Participatory action research involves the researcher working collaboratively with members of a particular community or group to identify and address social issues affecting the community. The researcher aims to empower community members to take an active role in the research process and to use the findings to effect positive change.

Virtual Ethnography

Virtual ethnography involves the use of online or digital media to study a particular community or culture. The researcher may use social media, online forums, or other digital platforms to observe and interact with the group being studied.

Critical Ethnography

Critical ethnography aims to expose power imbalances and social inequalities within a particular community or culture. The researcher may use their observations to critique dominant cultural narratives or to identify opportunities for social change.

Ethnographic Research Methods

Some common ethnographic research methods include:

Participant Observation

This involves the researcher directly observing and participating in the daily life and activities of the group being studied. This technique helps the researcher gain an in-depth understanding of the group’s behavior, culture, and social dynamics.

Ethnographic researchers use interviews to gather information about the group’s beliefs, values, and practices. Interviews may be formal or informal and can be conducted one-on-one or in group settings.

Surveys can be used to collect data on specific topics, such as attitudes towards a particular issue or behavior patterns. Ethnographic researchers may use surveys as a way to gather quantitative data in addition to qualitative data.

Document Analysis

This involves analyzing written or visual documents produced by the group being studied, such as newspapers, photographs, or social media posts. Document analysis can provide insight into the group’s values, beliefs, and practices.

Field Notes

Ethnographic researchers keep detailed field notes of their observations and interactions with the group being studied. These notes help the researcher organize their thoughts and observations and can be used to analyze the data collected.

Focus Groups

Focus groups are group interviews that allow the researcher to gather information from multiple people at once. This technique can be useful for exploring shared beliefs or experiences within the group being studied.

Ethnographic Research Data Analysis Methods

Ethnographic research data analysis methods involve analyzing qualitative data collected from observations, interviews, and other sources in order to identify patterns, themes, and insights related to the research question.

Here are some common data analysis methods used in ethnographic research:

Content Analysis

This involves systematically coding and categorizing the data collected from field notes, interviews, and other sources. The researcher identifies recurring themes, patterns, and categories in the data and assigns codes or labels to each one.

Narrative Analysis

This involves analyzing the stories and narratives collected from participants in order to understand how they construct and make sense of their experiences. The researcher looks for common themes, plot structures, and rhetorical strategies used by participants.

Discourse Analysis

This involves analyzing the language and communication practices of the group being studied in order to understand how they construct and reproduce social norms and cultural meanings. The researcher looks for patterns in the use of language, including metaphors, idioms, and other linguistic devices.

Comparative Analysis

This involves comparing data collected from different groups or communities in order to identify similarities and differences in their cultures, behaviors, and social structures. The researcher may use this analysis to generate hypotheses about why these differences exist and what factors may be contributing to them.

Grounded Theory

This involves developing a theoretical framework based on the data collected during the research process. The researcher identifies patterns and themes in the data and uses these to develop a theory that explains the social phenomena being studied.

How to Conduct Ethnographic Research

To conduct ethnographic research, follow these general steps:

• Choose a Research Question: Identify a research question that you want to explore. It should be focused and specific, but also open-ended to allow for flexibility and exploration.
• Select a research site: Choose a site or group that is relevant to your research question. This could be a workplace, a community, a social movement, or any other social setting where you can observe and interact with people.
• Obtain ethical clearance: Obtain ethical clearance from your institution or organization before beginning your research. This involves ensuring that your research is conducted in an ethical and responsible manner, and that the privacy and confidentiality of participants are protected.
• Conduct observations: Observe the people in your research site and take detailed notes. This involves being present and engaged in the social setting, participating in activities, and taking note of the behaviors, interactions, and social norms that you observe.
• Conduct interviews : Conduct interviews with people in the research site to gain deeper insights into their experiences, perspectives, and beliefs. This could involve structured or semi-structured interviews, focus groups, or other forms of data collection.
• Analyze data: Analyze the data that you have collected, looking for themes and patterns that emerge. This involves immersing yourself in the data and interpreting it within the social and cultural context of the research site.
• Write up findings: Write up your findings in a clear and concise manner, using quotes and examples to illustrate your key points. This may involve creating narratives, tables, or other visual representations of your findings.
• Reflect on your process: Reflect on your process and methods, thinking about what worked well and what could be improved for future research.

When to Use Ethnographic Research

Here are some situations where ethnographic research may be particularly appropriate:

• When exploring a new topic: Ethnographic research can be useful when exploring a topic that has not been well-studied before. By engaging with members of a particular group or community, researchers can gain insights into their experiences and perspectives that may not be visible from other research methods.
• When studying cultural practices: Ethnographic research is particularly useful when studying cultural practices and beliefs. By immersing themselves in the cultural context being studied, researchers can gain a deeper understanding of the ways in which cultural practices are enacted, maintained, and transmitted.
• When studying complex social phenomena: Ethnographic research can be useful when studying complex social phenomena that cannot be easily understood through quantitative methods. By observing social interactions and behaviors, researchers can gain insights into the ways in which social norms and structures are created and maintained.
• When studying marginalized communities: Ethnographic research can be particularly useful when studying marginalized communities, as it allows researchers to give voice to members of these communities and understand their experiences and perspectives.

Overall, ethnographic research can be a useful research approach when the goal is to gain a deep understanding of a particular group or community and their cultural practices, beliefs, and experiences. It is a flexible and adaptable research method that can be used in a variety of research contexts.

Applications of Ethnographic Research

Ethnographic research has many applications across a wide range of fields and disciplines. Some of the key applications of ethnographic research include:

• Informing policy and practice: Ethnographic research can provide valuable insights into the experiences and perspectives of marginalized or underrepresented groups, which can inform policy and practice in fields such as health care, education, and social services.
• Developing theories and concepts: Ethnographic research can contribute to the development of theories and concepts in social and cultural anthropology, sociology, and other disciplines, by providing detailed and nuanced accounts of social and cultural phenomena.
• Improving product design and marketing: Ethnographic research can be used to understand consumer behavior and preferences, which can inform the design and marketing of products and services.
• Studying workplace culture: Ethnographic research can provide insights into the norms, values, and practices of organizations, which can inform efforts to improve workplace culture and employee satisfaction.
• Examining social movements: Ethnographic research can be used to study the practices, beliefs, and experiences of social movements, which can inform efforts to understand and address social and political issues.
• Studying healthcare practices: Ethnographic research can provide insights into healthcare practices and patient experiences, which can inform efforts to improve healthcare delivery and patient outcomes.

Examples of Ethnographic Research

Here are some real-time examples of ethnographic research:

• Anthropological study of a remote indigenous tribe: Anthropologists often use ethnographic research to study remote indigenous tribes and gain insights into their culture, beliefs, and practices. For example, an anthropologist may live with a tribe for an extended period of time, observing and participating in their daily activities, and conducting interviews with members of the community.
• Study of workplace culture: Ethnographic research can be useful in studying workplace culture and understanding the dynamics of the organization. For example, an ethnographer may observe and interview employees in a particular department or team to gain insights into their work practices, communication styles, and social dynamics.
• Study of consumer behavior: Ethnographic research can be useful in studying consumer behavior and understanding how people interact with products and services. For example, an ethnographer may observe and interview consumers as they use a particular product, such as a new smartphone or fitness tracker, to gain insights into their behaviors and preferences.
• Study of health care practices: Ethnographic research can be useful in studying health care practices and understanding how patients and providers interact within the health care system. For example, an ethnographer may observe and interview patients and providers in a hospital or clinic to gain insights into their experiences and perspectives.
• Study of social movements: Ethnographic research can be useful in studying social movements and understanding how they emerge and evolve over time. For example, an ethnographer may observe and interview participants in a protest movement to gain insights into their motivations and strategies.

Purpose of Ethnographic Research

The purpose of ethnographic research is to provide an in-depth understanding of a particular group or community, including their cultural practices, beliefs, and experiences. This research approach is particularly useful when the research question is exploratory and the goal is to generate new insights and understandings. Ethnographic research seeks to understand the experiences, perspectives, and behaviors of the participants in their natural setting, without imposing the researcher’s own biases or preconceptions.

Ethnographic research can be used to study a wide range of topics, including social movements, workplace culture, consumer behavior, and health care practices, among others. The researcher aims to understand the social and cultural context of the group or community being studied, and to generate new insights and understandings that can inform future research, policy, and practice.

Overall, the purpose of ethnographic research is to gain a deep understanding of a particular group or community, with the goal of generating new insights and understandings that can inform future research, policy, and practice. Ethnographic research can be a valuable research approach in many different contexts, particularly when the goal is to gain a rich, contextualized understanding of social and cultural phenomena.

Advantages of Ethnographic Research

Ethnographic research has several advantages that make it a valuable research approach in many different fields. Here are some of the advantages of ethnographic research:

• Provides in-depth and detailed information: Ethnographic research involves direct observation of the group or community being studied, which allows researchers to gain a detailed and in-depth understanding of their beliefs, practices, and experiences. This type of information cannot be obtained through other research methods.
• Offers a unique perspective: Ethnographic research allows researchers to see the world from the perspective of the group or community being studied. This can provide unique insights into the ways in which different cultural practices and beliefs are constructed and maintained.
• Promotes cultural understanding: Ethnographic research can help to promote cultural understanding and reduce stereotypes by providing a more nuanced and accurate picture of different cultures and communities.
• Allows for flexibility: Ethnographic research is a flexible research approach that can be adapted to fit different research contexts and questions. Researchers can adjust their methods based on the needs of the group being studied and the research goals.
• Generates rich and diverse data: Ethnographic research generates rich and diverse data through a combination of observation, interviews, and other methods. This allows researchers to analyze different aspects of the group or community being studied and identify patterns and themes in the data.
• Supports theory development: Ethnographic research can support theory development by providing empirical data that can be used to test and refine theoretical frameworks.

Limitations of Ethnographic Research

Ethnographic research has several limitations that researchers should consider when selecting this research approach. Here are some of the limitations of ethnographic research:

• Limited generalizability: Ethnographic research typically involves studying a small and specific group or community, which limits the generalizability of the findings to other contexts or populations.
• Time-consuming: Ethnographic research is a time-consuming process that requires a significant investment of time and resources. Researchers must spend time observing and interacting with the group being studied, which may not be feasible in all research contexts.
• Subjectivity: Ethnographic research relies on the researcher’s interpretation and analysis of the data collected, which may introduce subjective bias into the research findings.
• Limited control: Ethnographic research involves studying a group or community in their natural setting, which limits the researcher’s control over the research context and the behavior of the participants.
• Ethical concerns: Ethnographic research can raise ethical concerns, particularly when studying marginalized or vulnerable populations. Researchers must be careful to ensure that they do not harm or exploit the participants in the research process.
• Limited quantitative data: Ethnographic research typically generates qualitative data, which may limit the types of analysis that can be conducted and the types of conclusions that can be drawn.

About the author

Muhammad Hassan

Researcher, Academic Writer, Web developer

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12 Ethnography

Anthony Kwame Harrison, Department of Sociology, Virginia Tech

• Published: 02 September 2020
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This chapter introduces ethnography as a distinct research and writing tradition. It opens with a discussion of ethnography’s current fashionability within transdisciplinary academic spaces and some of the associated challenges. The next section provides a historical overview of ethnography’s emergence as a professionalized research practice within the fields of anthropology and sociology. Focusing on ethnography as a research methodology, the chapter outlines several key attributes that distinguish it from other forms of participant observation–oriented research; provides a general overview of the central paradigms that ethnographers claim and/or move between; and spotlights three principal research methods that most ethnographers utilize—namely, participant observation, field-note writing, and ethnographic interviewing. The final section of the chapter introduces a research disposition called ethnographic comportment , defined as a politics of positionality that reflects both ethnographers’ awarenesses of and their accountabilities to the research tradition they participate in.

Introduction

In a classic 1929 American Mercury article on racial passing and investigating lynchings, the future executive secretary of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, Walter White, opened with an observation:

In any American village, North or South, East or West, there is no problem which cannot be solved in half an hour by the morons who lounge about the village store. World peace, or the lack of it, the tariff, sex, religion, the settlement of the war debts, short skirts, Prohibition, the carryings-on of the younger generation, the superior moral rectitude of country people over city dwellers (with a wistful eye on urban sins)—all these controversial subjects are disposed of quickly and finally by the bucolic wise men. (White, 1929 , p. 77)

Ethnographers are neither morons nor bucolic wise men. If called on, they may supply truncated answers to difficult questions. But they do this with an understanding that they are merely scratching the surface or offering something along the lines of sweeping tendencies regarding what are typically complicated and often contradictory aspects of human organization and social relations. The closer and deeper one looks, the more one sees. For this reason, ethnography is not particularly well suited for the kinds of business or policy-oriented research that requires statistically verifiable findings or strict evidentiary bases for direct and uncomplicated action plans (Jones, 2010 ). Still, references to ethnography and/or ethnographic thisses-and-thats increasingly appear in these and numerous other settings. To fully appreciate the value of ethnographies, it is important to read them in their entirety. Ethnographies are not built for efficiency in research practice or in communicating research results.

As a reflexive, intersubjective research tradition—that speaks to audiences’ hearts as well as to their minds—ethnography is most at home in spaces where complexity, nuance, and betwixt-and-betweenness are valued. Thus, there is a palpable tension between this research methodology—founded on patience and aspirations for comprehensive understandings—and the increasingly neoliberal academic environments, where the practices of ethnography have historically been nurtured and where a majority of practicing ethnographers continue to reside, settings where, increasingly, time, volume of output, and tangibility of results are key factors determining what is valued. We see this among graduate students of the early 21st century, who are progressively more pressured to have solid publication records upon completing their degrees—a practice that encourages some advisors to discourage students from pursuing ethnographic research. Another consequence of this development is the gradual erosion of ethnographic standards as shorter durations of research and shortened pathways to confirmable findings are accepted, if not heralded, as measures of competency. Under such conditions, the invisible work of ethnography (Forsythe, 1999 ), and the associated belief that anyone can do it, amplifies its current fashionability in problematic ways.

This chapter provides a foundation for understanding ethnography as a research methodology and genre of research reporting. While celebrating ethnography’s flexibility and generative potential—indeed, its refusal to be contained within fixed definitions—I also present it as a distinct research tradition, guided by a series of evolving conventions and commitments. This emphasis on precision is motivated by what I see as a multipronged crisis within the transforming field of ethnographic research. Factors influencing this crisis include but are not limited to: (a) ethnography’s place within neoliberal universities and associated spaces where efforts toward increasing efficiency reign; (b) a “transdisciplinary romance with ethnography” (Kazubowski-Houston & Magnat, 2017 ) that, too often, leads undertrained and underinvested researchers to claim the label—thus, in my view, doing violence to ethnography in both a figurative and a literal sense (Ingold, 2014 ); and (c) increased institutional surveillance and “methodological conservatism,” which creates hostile environments for ethnographers seeking to have their work approved by oversight bodies and agencies (Lincoln, 2005 ). At the same time, ethnography has qualities that make it particularly well suited for grasping and representing complex social phenomena and the contentious bases of knowing during these difficult times. Methodologically, ethnography flourishes in the liminal spaces between research design and improvisation. Through their critical engagements with its sometimes troubled history, trained ethnographers tend to align with marginalized perspectives and the communities they emanate from. Representationally, ethnography refuses to reduce the social world to simplistic binaries or neatly bracketed findings. In the following pages, I elaborate on these and other qualities of the ethnographic enterprise. Specifically, I present ethnography as a distinct methodology—rooted in the professionalization of anthropology and, to a lesser degree, sociology as academic fields—with a particular set of defining attributes, paradigmatic observances, and research conventions.

Defining Ethnography

The term ethnography references both a research and an inscription (i.e., writing process to written product) practice. Ethnography is research in that it describes a methodology (distinguished from a research method in the section Ethnography as Methodology) usually conceptualized as involving participant observations within a community or field of study. 1 Thus, a person can speak of doing ethnographic research among Vermont maple sugarers (Lange, 2017 ) or among people participating in a translocal cultural phenomenon who may not even consciously identify as a group (Amit, 2000 ). At the same time, it is an inscription practice in that the products of ethnographic research—typically books like Edmund Leach’s classic Political Systems of Highland Burma (1954) or Riché J. Daniel Barnes’s Raising the Race (2016)—are referred to as ethnographies. 2

Typically, greater academic attention is given to discussions of ethnography as research. However, to the extent that evaluations of and inferences about research are derived from the resulting written account, this focus on ethnography as research may be overblown. Indeed, since at least its postmodern turn (see Clifford & Marcus, 1986 ; Marcus & Fischer, 1986 ), considerable attention has fallen on ethnography as a literary convention. Scholars have additionally argued that writing practices are integral to ethnographic data collection and analysis and therefore should not be treated separately (Emerson, Fretz, & Shaw, 2011 ; Richardson & St. Pierre, 2005 ; Sanjeck, 1990 ). 3 Elaborating on a concept that I call ethnographic comportment , toward the close of this chapter, I argue that most researchers are guided by a “textual awareness” (Van Maanen, 2011 , p. 158)—an imagined end product that they are working toward—that influences them variously throughout all stages of an ethnographic project, from conception to publication. Nevertheless, if one is looking for a standard definition of ethnography, a research-oriented definition such as the one offered by Martyn Hammersley and Paul Atkinson (1995) is quite typical:

[Ethnography involves] participating, overtly or covertly in people’s daily lives for an extended period of time, watching what happens, listening to what is said, asking questions … [and] collecting whatever [other] data are available to throw light on the issues that are the focus of the research. (p. 1)

Such a simple, straightforward definition highlights ethnography’s resemblance to “the routine ways in which people make sense of the world everyday” (Hammersley & Atkinson, 1995 , p. 2)—thus making it appear to be something anyone can do. But to paraphrase something my colleague Carol A. Bailey once told me, no one would think of doing multiple linear regressions without statistical data analysis training, yet, quite regularly, people with no background in qualitative research claim to be doing ethnography (see also Schwandt, 2000 , p. 206n3). Commenting on the popularity of ethnography in consumer research, Patricia L. Sunderland and Rita M. Denny ( 2007 ) remarked,

A myriad of research techniques … (from the few-minute in-store intercept interview, to the one-hour “depth interview,” to the online focus group) have become redefined as “ethnographic” with barely any change in the underlying assumptions regarding method or analysis. Researchers have transformed themselves into “ethnographers” with few changes in practice beyond the name. (pp. 13–14)

Although these observations are specific to a single nonacademic arena, I argue that, even within the academy, the proliferation of ethnography warrants similar sentiments. In his book The Cosmopolitan Canopy (2011), Elijah Anderson defined folk ethnography as “a form of people watching that allows individuals informally to gather evidence in social interactions that supports their own viewpoints or transforms their commonsense understandings of social life” (p. xv). Although Anderson views this as a positive development, it concerns me that the distinction between folk ethnography and ethnography is blurring. In this chapter, I argue against the notion of ethnography as a qualitative research free-for-all, open for anyone, regardless of background or training, to undertake. As Diana E. Forsythe ( 1999 ) asserted, it is not “just a matter of common sense” (p. 130). Ethnography is a specific approach to research and writing about it, with a rich history and established yet evolving set of guiding principles. For those of us who take ethnography seriously, it involves training (usually through advanced coursework and mentorship), reflection, and accountability.

Historical Foundations of Ethnography

As a research tradition, ethnography’s roots are most firmly planted in the fields of anthropology and qualitative sociology: the former most often credited to the innovations of Polish-born, British-trained Bronislaw Malinowski and the latter usually attributed to a collection of researchers associated with the University of Chicago—commonly referred to as the Chicago School. Though these origin myths have been widely discussed and debated, and some treatments suggest ethnography began as early as the Greeks and Romans (Wax, 1971 ), I nevertheless cast ethnography as a relatively recent methodology, which came of age with the professionalization of both disciplines during the early decades of the 20th century.

In my chapter for the first edition of the Oxford Handbook of Qualitative Research , I discussed this history in great detail (see Harrison, 2014 ) and will therefore offer only a truncated version here. 4 During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, on both sides of the Atlantic, the nascent academic field of social/cultural anthropology crystallized around a reorientation away from the traditional model of armchair theorizing and toward a serious investment in ways of going about collecting and using data. 5 The various learned societies dedicated to anthropological interests that emerged during the 19th century relied primarily on the reports of colonial administrators, military officers, missionaries, traders, and other travelers for their information. The new class of professional anthropological intellectuals who came into being through these organizations prioritized the need for more formal—and less prejudiced, sensationalized, and unequivocally racist—standards of scientific reporting. In this interest, various sets of anthropological questionnaires and field guides were developed, initially for untrained travelers but, over time, increasingly toward the goal of fostering the most “precise and exacting” methods among field anthropologists (Urry, 1972 , p. 51). The most famous of these was Notes and Queries on Anthropology , which appeared in six iterations between 1874 and 1951 (Urry, 1972 ). Another effort to circumvent the limitations of untrained, biased, and otherwise disinterested reporting involved expeditions featuring teams of specialized experts—most notably the Cambridge Torres Straits expedition of 1898 (Stocking, 1983a ) and a series of privately funded and Bureau of American Ethnology–sponsored expeditions to the American Southwest occurring throughout the late 19th century (Judd, 1967 ).

Malinowski, the famed “founding father” of ethnography (Jones, 2010 ), came to anthropology after earning a doctorate in physics and mathematics from Jagiellonian University in Poland. He arrived in England—one of the key centers of anthropological thought—at precisely the right moment to benefit from the decades-long debates regarding appropriate ethnographic data collection methods that had been taking place. A year before his arrival, in a 1909 meeting of the principals from Oxford, Cambridge, and the London School of Economics, it was decided that the term ethnography would be used in specific reference to “descriptive accounts of non-literate peoples”—as distinct from the historical and comparative-based term ethnology (Radcliffe-Brown, 1952 , p. 276). We can thus mark this meeting as arguably the first collective effort to delineate ethnography as the principle data collection method within the rapidly professionalizing field. 6

Arriving in England, Malinowski immediately connected with a small circle of scholars, dedicated to anthropological interests, calling themselves the Cambridge School. This group included Alfred Cort Haddon, William H. R. Rivers, and Charles Seligman, all of whom had participated in the 1898 Torres Straits expedition. The quality of the various anthropological writing projects Malinowski had undertaken prior to landing in England—including what would become his first book, The Family among the Australian Aborigines (1913/1963)—undoubtedly facilitated his acceptance into this distinguished group. Still, Malinowski’s emergence as the most recognized figure in the development of ethnography can largely be attributed to timing. At the time of his arrival, members of the Cambridge School were already grappling with many of the ethnographic revelations that Malinowski would eventually put forward in his seminal work, Argonauts of the Western Pacific (1922/1966). Malinowski can be distinguished as the last member of the Cambridge School to conduct fieldwork prior to the outbreak of World War I (Stocking, 1983b , p. 82) and the first professionally trained anthropologist to carry out research according to the most recent methodological advances of the time (Kuper, 1996 , p. 7). Consequently, when Argonauts was published a few years after the war, it stood alone as an implementation and representation of the culmination of prewar Cambridge School theorizing.

Malinowski embarked on his South Pacific fieldwork in 1914—carrying with him the 1912 edition of Notes and Queries , which had been considerably revised by Rivers (Myers, 1923 ). After a 6-month “apprentice’s trail run” on the island of Mailu in southern New Guinea (Kuper, 1996 , p. 12), the young researcher would more famously carry out two extensive periods—of a year each, 1915–1916 and 1917–1918—in the Trobriand Islands. During his initial Mailu fieldwork, Malinowski realized that his research became more productive when isolated from the prejudicial influences of the European administrators, missionaries, and traders who were also present on the island. Writing about this experience in Argonauts , he recounted, “It was not until I was alone in the district that I began to make some headway” (Malinowski, 1922/1966 , p. 6). This revelation sparked one of Malinowski’s most notable contributions to the practice of ethnography, which George Stocking ( 1983b ) described as “a shift in the primary locus of investigation, from the deck of the mission ship or the verandah of the mission station to the teeming center of the village” (p. 93). Such a positional shift facilitated a corresponding adjustment to his ethnographic posture:

In this type of work, it is good for the Ethnographer sometimes to put aside camera, note book and pencil, and to join in himself in what is going on. 7 … Out of such plunges into the life of the native … I have carried away a distinct feeling that their behavior, their manner of being, in all sorts of tribal transactions, became more transparent and easily understandable than it had before. (Malinowski, 1922/1966 , pp. 21–22)

In his preface to Argonauts of the Western Pacific , esteemed anthropologist James George Frazier hailed it as a “remarkable record of anthropological research” by someone who had “lived as a native among the natives” (J. G. Frazier, 1922 / 1966 , p. vii). For his part, Malinowski was exceedingly deliberate in foregrounding his methodological “innovations.” Thus, the myth of Malinowski—as the first field researcher to voluntarily remove himself from colonial quarters, (essentially) cut off all ties with “civilization,” and immerse himself in the world of “savages” as a methodological imperative for understanding their world—soon took legs. His prescriptive methods for doing this included long-term residence by a trained researcher; learning the local language rather than relying on interpreters; collecting as much data as possible on as wide a range of activities as possible—from the spectacular and ceremonial to the everyday and mundane—and taking copious field notes; and, when possible, partaking in social activities as a participant observer.

One of the most rehearsed explanations of ethnography, contained within the pages of Argonauts , is Malinowski’s oft-cited goal of “grasp[ing] the native’s point of view” (Malinowski, 1922/1966 , p. 25). This decree to recognize and (to some degree) prioritize the subjectivity of non-Western peoples marked a transformative moment in how anthropology was practiced. No longer simply viewed as the objects of study, the perspectives of rational native actors provided the platform for developing anthropology’s relativist doctrines. By advocating for the internal logics underlying each culture, anthropology came to serve a critical role in exposing the prejudice and racism surrounding evaluations of cultural difference (Baker, 2010 ). 8 Together, Malinowski’s prescriptions amounted to a methodological manifesto (Strathern, 1987 ) that championed experiential modes of understanding, contextualization, and the distinction between ideal and actual behavior as signaling the capacity for agency within social structures.

In the most celebrated histories of anthropology, the idea of participant observation–based fieldwork, which is at the core of modern ethnography, came into being through these methodological advancements. Yet, the myth of the “Malinowskian Revolution” (Kuper, 1996 , p. 32) belies the tremendous effort and attention toward refining anthropological research methods that were taking place prior to his arrival in England, as well as across the Atlantic among Franz Boas and his students (see Harrison, 2014 ; Lassiter & Campbell, 2010 ). Although Malinowski was not singly responsible for inventing these ethnographic standards, his archetype status has been significant to their reification. Furthermore, his position during the interwar period as England’s “only master ethnographer” helped him to further cement his progenitor status (Kuper, 1996 , p. 1). 9 For most of the 20th century and now continuing into the 21st, the image of “going off” to a fieldwork site far removed from the university community one is a part of, for a minimum of 1 year, has been a rite of passage within sociocultural anthropology; and for much of this time, the importance of conducting research in non-Western societies—what some have critiqued as anthropology’s intrinsic process of Othering (Deloria, 1969 ; Magubane & Faris, 1985 )—was rationalized as “absolutely essential” to the development of an anthropological perspective (Mead, 1952 , p. 346).

Far and away the most celebrated ethnographic conventions practiced outside anthropology came from a collection of researchers associated with the University of Chicago’s department of sociology. Generally speaking, the Chicago School 10 formed through the combined influences of Malinowskian fieldwork methodologies and German phenomenological theory (Jones, 2010 ). Through their conceptualization of urban life as an assemblage of “natural areas” or “little communities,” researchers affiliated with the Chicago school, under the direction of Robert E. Park, imagined the city as a social laboratory through which to examine secular differences—primarily oriented around ethnicity and various forms of civic otherness. With an extensive background in newspaper work and having served as “a sort of secretary” to Tuskegee Institute founder and notable African American spokesman Booker T. Washington (Faris, 1967 , p. 28), Park arrived in Chicago in 1913 with keen interests in issues surrounding urban life, race relations, ethnic heterogeneity, and processes of assimilation. Soon thereafter, Park dedicated himself to training graduate students and, indeed, several of the most significant works to come out of the program during the interwar period were authored by his students (Blumer, 1998 ). 11

While ethnography has long-standing roots in sociology, its centrality to the discipline has never matched its position as the “hallmark methodology” of anthropology (Sunderland & Denny, 2007 , p. 13). From the outset, sociology’s ethnographic efforts were firmly intertwined with anthropology. 12 Thus, although Chicago sociologists gave a good deal of attention to particular aspects of methodological training, their most inspired forays into fieldwork were often characterized as a closer-to-home version of what anthropologists do. 13 We can see this in Park’s justifications for the kinds of research he was most interested in advancing. In an important essay advocating for the scientific value of researching the city, Park explained:

Anthropology, the science of man, has been mainly concerned up to the present with the study of primitive peoples. But civilized man is quite as interesting an object of investigation.… The same patient methods of observation which anthropologists like Boas and Lowie have expended on the study of the life and manners of the North American Indian might be even more fruitfully employed in the investigation of the customs, beliefs, social practices, and general conceptions of life prevalent in Little Italy on the lower North Side in Chicago, or in recording the more sophisticated folkways of the inhabitants of Greenwich Village and the neighborhood of Washington Square, New York. (Park, 1925/1967 , p. 3)

Years later, in describing his own attraction to this ethnographic tradition, Howard S. Becker ( 1999 ) explained, “You had all the romance of anthropology but could sleep in your own bed and eat decent food” (p. 8).

Still, the model of urban-based fieldwork put forth by Chicago School sociologists was an important predecessor to the way ethnography is thought of and practiced today. For much of the 20th century, anthropological field research focused on small, isolated communities where it was possible to get to know most members, map out kinship relations, and, at least, imagine that one was getting a comprehensive portrayal of society. 14 In the early 21st century, virtually all ethnographers adopt a topic-oriented approach, which focuses on one or more specified aspects of and/or social networks within what are understood to be much more complex and globally interconnected societies. As a result of the metropolitan settings of their research, urban sociologists, unlike their colleagues in anthropology, were compelled to acknowledge that they were dealing with specific dimensions of social life and/or subcultures that were situated within larger societal contexts.

The origins of ethnography as a professionalized methodological (research) and representational (writing) practice are most squarely situated within the discipline of anthropology. Recognizing these foundations in no way implies that ethnography is the exclusive purview of anthropology or, for that matter, that anthropologists should have exclusive right in determining what does and does not qualify as ethnography (Atkinson, 2017 ). Indeed, some of the most significant methodological considerations leading up to ethnography’s now-standard insistence on reflexivity (see the section Ethnographic Comportment) issued from the application of sociology’s symbolic interactionist theories to circumstances surrounding the ethnographic encounter (Berreman, 1962 ; Junker, 1960 ); and today many of the most exciting works surrounding ethnography issue from transdisciplinary spaces. I therefore echo Magdalena Kazubowski-Houston and Virginie Magnat’s ( 2017 ) call for “coalition and collaboration between like-minded ethnographers across the social-sciences, the arts, and the humanities” (p. 11). Yet these historical foundations continue to serve as methodological anchors for ethnographers.

Ethnography as Methodology

In discussing ethnography, commentators sometimes incorrectly treat it as a method rather than a methodology. The difference is significant. A method is simply a tool or technique used to collect and/or analyze data. Ethnographers typically utilize a variety of tools and techniques during the course of their research, including but not limited to establishing rapport; selecting informants; using a range of interview and/or focus group forms; making observations—both participatory and nonparticipatory—and writing field notes based on them; conducting surveys, genealogies, and domain analyses; mapping fields; transcribing texts; and coding data. 15 In contrast, methodologies are established norms of inquiry that are by and large adhered to within distinct research traditions. A methodology, therefore, involves theoretical, ethical, political, and at times moral orientations to research, which guide the decisions researchers make, including their choice of methods. Accordingly, it can be thought of as a philosophy of research practice, analysis, and description. Later in the chapter, I detail three of the most fundamental methods that ethnographers commonly utilize—namely, participant observation, field-note writing, and ethnographic interviews. However, first I outline several key attributes that, in my view, contribute to any instance of research being ethnographic and then highlight three philosophical positions—or what I call paradigms —that ethnographers orient themselves in relation to when conducting research.

Ethnographic Attributes

In this section I outline five essential priorities that distinguish ethnography. I offer these, in part, as a corrective to what I regard as the casual and commonplace misappropriation of it as a stand-in for all types of qualitative research (Kazubowski-Houston & Magnat, 2017 ). Building on my earlier definition, these attributes should be regarded as important orienting principles that scholars trained in ethnography and aware of its historicity hold in common.

Ethnography and Culture

Harry F. Wolcott asserted that the critical attribute distinguishing ethnography from other forms of qualitative research is a focus on describing and interpreting cultural behavior. In other words, at its core an ethnography must include an intentional engagement with and “working resolution” toward understanding culture (Wolcott, 1987 , p. 45). Wolcott called this ethnographic intent . The specifics of this “working resolution” may vary. Culture, according to Stephen A. Tyler ( 1969 ), provides the framework for recognizing and describing how “people make order out of what appears … to be utter chaos” (p. 6). Yet for the inquiring ethnographer, culture might be conceptualized as being revealed through people’s behaviors, the expressed ideals that guide such behaviors, or the discovery of underlying frameworks through which situational choices are made. Each of these, or some combination, can have implications for how ethnographic researchers go about their craft.

Debates over a precise definition of culture notwithstanding, ethnography has traditionally rested on a principle of cultural comparison, perhaps best reflected in the anthropological maxim of “making the strange familiar and the familiar strange.” For earlier generations of ethnographers—primarily anthropologists and sociologists (see the section Historical Foundations of Ethnography)—this was accomplished by traveling to starkly different social settings, which brought about the inevitable comparisons with the home “culture” (as the term was then understood 16 ). As the lens of ethnographic inquiry expanded to include spaces and places that did not initially appear to be particularly distinct from the ethnographer’s home (Messerschmidt, 1981 ), this comparative mode of sense-making became more implicit than explicit. The native ethnographer, for instance, conducting research in her own community, would appear to start from the same cultural foundations as the people she (participant) observes. Yet, as a trained ethnographer—someone who has read cultural theory and been exposed to several cross-cultural ethnographic studies—she makes sense of her observations in relation to the wealth of documented scholarship on cultural diversity. 17 Thus, she is less likely to generalize distinct cultural practices as the “normal way” people do things and more apt to frame her observations and understandings in conversation with foundational and recent thinking about culture.

Ethnography and Contextualization

Ethnographies prioritize contextualization, meaning that particular people and the situations they find themselves in are best understood in relation to broader factors that impact them—including, but not limited to, historical, local, political, economic, and religious factors. Anthropology, in particular, has historically recognized interconnections and mutual influences between various aspects of social life—or what anthropologists call holism . Following from this, ethnographers take an open-minded, inductive approach to what might potentially be considered data. In other fields of research where deductive reasoning —that is, the idea that truth follows from a sequence of conditional premises that can be empirically verified—is prioritized, efforts are made to silence external noises in the interest of focusing on what researchers determine are the most salient factors and variables. The inductive reasoning that guides ethnographic research starts from the assumption that such noises have consequence—they not only impact social conditions but also, at times, reflect deeper structural workings of culture.

Contextualization also impacts situational constructions of meaning. To illustrate what I mean here, I turn to the work of Clifford Geertz ( 1973 ), who famously defined ethnography as “an elaborate venture in … ‘thick description’ ” (p. 6). Referencing a thought experiment conducted by philosopher Gilbert Ryle ( 1971 ), Geertz elaborated on thick description through the example of a rapidly contracting eyelid. Whether such action amounts to an involuntary twitch of the eye or a “conspiratorial signal to a friend” (i.e., a wink) is entirely contextual. Accordingly, a thin description of behavior—“her left eye blinked”—tells us very little. Through understanding such things as the circumstances under which the blink occurred, the intention of the blinker, the prevalent social codes that may or may not mark the blink as meaningful, and whether this meaning was received and understood, we get a better sense of what is going on. Thick description, then, in the words of anthropologist Karin Narayan ( 2012 ), can be summarized as “layering meaning into closely observed details” (p. 8). Noticing and describing something as subtle and instantaneous as a blink requires careful attention to detail; it means observing social life with the same heightened sensitivity that we use when perceiving works of art (Willis, 2000 ). Yet, without proper contextualization, such descriptions have limited ethnographic value.

Ethnography as Iterative

In addition to being governed by inductive principles—meaning that research “starts from the data rather than from a hypothesis to be tested, or even from a fixed research question” (Hammersley, 2008 , p. 69)—ethnography proceeds as an iterative mode of inquiry. By this I mean that ethnographers continually re-engage with their research questions, fundamental assumptions, methods of inquiry, and accumulated data toward the goal of refining their work—which can sometimes include making a radical change in direction. Consequently, ethnographic research designs must be flexible enough to allow for the expected surprises and misadventures that arise when an individual (serving as a research instrument) engages in the daily lives of other people—who are inevitably continuing along the unforeseeable journeys that are their lives—for a prolonged period of time. Even at its most scientific, ethnography is resolutely a human science conducted in a real-world laboratory. As such, the ethnographic enterprise is saturated with circumstances, situations, and personalities that are unanticipated and often uncontrollable. Barbara Tedlock ( 2000 ) elaborated:

No matter how much care the ethnographer devotes to the project, its success depends upon more than individual effort. It is tied to outside forces, including local, national, and sometimes even international relationships that make research possible as well as to a readership that accepts the endeavor as meaningful. (p. 466)

Indeed, one of the most predictable aspects of ethnographic research is its unpredictability, so much so that statements along the lines of “I began my research intending to study X but wound up studying Y ” are now standard ethnographic writing conventions. I would go so far as to suggest that an absence of such sentiments (i.e., everything working out according to plan) is greeted with more suspicion than their presence.

Recognizing how ethnographic data and interpretation evolve simultaneously, James Spradley ( 1980 ) offered a cyclical model of ethnographic inquiry—what he calls the ethnographic research cycle —as distinct from the linear research models (i.e., define the problem, formulate hypotheses, gather and analyze data, draw conclusions) found in the other social sciences. According to Spradley ( 1980 ), each phase of ethnographic inquiry (data collection and analysis) informs new questions:

The cycle cannot wait until you have collected a large amount of data.… You need to analyze your fieldnotes after each period of fieldwork in order to know what to look for during the next period of participant observation. (pp. 33–34)

As such, a strict sequence of prescribed methods will not suffice. Ethnography achieves virtue and vitality through its lack of prescription, by continuously straddling the line between structured research design and improvised inquisitive adventure. Gary Alan Fine and James G. Deegan ( 1996 ) described ethnography as “a puzzle of mysterious design” that is “only known when the researcher has decided that it is close enough to completion” (p. 441). Through iterative processes of tacking back and forth between experiences and reflections, ethnographers piece together their research projects.

Ethnography then should be thought of as involving iterative–inductive–inscription practices . 18 It is iterative in the sense that it involves recurrently engaging with theory, data, and analysis (O’Dell & Willim, 2011 ); it is inductive in that ethnographers approach this engagement with open minds and few preconceptions about where data will lead them; and it is inscriptive in foregrounding writing as its principal mode of recording data, analyzing data, and representing social life (Richardson & St. Pierre, 2005 ).

Ethnography and Empathy

The ethnographic project is variously empathetic. Through intersubjective engagements—most notably via participant observation—ethnographers aspire to “imaginatively experience the feelings, thoughts, and situation” (Davis, 2014 , p. 6) of people they work among. As such, ethnography encourages a degree of intimacy between researcher and researched that, at its best, recognizes and appreciates their mutual implication in the production of knowledge (Lassiter, 2005 ; Sluka & Robben, 2012 ). Ethnographers’ commitments to the people and communities they conduct research among are both moral and political. Academically situated ethnographers—on the basis of their training, disciplinary identities, and institutional affiliations—are mandated to protect the interests of the people and communities they work among by following institutional and disciplinary guidelines surrounding research, most notably those pertaining to informed consent, deception , and confidentiality . 19 In addition, trained and invested ethnographers recognize their charge to reveal, unsettle, and at times undermine the institutions and forces through which social inequalities are maintained and perpetuated. Thus, ethnographers are consistently attentive to the interests of disempowered groups. When working among such groups, these commitments to social justice result in alliances and recognitions of researched communities’ roles in evaluating the quality of ethnographies (Harrison, 2018 ). In contrast, when working among power-wielding groups—what Laura Nader ( 1972 ) called studying up —ethnographers should feel some obligation to use their position and access to uncover and even disrupt the workings of power. This can take many forms. However, its absence—for example, using conventional ethnographic methods for the explicit purpose of perpetuating social inequalities—in these enlightened times 20 is simply not ethnography.

This notion of ethnographic empathy also pertains to the reception of works ethnographers produce. Ethnographic authors write toward the of goal of enabling their readers to envision themselves walking in someone else’s shoes and, what is more, to grasp people’s perspectives and understand their behaviors as resulting from alternative (or previously unrecognized) cultural logics. Ethnographers’ written accounts communicate person-to-person sentiments—inviting readers to imagine the situated interests and actions of someone else. Resembling, to some degree, how a politician might use a handful of personal stories to communicate something about the state of a nation during a national address, 21 the most evocative ethnographic writings utilize sentimentality and emotion in detailing individual’s stories and particular episodes. As such, their representational power lies in their informational richness and ability to communicate affect , as opposed to other research traditions that prioritize statistical validity or theoretical applicability. Indeed, by providing compelling testimonies, which embrace the emotionality and messiness of real life (Law, 2004 ), ethnographies do more to complicate and therefore advance existing theories than to straightforwardly confirm them.

Ethnography and Narrative

Storytelling saturates ethnography. Ethnographers collect stories from people firsthand, on their own terms, or in such close proximity to them that they powerfully reflect something about the way culturally situated actors move through their worlds (Turner, 2007 ). As researchers, we invite such stories through open-ended ethnographic interviews (see the section Ethnographic Interviews) where participants are asked to share their personal histories, their perspectives, and/or what is most meaningful to them about a given topic. Ethnographers are also told personal narratives while building rapport and deeply hanging out (Wogan, 2004 )—for example, when getting a ride home from an open-microphone event (Harrison, 2009 , p. 64) or while sharing cramped living spaces (Holmes, 2013 ). In addition, ethnographers are regularly featured actors in the stories they recount. Contemporary ethnography mandates degrees of reflexivity and transparency, both of which demand that researchers share aspects of their personal stories and provide some accounting of the research experiences that led them to know what they know. These stories—often culled from interview transcripts or field journals or pieced together from various sources (Brand, 2007 )—get recirculated, re-created, or re-placed, sometimes verbatim, in ethnographic texts.

Ethnographers are foremost writers. A primary aspect of their data collection involves writing field notes (see the section Field-Note Writing). In crafting these and other data into finished works, they indulge ethnography’s aspirations and ability to reach broad audiences and to communicate sophisticated meanings through artful storytelling and other experimental modes of academic writing. As a thickly descriptive research genre, ethnographic texts may, at times, appear to threaten too much information; however, when done well, the layered meanings activated through such dense contextualization circle back to show their relevance. Accordingly, ethnographic writing should be undertaken as a writerly endeavor—meaning that authors acknowledge the intelligence of their readers and, therefore, allow space for them to construct their own meanings and make their own sense of certain aspects of an ethnographic account. 22

The Story of the College Visit

A few years after completing my dissertation, I was invited to speak to an anthropology class at a small liberal arts college where I was giving a guest lecture. The students had read a short piece—recounting the story of a gathering in Golden Gate Park following an open-microphone event—that would become the introduction to my first book, Hip Hop Underground (Harrison, 2009 ). 23 I spent a few minutes talking about my research in relation to the passage and then opened the floor for questions. A few questions in, a young man raised his hand and began explaining how he had grown up in San Francisco, had probably “partied” on the same Golden Gate Park picnic tables that I mentioned in my piece, and was someone who considered hip-hop close to his heart. At this point, he looked away, focusing on the paper on his desk and, in thoughtful, measured tones explained that whenever he read an academic piece on hip-hop he found himself getting defensive. Mine was the first piece he had read where he did not have that feeling. “That’s ethnography,” I said.

Paradigmatic Plasticity

Throughout the course of their research and writing, ethnographers orient themselves around certain theoretical, ethical, and political commitments. At their foundation, these commitments involve questions of ontology (concerning the nature of reality), epistemology (how we know what we know), and axiology (relating to morals and values). Following Patricia Leavy ( 2009 ), I use paradigm as an umbrella term that encompasses the range of philosophical stances, assumptions, and goals that surround research endeavors. Although the philosophies guiding ethnographic research are quite often unstated, at moments when they come into conflict the results can be explosive.

The Story of the Conference Incident

Several years ago, I attended an interdisciplinary conference where, in response to a few last-minute cancelations, the organizers decided to combine two panels. This made sense at the time. First, although the panel topics were different, they overlapped under the broader theme of the conference. Second, a single panel would attract a larger audience for all of the presentations—indeed, by the time I arrived it was standing room only. Last, such a move would spare one presenter from the awkwardness of being the lone panelist in a 90-minute session. However, in deciding to combine panels, the organizers overlooked or chose to ignore the paradigmatic differences informing the respective audiences that would be drawn to each panel. This did not become an issue until the final presentation: a masterful explication on the functionality of various strategies for alleviating conflict among competing social groups. During the question-and-answer period, an audience member—who had obviously come to see presentations initially slated for the other panel—questioned the researcher’s right to reduce people’s behaviors to such all-too-neat formulations, the evidentiary basis on which his claims were being made, as well as his investment in the communities through which, in making his academic career, he appeared to be profiting from. Chaos ensued as the two parties went back and forth in a heated exchange—with the accused researcher at one point even blurting out, “You don’t know me!” Thankfully, there were only a few minutes left in the session. As the panel came to a close, various colleagues approached the two combatants to endorse their action and/or console, as appropriate.

As a research tradition, ethnography straddles multiple paradigms. With its roots in anthropology—regarded as the most humanistic of social sciences and the most scientific of humanities (Redfield, 1953 )—such paradigmatic plasticity is to be expected. Yet, as ethnographic practices have migrated to a wide range of academic disciplines and interdisciplinary spaces, the potential for paradigmatic disputes over what is and what is not “good” and/or legitimate research has become more pronounced.

By my reckoning, both parties involved in the conference incident would rightly consider their work ethnographic. Yet where activities of research (i.e., methods) may appear similar, the foundational philosophies of knowledge (i.e., epistemologies) and ideas about how it should be applied through endeavors labeled “research” can look radically different.

In considering different paradigmatic orientations surrounding qualitative inquiry, Thomas Schwandt ( 2000 ) highlighted three areas of concern that are instructive for my discussion of ethnography. I adapt them here:

Cognitive concerns surrounding how to define, justify, and legitimize claims to understanding.

Social concerns regarding (in this case) the goals of ethnography.

Moral concerns as to how to “envision and occupy the ethical space” between ethnographers and those they research in responsible, obligatorily aware, and status conscious ways (see Schwandt, 2000 , p. 200).

Before briefly outlining some of the paradigms that surround ethnography, I offer a few caveats. Whereas defining and labeling paradigmatic frameworks is useful, it would be a mistake to give too much attention to trying to fit a particular researcher or even an instance of ethnographic research neatly into one category. Ethnographic experience is perpetually ephemeral, meaning that at times ethnographers are prone to move, transform, and shape shift between different paradigmatic classifications. Attempts to categorize also tend to highlight differences over time and disciplinary space. While differences clearly exist—the above-mentioned conference incident stands as a testament to this—the need to neatly place individuals or projects in particular boxes closes down the possibility of also seeing commonalities and furthermore belies the nuanced nature and theoretic eclecticism of ethnographic inquiry. Nonetheless, in what follows, I discuss three philosophical traditions that ethnographers might move between and draw from as paradigmatic resources.

Positivism is premised on a belief in what is referred to as naive realism —that is, the notion that there is a reality out there that can be grasped through sensory perception. As such, it holds empirical data—that which is produced though direct observations—as definitive evidence through which to construct claims to truth. In doing so, positivism prioritizes objectivity, assuming that it is possible for a researcher to detach him- or herself from values, interests, or the clouding contamination of bias and prejudice. Following this formula, good research is achieved through conventional rigor—that is, dutifully following a prescribed, systematic series of steps surrounding data accumulation and analysis. In that positivism recognizes a fundamental (capital “T”) Truth, which it is believed researchers can apprehend, researchers anchored in this tradition are more prone to concern themselves with questions of transferability (i.e., can the findings from one setting be applied to another?) and generalizability (i.e., can the findings from a particular context be generalized to the whole?) on the assumption that such Truth has potential relevance for a broad range of social circumstances and cultural contexts. Although few, if any, contemporary ethnographers would define themselves as strict positivists, it is nonetheless important to discuss positivism as foundational to any social scientific enterprise. To some extent, outlining the tenets of strict positivism may be useful in explaining what most ethnographers are not. However, before dismissing it too quickly, I should point out that, particularly with regard to the mandates of certain gatekeepers of credible research reporting, ethnography is not as far removed from its positivist principles as some of its practitioners would like to think. Postpositivist orientations 24 toward valuing empirical evidence, making efforts toward detached objectivism, and deductive reasoning continue to carry weight, even if researchers are less confident about their conclusions.

Interpretivism

Interpretivism, which issues from an acknowledgment of the constructed nature of all social reality, recognizes no single all-encompassing Truth, but rather multiple (small “t”) truths that are the products of human subjectivities. Thus, cultural and contextual specifics are critical to understanding, and inductive reasoning becomes the privileged path to making sense of unwieldy social realities. Reality, which is shaped by experience, thus becomes something to be interpreted. Such interpretivism sees human action as inherently meaningful with meanings being processual, temporal, and historically unfinished. The subjectivity of the ethnographer is quite consequential here. Under any form of interpretivism, the outcomes of researcher bias are acknowledged. Sometimes efforts are made to mitigate researchers’ subjectivities. Such techniques might involve reflexive journaling, inventorying subjectivities, and other attempts to manage and track bias (Schwandt, 2000 , p. 207n11). Yet, increasingly, interpretivist approaches accept that within ethnography the human is the research instrument and, as such, cultural, social, and personal frames of reference are inescapable.

Critical Research

The critical research paradigm focuses on the workings of power, with attention to axes including (but not limited to) race, gender, ethnicity, age, class, sexuality, and differential abilities. As opposed to the positivist stance of neutrality and detachment, critical researchers distinguish themselves by their personal and sometimes emotional investment in the welfare of the individuals and communities they work among. Critical researchers are committed to using their research to empower such communities by working with them to create meaningful social change. 25 As such, they aspire to make the processes surrounding research transparent to both the communities they work among and their various audiences. Critical perspectives emerged in connection with various social movements of the 1960s and 1970s and, accordingly, are often fashioned as a form of scholar activism. Recently, participant action and collaboration have become key methodological imperatives shaping the relationships formed around various critical research projects. Through such developments, questions regarding who initiates research, controls its direction, and owns its products have become vitally important.

Ethnographers do not just take part in the daily lives of the people they conduct research among; as a consequence of their participation, they impact people’s lives and, in turn, are implicated in them. It is therefore difficult to separate cognitive, social, and moral concerns surrounding research. All are influenced by the research paradigm(s) the ethnographer observes. Paradigmatic orientations affect the entire ethnographic process, starting with the ways research is conceived of and designed, what qualifies as data, and ultimately how such data are treated.

Through the previous discussion of paradigms and essential attributes, I have drawn attention to ethnography as a research methodology, as opposed to a method. Again, this distinction is important to my effort to differentiate ethnography from qualitative field research more generally. Nevertheless, when someone mentions doing ethnographic research, a handful of research activities (or methods) come to mind. These include having sustained contact with a community of people through participant observation, writing field notes, and (usually) interviewing. In the following sections, I give each of these research conventions additional consideration.

Participant Observation

Participant observation, as the term suggests, refers to a research disposition somewhere between full participation, just like (or as) a member of a community, and strictly observing. While participant observation is often conceptualized as a location on a continuum between these two extremes—with ideally some level of balance 26 —I believe it is better thought of as a simultaneous process that oscillates between varying degrees of participation and observation. Such oscillations occur both situationally and temporally. In the case of the latter, they might take place in the context of a particular event or more generally over the course of different research phases. Participant observation has historically been championed as providing the virtues of both an insider’s (participant) and an outsider’s (observer) perspective. As a foundation of ethnographic understanding, a discussion of this insider/outsider binary is instructive even if such neat distinctions rarely, if ever, exist in the lived world.

Whereas a recognized goal of ethnography is to grasp people’s understandings of their world, since its inception the primary means of achieving this goal has been through experiential understanding. Writing in his introduction to Argonauts , Malinowski (1922/1966, p. 5) recalled that, to “get … the hang of tribal life,”

I had to learn how to behave, and to a certain extent, I acquired “the feeling” for native good and bad manners. With this, and with the capacity of enjoying their company and sharing some of their games and amusements, I began to feel that I was indeed in touch with the natives, and this is certainly the preliminary condition of being able to carry on successful field work. (p. 8)

Yet to simply grasp the native’s point of view is often not enough. Ethnographers have long recognized that “those cultural features of a particular society that are the most deeply ingrained are the least likely to be explicated and questioned by native members themselves” (Wengle, 1988 , p. xvii). As a consequence of ethnocentrism —that is, the tendency for all people to position their own cultural beliefs and practices at the center of their worldview (i.e., to see them as “normal”)—native members of a cultural group are at times blind to many of the most salient aspects of their lifeways. 27 Thus, a flexible and situated position somewhere between an insider and an outsider is typically upheld as ideal.

As a practice, participant observation involves an inherent critique of interviewing. Although interviewing is fundamental to most ethnographic projects, advocates of participant observation are quick to point out that, if the goal is to understand behaviors and worldviews in their cultural context, interviews alone will not suffice. There is usually some disjuncture between what people do and what they say they do. At one level, this can be seen as a distinction between ideal and actual behavior. In an interview setting, people are more likely to shade their representations of behaviors toward cultural ideals. For example, studies point out the tendency among Americans to underreport the amount of alcohol they consume (Rathje & Murphy, 1992 ). Whether consciously underreported or not, this pattern is likely connected to the cultural ideal against drinking too much. Yet even in circumstances where a strong cultural ideal is not in play, people’s behaviors amount to more than what they choose or are able to tell an interviewer in the context of an interview. Native language speakers, for example, would have considerable difficulty explaining the rules to their language or how they know what they know without additional linguistic training. Even in a situation where both conditions are met (someone is aware and can explain ), an interviewee must make decisions about what to emphasize and what to ignore or gloss over. Such choices might lead them to steer clear of topics that the interviewer would find salient. 28

To return to the drinking example, in particular settings where the ability to consume a lot of alcohol is linked to status, it may be likely that quantities will be overreported. Of course, such settings are usually informal, are semiexclusive, and involve peer groups—for example, the stereotypical morning after the college fraternity party. Another advantage of participant observation over interviewing alone is that it provides access to these interior spaces. Fieldworkers achieve this by locating such spaces, gaining access (including building rapport), and, notably, spending time there. The famous Hawthorne studies on worker productivity found that people tend to alter their behavior for short periods of time under the scrutiny of a researcher or observer (Landsberger, 1958 ). Such reactivity can jeopardize ethnography’s aspirations for naturalistic inquiry. Thus, an ideal, if nearly unattainable, goal of participant observation is that the researcher becomes familiar enough within the research setting that everyday life proceeds as if he or she was not there. Factors surrounding this include duration of time in a setting, resemblance between researcher and members of the researched community, and level of participation.

Duration of Time in the Setting

The general rule is that the longer a researcher stays in “the field,” the more accustomed people become to his or her presence—not to mention the greater the understanding of what is going on. Yet this is conditional. Wolcott ( 1987 ) pointed out that, “based on any one researcher’s skill, sensitivity, problem, and setting, optimum periods of fieldwork may vary” (p. 39). Nevertheless, it is worth noting that within anthropology the Malinowski-derived standard has been a minimum of 1 year in the field.

Resemblance between Researcher and Members of the Researched Community

This resemblance includes both physical and social resemblances. Greater resemblance, in theory, facilitates “life as usual,” whereas notable differences are a perpetual reminder that there is a researcher present. Some of the most recognizable differences concern race, language proficiency, decisions regarding self-presentation, and, in certain instances, age and gender.

Level of Participation

This, in part, depends on the researcher’s aspirations—for example, a researcher may aspire to a stance that, at different times, involves full participation or minimum participation (Junker, 1960 ). At the same time, and in conjunction with the previously noted factors, the various communities researchers engage have differing levels of accessibility and inclinations toward hospitality (e.g., insisting that someone “join in”); and beyond language alone, researchers have different competencies 29 —all of which can impact their level of participation.

In sum, participant observation is simultaneously the most fundamental, complex, and uncertain method of ethnographic research. Its temporal parameters can range from strictly designated fieldwork outings—for example, a few hours in the field on a weekday afternoon—to an all-consuming living experience (24 hours a day) spanning several years. Its spatial parameters can be as narrow as a Midwest college bar (Spradley & Mann, 1975 ), as broad as multiple sites across a global landscape (Wulff, 1998 ), and as amorphous as translocal (Gupta & Ferguson, 1997 ) and virtual (Nardi, 2010 ) fields of activity. 30 While a good deal of planning goes into participant observation research projects, the combination of its ill-defined parameters and the fact that it plays out in the lived world render it difficult to forecast and, consequently, a largely improvised endeavor.

Field-Note Writing

A second principal method of ethnographic research is the creation and management of ethnographic field notes. These systematic in-the-field writings are inextricably linked to participant observation in that they serve as the primary means of recording the detailed observations and insights gleaned through such experiences. Accordingly, the quality and character of field-note writing have implications on an ethnographer’s ability to accurately and effectively report research findings. 31 Historically, field notes received little methodological attention. Like ethnography more generally, their resemblance to people’s everyday activities—particularly the act of keeping a personal journal or diary—cultivated the belief that instructions to simply “write down everything you see and hear” would suffice. In the literature that has since emerged on field-note writing, there is no consensus on a single correct method. I would advise any researcher to use the available methodological prescripts as guidelines but to develop particular routines and procedures that align with their own best writing habits as well as the specific circumstances of research. Nevertheless, a handful of best practices consistently show up in the literature and together illustrate why field-note writing and keeping a diary are not one and the same.

Schedule a significant amount of time each day or soon after each fieldwork “outing” to write field notes. Details fade with the passage of time, so do not unnecessarily delay field-note writing. In a full-immersion fieldwork situation—where participant observation comprises the entirety of one’s living experience—this practice of writing field notes (i.e., articulating and reflecting on observations and experiences) can be thought of as the major nonparticipatory endeavor that the researcher consistently engages in.

Employ jottings or “scratch notes” (Sanjek, 1990 , p. 96)—that is, quickly scribbled words or phrases, written in the context of participant observing, intended to jog one’s memory when writing. A researcher should always carry a small notebook or some equivalent jot-recording technology (e.g., a small handheld recorder). Additionally, when observing/experiencing the world with the intention of documenting it through field-note writing, it is important to rely on all one’s senses and not merely vision alone. Sounds, smells, tastes, and touches can all be powerful means to creating scenes on a page.

Organize different approaches to field-note writing categorically. For example, Emerson et al. (2011, pp. 57–79) discussed four general field-note subcategories: (a) descriptions based on concrete sensory details of physical spaces, people, objects, or actions, (b) dialogues between people, (c) characterizations portraying how a person acts and lives, and (d) narratives involving either sketches (i.e., snapshots) of a setting/character or episodes illustrated through continuous action and interaction. In all of these categories, it is important for the field-note writer to distinguish between that which is concrete and/or directly observed—for example, verbatim quotes—and that which is inferred, approximated, or logically assumed (Bailey, 2017 ). Field notes can additionally take the form of methodological notes (highlighting research techniques used and/or planned), analytic notes (periodic forays into conceptual understandings that strive to approximate professional writing 32 ), and personal notes (therapeutic and potentially revealing outlets for discussing one’s relationships, feelings, and emotions).

Ethnographic Interviews

Ethnographers typically conduct interviews as a primary method of research. However, whereas participant observation is so central to ethnography that some well-practiced scholars might be forgiven for simply—and in my view, mistakenly—equating the two, interview-based research and ethnography are distinctly different (Becker & Geer, 1957 ; Lamont & Swidler, 2014 ). Ethnographers, like most qualitative researchers, conduct interviews, but, unlike participant observation, interviews alone do not come close to approximating ethnography.

Ethnographic interviewing is distinct from what I will call general interview-based research in several ways. First, ethnographic interviews typically take place after a researcher has been in the field for some period of time. Ethnographers do not enter the field assuming they know what is most important; firsthand experience in a social arena is thought to facilitate better interview questions (O’Reilly, 2012 ). It is furthermore presumed that a level of familiarity between researcher and researched, and perhaps even mutual respect, leads to better research collaborations.

Second, ethnographers understand and at times analyze interviews as speech events—meaning that an interview is more than just a transcript of questions and answers. Contextual factors including (but not limited to) place, time, body language, fluidity of dialogue, and prior relationship between interviewer and interviewee may all have a bearing on the way an interview plays out (O’Reilly, 2012 ). In fact, an ethnographer may find as much value in what a person chooses not to talk about as in what they emphasize. Additionally, the texture of statements—such things as inflection, accent, volume, and cadence—combined with context, can often alter the literal meaning of what is said.

Finally, some ethnographers consider everyday dialogue with people in the field as a form of informal interviewing. If an interview is defined as a consciously initiated verbal exchange through which a researcher—primarily via questions and answers—learns from the people they conduct research among about a given topic, we must be cognizant of the fact that, during the course of participant observation–based fieldwork, these types of exchanges take place all the time. At what point does asking someone how to take the bus downtown or inquiring, over coffee, about why someone did not join his or her sister in visiting a relative turn into an interview? The point is, with participant observation research, these distinctions are conditional and often undefined.

Participant observation, field-note writing, and ethnographic interviewing are by no means the only research methods ethnographers employ. The data collection techniques of ethnographic research are often determined pragmatically in relation to theoretical orientations, research questions, and the availability and appropriateness of various options. Ethnographers also gather and analyze pieces of material culture, make nonparticipatory behavioral observations; record videos; take photographs; engage in community mapping; conduct surveys, genealogies, and domain analyses; and examine archival documents, censuses, and various media materials, in addition to a range of other methods. Nevertheless, participant observations, the field notes they inspire, and interviewing comprise the core practices of most ethnographic researchers.

Ethnographic Comportment

As a final framework for understanding ethnography and what distinguishes it from other forms of participant observation–based field research, I introduce the idea of ethnographic comportment as a politics of positionality, which bears on an ethnographer’s conduct and demeanor throughout the research and writing process. The critical awarenesses that underly ethnographic comportment, in many respects, are extensions of ethnography’s now-standard mandate for reflexivity. Generally speaking, reflexivity in ethnography amounts to an awareness of “one’s own role in the construction of social life as [ethnographic research] unfolds” (O’Reilly, 2012 , p. 11). It involves “a continual internal dialogue and critical self-evaluation” regarding one’s positionality, assumptions, and agendas (Berger, 2015 , p. 220). The origins of reflexivity can be traced to ethnographers’ postwar rise in self-consciousness (Nash & Wintrob, 1972 ), which was fully realized with anthropology’s 1980s postmodern turn (Clifford & Marcus, 1986 ; Marcus & Fischer, 1986 ). In the early 21st century, reflexivity is thought of as both an important aspect of ethnographic knowledge production and a means to assessing research accountability and validity. Trained ethnogra phers are well aware of this—to the point, perhaps, where reflexivity becomes embodied knowledge or a part of who we are.

Ethnographic training also includes familiarity with ethnography’s history and key debates (McGranahan, 2014 ). This history began during the colonial era at a time when, according to Kathleen Gough ( 1968 ), “Western nations were making their final push to bring practically the whole pre-industrial non-Western world under their political and economic control” (p. 401). Anthropologists, particularly, are well schooled in this history and, as a foundation of contemporary disciplinary training, debate the extent to which past ethnographers were willingly and/or unwillingly complicit in furthering it (see Lewis, 2013 ). Ethnographers working in sociology observe a similar tradition of researching marginalized urban communities (Vidich & Lyman, 2000 ) and representing them in ways, or through analytical categories, that were often not consistent with their self-understandings and/or best interests.

Training in ethnography should also incorporate considerations of the power dynamics that continue to shape ethnographic encounters (Koivunen, 2010 ; Wolfe, 1996 ). These critical awarenesses inspire sensibilities that ethnographers carry with them throughout the research enterprise. I am in no position to prescribe the exact decisions and actions that follow from such awarenesses. Does the White British ethnographer researching in Ghana meaningfully grapple with the politics surrounding the favorable attention she receives as a European in Africa, or does she simply explain that Ghanaians are nice and she had no trouble building rapport? Does she struggle with the historical implications of potentially projecting her own frames of understanding onto contemporary Abron music practices or does she simply report what she understands she is seeing and move on? The choice is up to the ethnographer; however, it should be made with some understanding of and critical reflection on the enterprise she is taking part in. To summarize, ethnographic comportment involves a historical awareness and reflexive self-awareness of one’s participation in ethnography as a research tradition. Following João de Pina-Cabral’s ( 1992 ) assertion that ethnographers match what they observe “against the accumulated knowledge of [their] discipline” (p. 6), I maintain that such knowledge increasingly includes a critical outlook on both the historical and the resonating fault lines of ethnography as practiced.

At a moment when the (mis)use of ethnography as an umbrella term for any and all qualitative research threatens its integrity, researchers who are seriously invested in ethnography are reflexive of their participation in this research tradition. Accordingly, they adopt a disposition of accountability for their role in advancing rejuvenated and/or progressive forms of ethnographic practice. Throughout the process of research, ethnographers are (self-)conscious about how they comport themselves in relation to their research and the people they are researching among; they are also conscious—albeit often abstractly—of the end product that they are working toward. Such textual awareness (Van Maanen, 2011 ) influences their decision-making throughout the various, flexible, and often unforeseeable stages of an ethnographic project. When their work is finished, they hope that both their in-the-field conduct and their written ethnography will be regarded as good (see Harrison, 2018 ) and, in the best of instances, that the latter will contribute to furthering the ethnographic tradition in positive ways.

In sum, ethnographic comportment is predicated on the idea that the embodied knowledge a researcher has accrued through disciplinary and methodological training guides them, as a form of improvised analysis, throughout the ethnographic enterprise toward the goal of producing work that is valued in its own right, (usually) by the researched community, and as part of the ethnographic tradition.

At a time when the proliferation of ethnography threatens to untether it from its core commitments and fundamental modes of inquiry, I see a pressing need to reprofessionalize ethnography by calling attention to its historical foundations, outlining its central practices and research principles, and presenting new frameworks, which I believe are helpful in grasping and gauging its contemporary significance. An awareness of ethnography’s history—its complicated engagements with colonialism and progressive humanism—should inform all efforts to move it forward. Beyond key practices like participant observation, field-note writing, and ethnographic interviewing, ethnography is marked by its attention to culture as an explanatory construct, lavish contextualization, iterative modes of data collection and analysis, empathetic engagements, and abundant storytelling. In embracing these attributes, ethnographers thoughtfully observe, reflect on, and represent the complexities of social life and culturally situated perspectives of people.

Ethnographers are not particularly adept at problem solving, in large part because the knowledge they procure, produce, and distribute is expansive, conditional, and historically unfinished. While “bucolic wise men” gather at the village store and resolve gun control debates or immigration issues in minutes, the ethnographer among them is perpetually suspicious of such quick answers. She understands that her job is to listen for meaning. She may participate—to extend the dialogue or maintain her own internal dialogue as she reflects on the grounded perspectives being shared around her. Above all else, she recognizes that people on all sides of a debate have convictions, passions, and frameworks of understanding that should be respected and that, as researchers, we should aspire to better understand. Increasingly, such patience and attention to human complexities are under threat by assembly line modes of academic production that treat time and knowledge as commodities. Yet by resisting these inclinations—and offering a counter to narrow definitions of research efficiency—ethnography secures its relevance to understanding the varied ways people live their lives and means through which they know what they know.

Future Directions

How can ethnography continue to flourish within contexts of accelerating academic production? How can it maintain its patient, thoughtful, and unfinished research practices at a time when academic value is equated with efficiency, volume of output, and tangibility of results?

Given that many people in the early 21st century engage with digital/social media technologies as aspects of their daily lives, how can ethnography best attend to the intersections between virtual and physical worlds?

In contexts of increased political and methodological conservatism, where institutional review boards require completed research designs and protocols as prerequisites to approval, how can ethnographers represent their iterative and inductive modes of research in ways that comply with institutionally mandated expectations?

As the lines between ethnography and everyday life become increasingly fuzzy, what new modes of ethnographic understanding and representation should be acknowledged and embraced?

In ethnography’s postpostmodern reformulations and trajectories, how should researchers map the borders of the field (ontologically and in terms of the various interests that ethnographic studies can serve)?

Ethnography’s foundations are in writing culture, yet, historically, ethnographers are deeply implicated in the project of literatizing nonliterate societies. Given this paradox, what nonliteral forms of ethnographic representations might a contemporary, critical, and historically informed ethnographic project take? How can we move beyond writing culture ?

Here, I am using field in both the traditional sense of fieldwork conducted within a physical place/space and in the Bourdieuian sense of a field of cultural practice (Bourdieu, 1984 ).

Ethnographies can also take the shorter form of essays and professional journal articles, as well as nonliterary forms like “films, records, museum displays, or whatever” (Geertz, 1973 , p. 19n). Recognizing this—yet in the interest of avoiding cumbersome qualifications—throughout the remainder of the chapter I treat ethnography foremost as a writing practice.

Etymologically, ethnography combines ethno , meaning “culture (or race),” and graphy, meaning “to write, record, and describe.” Thus, ethnography can be thought of as the process and product of writing, recording, and describing culture.

In addition to my own writings, there is a wealth of very good work on ethnography’s history—for example, see Darnell ( 2001 ), Jones ( 2010 ), Kuper ( 1996 ), Lassiter ( 2005 ), and Stocking ( 1983a ).

Broadly speaking, the distinction between social and cultural anthropology is based on national traditions, with the former practiced in England and the latter in the United States. More specifically, British (social) anthropology has historically stressed the interrelationships between social institutions and observes foundational figures like Malinowski and Alfred R. Radcliffe-Brown, whereas American (cultural) anthropology recognizes cultural coherences as outlined through the work of Franz Boas and Ruth Benedict (Garbarino, 1977/1983 ).

In the introduction to Argonauts of the Western Pacific , Malinowski ( 1922/1966 ) included a footnote explaining that, “according to a useful habit of the terminology of science, [he] uses the word Ethnography for the empirical and descriptive results of the science of Man, and the word Ethnology for speculative and comparative theories” (p. 9, fn).

Historically, the masculine pronouns he/him/his were used as universal references to all people—in this case falsely implying that all ethnographers were men. Rather than cluttering the text with numerous [ sic ]s, I let these pass without further comment. In instances where I offer gendered pronouns, as a general (but not exclusive) rule, I use the feminine she/her/hers. Following Margery Wolf ( 1992 ), I do not do this “to privilege the female voice but to call attention to the way in which the supposedly generic ‘he’ does in fact privilege the male voice” (p. 56).

Malinowski was certainly not the first to acknowledge the importance of “native subjectivity”—in fact, several commentators have highlighted this as an area where American anthropologists greatly outpaced their British counterparts (Bunzl, 2004 ; Darnell, 2001 ; Lassiter & Campbell, 2010 ). Indeed, cultural relativism as an anthropological movement is most prominently connected with Franz Boas and his students, Margaret Mead ( 1928/1961 ), Melville Herskovits ( 1972 ), and, most famously, Ruth Benedict ( 1934/2005 ). Yet the significance of Malinowski’s powerful dictate to understand native subjectivities—as a “goal, of which an ethnographer should never lose sight” (1922/1966, p. 25)—is illustrated by the frequency with which he has been and continues to be cited.

A short list of Malinowski’s students at the London School of Economics includes Raymond Firth, E. E. Evans-Pritchard, Hortense Powdermaker, Edmund Leach, Jomo Kenyatta, Lucy Mair, Audrey Richards, and Meyer Fortes.

Howard Becker ( 1999 ) is critical of this designation, arguing that “ ‘Chicago’ was never the unified chapel … [nor] unified school of thought” that many believe it to have been (p. 10).

These include Nel’s Anderson’s The Hobo (1923/1961), Frederick Thrasher’s The Gang ( 1927 ), Louis Wirth’s The Ghetto ( 1928 ), Harvey W. Zorbaugh’s The Gold Coast and the Slum (1929), Paul Cressey’s The Taxi-Dance Hall ( 1932 ), and E. Franklin Frazier’s The Negro Family in Chicago ( 1932 ).

For example, until 1929, the department at Chicago was known as the Department of Sociology and Anthropology. Among the (other) notable anthropologists in the department during these formative years were Boas’s students, Edward Sapir and Fay-Cooper Cole; Robert Redfield, who married Park’s daughter; and Ralph Linton, who taught classes there while affiliated with Chicago’s Field Museum (Faris, 1967 ).

Commenting on the improvisational nature of anthropological ethnography, Lisa H. Malkki ( 2007 ) suggested that sociologists approach ethnography “with a different sensibility” (p. 186, n2). Additionally, there appears to be some historical reluctance within the sociological tradition to refer to their brand of field research as ethnography. In Buford H. Junker’s ( 1960 ) seminal introduction to social science fieldwork, for example, based on extensive interviews with University of Chicago student fieldworkers, ethnography is only referenced on a few occasions. In one telling passage, Junker describes the ethnographer’s task of “start[ing] from scratch by learning the language of his esoteric people” in opposition to the sociological field worker operating “in some part of an otherwise already familiar cultural milieu” (1960, p. 70).

Malinowski ( 1922/1966 ) specifically said that “one of the first conditions of acceptable ethnographic work certainly is that it should deal with the totality of all social, cultural, and psychological aspects of a community, for they are so interwoven that not one can be understood without taking into consideration all the others” (p. xvi). This idea of anthropology as a holistic science—assuming the interconnections and mutual influences between various aspects of social life—continues to be reiterated in the introductory chapters of almost all discipline textbooks.

Several very good overviews of the qualitative research methods used in ethnography exist, including Bailey ( 2017 ), Bernard ( 1995 ), Emerson, Fretz, and Shaw ( 2011 ), Gobo ( 2008 ), Hammersley and Atkinson ( 1995 ), Pawluch, Shaffir, and Miall ( 2005 ), and Spradley ( 1980 ).

Whereas historically ethnographers thought of their work as focusing on neatly bounded cultures, usually (mis)represented as being isolated from globalizing influences, 21st century ethnographers understand their work to be focused on culture as a socially orienting concept—accordingly, the term shifts from being a noun to an adjective (e.g., cultural beliefs, cultural values, cultural processes).

This is not to suggest, as others have (see Marcus & Fischer, 1986 , p. 156), that “native” ethnographers lose their capacity for radical critique as a result of their Western anthropological training (McClaurin, 2001 ).

In making this characterization, I am building on Karen O’Reilly’s ( 2012 ) description of ethnography as an iterative–inductive process .

See Christians ( 2000 ) for a thorough discussion of these three guiding pillars surrounding qualitative research ethics.

I insert this qualification to recognize an earlier (less enlightened) period when some would argue that ethnography was used as an instrument of colonial domination (see Asad, 1973 ; Deloria, 1969 ; Gough, 1968 ).

I make this comparison based on behavior, not presumed intent. I am well aware that many people view politicians as being disingenuous. I am in no way implying that ethnographers operate with insincere intentions. Thank you to Steve Gerus for bringing this similarity to my attention.

I juxtapose this understanding of writerly against the example of an instruction manual, which as a very unwriterly text does not recognize its readers’ capacity to think on their own and therefore presents information in unimaginative ways with the intention of providing little room for alternative interpretations.

This can be found in Harrison, 2009 , pp. 1–6.

For a short summary of postpositivism, see Bailey ( 2017 ).

In particular cases, where such researchers work among more powerful groups, these commitments might be toward exposing the workings of power, thus leading toward the same ends of empowering those who are marginalized.

These in-between spaces are sometimes distinguished as observing participation and participating observation (see Bernard, 1995 ; Hammersley & Atkinson, 1995 ; Junker, 1960 ).

This is sometimes referred to as homeblindness , defined as being blind to crucial dimensions of one’s own lifeways because they are taken for granted (Czarniawska, 1997 ). While I acknowledge that ethnocentrism more typically involves putting one’s culture above others, I maintain that homeblindness is a product of ethnocentrism.

Additionally, there might be countless potential reasons for an interviewee to be less than forthcoming.

For instance, someone doing an ethnography of pickup basketball games may have easier access if he or she has a background in playing basketball.

Today, many people engage the virtual, online, social media, or networked worlds consistently throughout their daily lives. To the extent that ethnographers are interested in engaging with people in everyday settings and circumstances, it would seem reasonable and even potentially quite illuminating for ethnographers to be attentive to the intersections of online and offline activities (Lane, 2016 ).

There are several excellent books that discuss field-note writing; see, for example, H. Russell Bernard’s Research Methods in Anthropology (1995); Carol A. Bailey’s A Guide to Qualitative Field Research ( 2017 ); and Robert M. Emerson, Rachel I. Fretz, and Linda L. Shaw’s Writing Ethnographic Fieldnotes ( 2011 ). I strongly recommend that any novice researcher carry one of these books when embarking on fieldwork.

My definition of analytic notes is consistent with what Emerson et al. ( 2011 ) called in-process memos .

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Wulff, H. ( 1998 ). Ballet across borders: Career and culture in the world of dancers . Oxford, England: Berg.

Zorbaugh, H. W. ( 1929 ). The gold coast and the slum . Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

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The Ultimate Guide to Qualitative Research - Part 1: The Basics

• Introduction and overview
• What is qualitative research?
• What is qualitative data?
• Examples of qualitative data
• Qualitative vs. quantitative research
• Mixed methods
• Qualitative research preparation
• Theoretical perspective
• Theoretical framework
• Literature reviews
• Research question
• Conceptual framework
• Conceptual vs. theoretical framework
• Data collection
• Qualitative research methods
• Focus groups
• Observational research
• Case studies
• Introduction

Defining ethnographic research

What are the methods in ethnographic research, how do i conduct an ethnography.

• Ethical considerations
• Confidentiality and privacy
• Power dynamics
• Reflexivity

What is ethnographic research?

An ethnographic study is one of the most ambitious endeavors a researcher can pursue in qualitative research . It involves using several ethnographic methods to observe and describe social life, social relations, or human society as a whole. Time-consuming and arduous as the data collection and data analysis might be, conducting an ethnography can be one of the most rewarding challenges in cultural anthropology, social anthropology, and similar qualitative research areas.

Let's look at the fundamentals of ethnographic research, examples of ethnographic studies, and the fundamentals of ethnography as a qualitative research method.

"Culture" is an ambiguous term that resists an easy definition. What defines a culture? What takes place inside a culture? What cultures does a particular individual belong to? Who decides who belongs to any specific culture?

Even within a particular context, there are several layers of cultures. Take the United States, for example. Given how diverse and as big as it is, how can one define American culture in as brief an explanation as possible? What are the different social groups within this one country, and how do those groups interact with each other?

Quantitative research is often incapable of capturing such detail, especially because it is extremely difficult to adequately capture a culture in quantitative terms. As a result, researchers often conduct traditional ethnographic research when they want to understand a culture. A credible, written account of a social group is challenging to produce. It requires looking at participant experiences, interviews , focus groups , and document collection, which are different ways to collect data for ethnographic research.

Ethnography belongs squarely in the realm of observational research . In other words, writing culture and cultural critique cannot be based on experiments performed in controlled settings. Ethnography aims to provide an immersive experience in a culture for audiences who are unfamiliar with it. In that case, the researcher must observe the intricate dimensions of social interaction in its natural environment. In ethnographic research, this observation is active and involves being part of the culture to understand the dimensions of cultural norms from the inside.

That said, even observation alone cannot capture concepts such as social relationships or cultural practices. Researchers conducting ethnographic studies acknowledge that simply observing and describing actions are insufficient to grasp social interaction fully. The concept of thick description, or the description of perspectives and beliefs informing those actions in addition to the actions themselves, guides the use of various methods to capture social phenomena from multiple angles.

What is the purpose of ethnographic research?

Ethnographic studies are heavily used in social and cultural anthropology disciplines to generate and expand theory. Outside of anthropology, the insights uncovered by ethnography help to propose or develop theories that can be verified by further qualitative or quantitative research within the social and human sciences.

In simple terms, ethnographic studies relate what a culture is to audiences who are otherwise unfamiliar outsiders. Armed with this understanding, researchers can illustrate and persuade audiences about patterns that emerge from a community or group of people. These patterns are essential to generating theory and pioneering work.

What are examples of ethnographic research?

Ethnographic research aims to reach a deep understanding of various socially-constructed topics, including:

• Rituals and other cultural practices in everyday life
• Social interaction among people of different cultures
• People's interactions with their natural environment
• Creation of and tensions in social relationships

Ethnography as a qualitative method is common in social and cultural anthropology and any scholarly discipline concerned with social interaction. The traditional role of ethnography is to inform scholars interested in cultures they wouldn't otherwise have contact or experience with. Various topics that have been explored by such research with ethnography include:

• health care workers interacting with patients
• teachers and students constructing classroom dialogue
• workplace relations between employees and managers
• experiences of refugees in conflict zones

Other disciplines, especially in the social sciences, employ ethnographic research methods for varied reasons, including understanding:

• effective teaching practices
• socialization processes
• intercultural cohesiveness
• company-customer relations

The range of inquiries that ethnography can answer is vast, highlighting the importance of ethnographic methods in studies where the researcher seeks a deep understanding of a particular topic.

Even within anthropology, there is a lack of consensus on the particular processes for conducting research through ethnography. Interaction among people is unpredictable to the extent that the researcher might encounter unexpected issues with research participants not foreseen at the outset of a study. Because no observational research can be conducted in a fully controlled setting, it is a challenge to define an exact process for an ethnography beyond the general principles guiding an ethnographic approach.

In broad terms, ethnographic data collection methods are varied. Still, all such methods carry the assumption that a single research method cannot fully capture a thorough understanding of a cultural phenomenon. A systematic study that employs ethnographic research methods collects data from observations, participant observations, and interviews . The researchers' reflections also contribute to the body of data since personal experiences are essential to understanding the unfolding ethnography.

Participant observation

At the core of field research is a method called participant observation . Scholars in contemporary ethnography have long acknowledged the importance of active participation in understanding cultural life. This method allows the researcher to experience activities and interactions alongside participants to establish an understanding they wouldn't otherwise achieve by observing from afar. In active participant observation, the ethnographic researcher takes field notes of what they see and experience. They are essential during fieldwork as they create a record that the researcher can look at later on to structure their analysis and recall crucial developments useful to data analysis .

During participant observation, the researcher may also collect other forms of data, including photographs and audio and video recordings . Sensory data is beneficial to ethnography because it helps the researcher recall essential experiences with vivid detail and provides potentially abundant supporting evidence for the arguments in their findings.

Interviews and focus groups

Participant observation provides data for seeing what people say and do in their natural environment. However, observation has its limits for capturing what people think and believe. As a result, an ethnographic researcher conducts interviews to follow up on what they saw in fieldwork with research participants.

A common type of interview in an ethnography is the stimulated recall interview. In a stimulated recall interview, research participants are asked questions about the events the researcher observed. These questions help research participants remember past experiences while providing the researcher with their way of thinking about those experiences.

A focus group involves interactions between the researcher and multiple research participants. Suppose the researcher is interested in the interpersonal dynamics between research participants. In that case, they might consider conducting focus groups to elicit interactions that are markedly different from one-on-one exchanges between a single research participant and the researcher. Interviews and focus groups also help uncover insights otherwise unfamiliar to the researcher, who can then use those insights to guide their theoretical understanding and further data collection .

Document collection

Documents often make up an essential aspect of cultural practices. Think about these examples:

• student homework
• medical records
• newspaper articles
• informational posters

The visual elements uncovered during an ethnography are potentially valuable to theoretical insights, and a researcher might find it important to incorporate documents in their project data.

Reflections

In any ethnography, the researcher is the main instrument of data collection. Their thoughts and beliefs are consequential to the data analysis in that any theoretical insights are filtered by their interpretations . As a result, a researcher should take field notes during participant observation and reflection notes about any connections between what they saw and what it might mean for generating theory during data analysis.

As with taking field notes, a researcher might not remember all the different things that transpire during an ethnography without being able to refer to some sort of record later on. More importantly, reflecting on theory during participant observation may be challenging. A useful practice involves sitting down after observations or interviews and writing down potential theoretical insights that come to mind.

Reflections guide participant observations during an ethnography and theoretical analysis afterward. They point the researcher toward phenomena that are most relevant to theory and guide discussion of that theory when the time comes to write a description of their ethnographic study.

Organizing data

With a research approach as complex as ethnography, you will likely collect abundant data that require organization to make the analytical process more efficient. Researchers can use ATLAS.ti to store all their data in a single project. Document groups allow you to categorize data into different types (e.g., text, audio, video), different contexts (e.g., hospital room, doctor's office), or even different dates (e.g., February 17th observation, March 21st observation).

Moreover, researchers can integrate text with multimedia in ATLAS.ti, which is ideal for analyzing interviews, because you can look at transcripts and their video or audio recordings simultaneously. This is a valuable feature in ethnographic studies examining how people speak and what they say. Photos and other visual documents can also easily be incorporated and analyzed, adding further valuable dimensions to your research.

Choose ATLAS.ti for analysis of all forms of data.

Download a free trial of ATLAS.ti to put your project data to work.

Now that we have established a foundational understanding of the various methods associated with ethnography, let's look at what an ethnographic approach to research might look like.

Defining your research questions

As with any research study, ethnographic studies begin when researchers want to know more about something unfamiliar. Do you want to understand how a particular group of people interact with their natural environment? What about how group members decide on a social structure? How is daily life affected by changing economic conditions over a long period of time?

Ethnographic research may also be appropriate for conducting a comparative study of multiple cultures. For example, consider the different groups of soccer fans in several parts of the world: fans in South America might act differently from fans in Europe or Asia. Teaching and learning in high school are bound to look different than teaching and learning in university settings. Emergency room medicine and hospice care have distinct purposes that affect the nature of interactions between doctors and patients.

Whatever the inquiry, the researcher benefits from defining a focus for their ethnography. A clear research question can help the researcher narrow their field of perception during participant observation . Suppose the research question has to do with doctor-patient interactions. In that case, the ethnographer can lend more focus to those conversations and less emphasis on ancillary developments within their research context. With a more specific view, they can examine how doctors speak to their patients while being less concerned about the hospital executives in earshot or the orderlies passing by unless and until they are relevant to the research inquiry.

Choosing theoretical perspectives

To further narrow the focus of the ethnography, a theoretical lens can direct the ethnographer toward aspects relevant to theory. Continuing with the example regarding doctor-patient interactions, let's imagine that the ethnographic study explores the role of reassuring language in situations regarding dire medical conditions. Are there relevant theories about what people can say to give peace of mind to others?

Typically, theories in qualitative research consist of a framework with discrete indicators you can use to organize knowledge. For example, let's suppose that there exists a concept of reassurance that can be broken down like this:

empathy - understanding and affirming other people's emotions evidence - providing examples of favorable results in similar situations responsiveness - actively listening to and validating others' concerns

With this sort of theory in mind, an ethnography can focus on listening for instances of these particular indicators during participant observation and recording these examples in field notes . Naturally, a theory is more credible if it's grounded in previous research.

Entering ethnographic fieldwork

The next step is to choose an appropriate and accessible context for your ethnography. Ethics are an important part of contemporary research in the social sciences, requiring permission from potential participants to observe and interact with them for research purposes.

Before any meaningful data collection, make sure to obtain informed consent from the research participants you are studying. Essentially, this involves receiving permission from your participants to document what they say and do after explaining the purpose of your study and the rights they have while participating in your ethnography.

Ethnographic collection of data

With a context and theory in mind, it's now time to conduct your ethnography. In general terms, this means entering the field and capturing as much rich data relevant to your research question as possible.

Good ethnographic practice relies on pursuing multiple research methods to capture data. Participant observation can help you document what people say and do, but good ethnographies also capture what people believe about their everyday actions.

However, the research method most associated with ethnographic research is note-taking. Field notes capture the researcher's personal experience with the culture they observe, which is necessary to fully understand the captured data. With the ethnographer as the main instrument of data collection, readers of ethnographic studies can attain a sense of the possible ways they can view cultures through the researcher's eyes.

Moreover, ethnography relies on rapport with research participants. Ethnographers who want to conduct interviews later will benefit from establishing good relationships with their research participants. As a result, more involved interactions during fieldwork can generate deeper and richer data for your study.

Considerations during fieldwork

It's important to remember that the ethnographer's presence can affect how people behave. Especially in participant observation, your interactions with research participants will directly influence what they do in their daily lives. Even our natural environment is affected by what we do in it. When writing your reflections, qualifying your interactions in the field with a sufficient accounting of how your presence might change what others say and do is important.

There are also ethical questions about what to document and how to use the resulting data afterward. Within anthropology, there are issues of representing cultural groups with respect and ensuring you have their permission to use what you observe and collect from the field. Top scholarly journals and academic conferences also want to know how you observed research ethics during fieldwork, so it is necessary to use your reflection memos to document your ethics practices in addition to the data you collect.

Further development in ethnographic fieldwork

Unexpected issues in field research, especially long-term fieldwork, can help you refine your theoretical framework . Returning to the example of the concept of reassurance, you might observe a doctor's explanation of a medical procedure and find that it's similar to providing evidence. Still, it does not fully align with the established theory. In other words, studying real-world episodes of medical explanations may contribute novel insights about reassurance, helping you further develop your focus in subsequent observations.

As you continue your ethnography, refining the scope of your theoretical perspective helps you more easily gather observational data relevant to your research inquiry and thus provide a fully developed framework for your data.

Research is a challenge. We help you make sense of it.

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Qualitative Research: Ethnography

• Data Analysis
• Ethnography
• Interviewing & Focus Groups
• Narrative Inquiry
• Library Help

Journals on Ethnography

• Common Ground: Archeology and Ethnography in the Public Interest
• Cultural Anthropology
• Ethnography and Education
• The Journal for Undergraduate Ethnography
• Journal of Contemporary Ethnography
• Journal of Museum Ethnography
• Journal of Organizational Ethnography

Ethnography Methodology

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Ethnographic Research

What is ethnographic research.

Ethnography is a research method that involves immersing oneself in the natural context of individuals to collect quantitative insights into their behavior and culture. This method emphasizes observation, engagement, and analysis of human experiences in real-world settings.

Ethnographic research is widely used in UX design since it provides detailed data about users' preferences and behaviors. This data is used to create products and services that meet the needs of diverse user groups. It also ensures user-centered and culturally sensitive design. Research of this type helps designers comprehend how users interact with technology in a range of settings. It also reveals areas that have the potential for growth.

While ethnographic research has several advantages, there are also some potential drawbacks to consider, even more so when conducting ethnographic research in cross-cultural contexts. It's important for researchers to be aware of their own biases and to approach the culture being studied with respect and sensitivity. 

Benefits and Limitations of Ethnographic Research

Thanks to its immersive nature, ethnographic research offers several advantages over other qualitative research methods, for example:

It enables researchers to understand the cultural context in which their subjects live, work, and interact.

It offers crucial insights into the factors that influence how individuals make decisions, act, and perceive their environment.

It allows for flexibility in data collection since researchers can adapt their methods as they go along and explore new areas of interest that may emerge during the study.

While ethnography can provide an understanding of human behavior and culture, researchers must be aware of its limitations and possible ethical concerns. Some of the most common challenges associated with ethnographic research include its time-consuming and expensive nature, the difficulty of addressing certain research questions or populations effectively, the potential language barriers, and the challenges to accessing the culture to study.

Still, this method reveals how different cultures operate and interact. For example, a study of workplace culture in Japan might show differences in communication styles or decision-making processes compared to a similar study conducted in the United States.

Ethnographic Research Methods

Ethnographic research is a qualitative research method to study human behavior and societies and culture.

The most common methods of ethnographic research are participant observation and interviews.

Participant Observation: The researcher immerses themselves in the natural environment of the people they study. They observe their behavior firsthand and may even participate in activities alongside them.

Interviews: The researcher conducts interviews with individuals from the culture of interest to understand how they perceive and experience their culture. These interviews can be structured (with a predefined or standardized set of questions) or unstructured (less formal conversations that allow the researcher to explore topics as they arise) and may be conducted one-on-one or in a group setting.

Ann Blandford, expert in qualitative user studies and professor of Human-Computer Interaction at University College London, explains the characteristics of a semi-structured interview:

• Transcript loading…

Examples of Ethnographic Research in Various Fields

© CIFOR, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Ethnographic research has been employed in several fields to understand human behavior and culture better. Here are some examples:

Anthropology: Anthropologists have long used ethnographic research to study different cultures worldwide. Margaret Mead is a well-known example of an ethnographic researcher who studied the people of Samoa, revealing important information about their social and cultural practices.

Sociology: Sociologists also use ethnographic research to understand social phenomena. For example, Erving Goffman's classic work The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life used participant observation to explore how individuals present themselves to others in everyday interactions.

Marketing: Ethnographic research is increasingly being used in marketing to gain insights into consumer behavior. For example, a company may conduct ethnographic research by observing consumers in a natural setting (such as a grocery store) to understand their purchasing decisions and what factors influence those decisions.

UX Design: Ethnographic research allows designers to understand their users' habits and behaviors deeply. For instance, a UX designer working on a travel booking platform might use ethnographic research to investigate how travelers plan and book their trips.

Ethical Considerations in Ethnographic Research

Ethnographic research involves observing individuals in their natural environment, which can raise ethical concerns. It's important for researchers to carefully weigh the risks and benefits of their studies and obtain informed consent from participants.

One fundamental consideration in ethnographic research is privacy. Researchers must take steps to protect the privacy of their subjects.

Obtain permission before taking photographs or recording conversations.

Be careful not to reveal personal information about subjects that could lead to their identification. 

It’s also important to obtain informed consent from subjects before conducting any study activities. This means that people understand the study's purpose, what will be involved, and any potential risks or benefits. Ensure that any study does not cause harm or distress to subjects, either physically or emotionally. This may involve avoiding sensitive topics or situations that could trigger trauma.

The Role of Technology in Ethnographic Research

Technology has become an increasingly important tool for ethnographic research. Here are a few ways in which researchers use technology in ethnographic research:

Digital Recording: One of the most basic ways to use technology in ethnographic research is through digital recording. Researchers can use audio or video recording devices to capture conversations, interactions, and other observations.

Online Platforms: Social media is making it easier for researchers to observe and interact with people from all over the world, which can be especially useful when studying cultures that are difficult to access due to geography or political barriers.

Mobile Apps: Mobile apps can also be helpful tools for ethnographic research. For example, a researcher could develop an app that allows participants to record their daily activities and thoughts, offering unique perspectives on their behavior and experiences.

Virtual Reality: Virtual reality (VR) is another emerging technology with potential ethnographic research applications. VR allows researchers to create immersive environments that simulate real-world situations, allowing participants to interact with simulated objects and people as if they were actually there.

While technology can provide many benefits for ethnographic research, it's important for researchers also to consider its limitations. For example, relying too heavily on digital recordings may prevent researchers from noticing important nonverbal cues or context that may be lost when not observed directly in person. Additionally, some cultures may need more access or knowledge about specific technologies, making it difficult to use them in certain contexts.

Learn More about Ethnographic Research

Learn how to get better results from ethnographic research.

Explore when and how to conduct ethnographic research in different contexts. 

Read this comprehensive guide to conducting ethnographic research .

Understand some of the key methods used in ethnography .

Literature on Ethnographic Research

Here’s the entire UX literature on Ethnographic Research by the Interaction Design Foundation, collated in one place:

Learn more about Ethnographic Research

Take a deep dive into Ethnographic Research with our course Mobile UX Strategy: How to Build Successful Products .

All open-source articles on Ethnographic Research

Ethnography.

7 Simple Ways to Get Better Results From Ethnographic Research

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Human Relations Area Files

Cultural information for education and research, ethnographic and ethnological research project.

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Ryan o. begley, human relations area files, powerpoint 1 powerpoint 2 powerpoint 3 powerpoint 4 powerpoint 5, anthropology 351 | cultures of the world research project (220 points total).

This is a three-part research project that involves choosing a cultural behavior and comparing it across three cultures: choosing two nonlocal cultures in which to read about the behavior and a third local culture in which to study it in-person.

Part A. Research Proposal: Due to Moodle by the start of class on October 22 nd .

Part B. Research Report: Due to Moodle by the start of class on December 3 rd .

Part C. Presentation: Due to Moodle by [TBA] .

Part A. Research Proposal (70 points)

Due to Moodle by the start of class on October 22 nd .

Part A involves performing background research on a cultural behavior as it exists in two nonlocal cultures and using what was learned to propose a plan for studying it in the field.

Topic Selection [“What is my project going to be about?”]. Select a cultural behavior to be the topic of your research project. The behavior must fit the description of an “Outline of Cultural Materials” (OCM) subject code. A list of codes and descriptions can be found on eHRAF World Cultures (under “Browse Subjects”) and via: https://hraf.yale.edu/resources/reference/outline-of-cultural-materials/ . Choose from the 180-890 OCM code range.

Research Question [“What is the most important/interesting question I have about this topic?”]. Develop a research question about the topic that you could answer with your research project. It is okay if the question changes based on what you read about the behavior (see below); there will be time to use what you learn to refine the question before submitting the proposal.

Text-Based Research. Read a scholarly or news article on your topic and use eHRAF World Cultures to read about specific examples of the behavior in two cultures.

a. Article. Find and read an article on the chosen topic: either a peer-reviewed journal article or a news or magazine article from a legitimate media or educational outlet. The idea is to choose an article that will allow you to learn (more) about the topic in general rather than as it exists in a given culture. It might provide a history of the topic, or make an argument about it, or offer an explanation of it. It must be at least 2500 words long.

b. HRAF Documents. Choose two nonlocal cultures from different continents in which to read about the behavior using eHRAF World Cultures . A simplified list of HRAF cultures with photographs is posted on Moodle (see “Cultures-in-eHRAF-7-23-19.pdf”) and a more detailed list can be found at https://hraf.yale.edu/products/ehraf-world-cultures/cultures-covered/ . There should be at least 25 pages of reading per culture (could be from a longer single source or multiple sources with shorter descriptions). Note that each culture has a document called “Culture Summary: [Name of Culture]”; while useful to read, culture summaries are not primary sources and thus cannot be used for this part of the project. Be sure to take notes and paste useful information (along with citations) into a Word document.

Structure of the Submitted Proposal

Write-up a research proposal that contains the following items:

• Overview of Topic (5 points/at least 150 words). Introduce the chosen cultural behavior and discuss why you are interested in it.
• Research Question (5 points) . State a research question about the behavior to be answered in the research report ( Part B ). Explain why it is an important or interesting question to pursue.
• a. Article (10 points/at least 150 words) . Summarize the main point(s) of the article and explain how this information will be useful to your project.
• b . Culture Wikis (30 points/at least 250 words per culture). Write a Wikipedia section for each of the two chosen HRAF cultures that provides a description of the behavior in each. Cite the information with the HRAF source(s). Sections do not need to be posted to Wikipedia, but those who do (and do a good job with it) could earn up to 10 bonus points.
• Local Culture Selection (5 points/at least 125 words). Describe the culture/subculture/way that you chose and explain why you chose it.
• Participant Observation Plan (5 points/at least 125 words). Describe at least one context in which you could do participant observation related to the research topic and explain how doing so would help answer the research question.
• Interview Plan (5 points/at least 125 words). Describe at least one member of the culture/subculture/way of life that you could interview about the research topic and explain how doing so would help answer the research question.
• References and Formatting (5 points). Include in-text citations and a reference list for all quoted and unquoted material referenced for this proposal. Format citations in the entire assignment according one of the following formal citation styles:

American Psychological Association (APA)

Chicago Manual of Style (CMOS)

Modern Language Association (MLA)

Cultural Behavior/Topic: Tattoos

Research Question: Do people from different cultures get tattoos for the same reasons? Article: Reading an article on the history and function of tattoos from Smithsonian Magazine . HRAF Documents: Reading ethnographic descriptions of the reasons people get tattoos amongst the Maori (OZ04) [1] and the Central Thai (AO07) [2] . Local Culture Selection: The tattoo subculture in Huntingdon, Pennsylvania. Interview Plan: A person with tattoos. Participant Observation Plan: Making observations at a tattoo parlor while getting a tattoo.

eHRAF World Cultures: http://ehrafworldcultures.yale.edu/ehrafe/

A “how-to” help guide is available in .pdf form on Moodle (see “HRAF-User-Guide-v1”) or online as a searchable index . You may also refer the video tutorials posted on the Human Relations Area Files YouTube channel .

Part B. Research Report (100 points)

Due to Moodle by the start of class on December 3 rd .

Part B involves conducting ethnographic research on the behavior in local culture and writing a report that describes the fieldwork and compares the behavior across all three cultures.

Conduct a participant observation and an interview related to the research topic as proposed in Part A .

Interview. Make a list of ten semi-structured interview questions and at least five follow-up questions or probes (each of these should be attached to a specific question). Base these questions on what you learned from the article and HRAF readings from Part A and any prior knowledge that you have about the topic. Design the interview to elicit responses that help develop an answer to your research question and be sure to follow the guidelines given in class. Audio record the interview using a voice recording app (e.g., Voice Memos on iOS) and obtain oral consent at the beginning of the interview. Submit the audio file(s) and a document with the interview questions to Moodle as separate files.

Participant Observation. Follow the plan from Part A and conduct the proposed participant observation. Remember that cultural anthropologists use this method both to discover the emic perspective and to develop the etic perspective—to discover “what it is like” and to explain “why it is like that”. This involves taking in your surroundings with each of your senses and engaging with both body and mind. But it also involves remaining objective in your role as a researcher and focusing on that which is applicable to answering your research question.

Research Report

After completing your fieldwork, write a report that describes the behavior in each culture and compares it across all three in order to answer the research question. Use information sourced from the readings and t data collected in the field to support this answer. There is not enough space to include everything that was learned during the research process. Rather, the goal is to distill all of the information into a few key themes most relevant to answering the research question, focusing on the most interesting and best-supported aspects of the research.

• Introduction (5 points/at least 150 words) . Introduce the research topic to an imagined reader who is unfamiliar with it and the research question to be explored in the report. Offer some insight into what led to this topic and question.
• Background Information (10 points/at least 500 words) . Provide information on the topic based on what you learned from the readings in Part A . Feel free to reuse relevant written material from Part A but be sure to focus on information applicable to the research question.
• 3a. Description of Culture ( 5 points/at least 150 words). Describe the culture and field site. Explain why these were chosen to answer the research question.
• 3b. Description of Interview (15 points/at least 350 words) . Describe the interview and summarize the main takeaways (in paragraph form). Do not list the interview questions.
• 3c. Description of Participant Observation (15 points/at least 350 words) . Describe what was done for the participant observation and summarize the main information learned.
• Discussion (40 points/at least 750 words) . Write a detailed analysis that compares the behavior across all three cultures using at least two relevant concepts defined in the readings from Part A and/or covered in course lectures. Use specific examples from the HRAF readings and your fieldwork to build towards and illustrate an answer to your research question.
• Conclusion (5 points/at least 150 words). Conclude the report by answering the research question. Explain your conclusion and support it with the most compelling reasons mentioned in the Discussion section.
• References and Formatting (5 points). Include in-text citations and a reference list for all quoted and unquoted material referenced for this report. Format the entire assignment according the formal citation styles used in Part A .

Grading Rubric

Part c. presentation (50 points).

Due to Moodle by 11:59 PM on the night before the scheduled presentation date [TBA] .

You are expected to give a 15-20-minute in-class PowerPoint Presentation based on Part B and should follow the same basic structure. The idea behind these presentations is to simulate the kind of talks scholars give before their peers at academic conferences. Submit the .ppt file to Moodle by the deadline and also bring a digital copy of it to class on a USB flash drive.

Structure of Presentation

• Introduction (2.5 points/1-2 minutes). Introduce the research topic to the class and the research question to be explored in the presentation.
• Background Information (7.5 points/2-3 minutes). Provide information on the topic based on what you learned from the readings.
• Methods and Results (7.5 points/4-5 minutes). This section should correspond to the Methods section of Part B .
• Discussion (20 points/5-6 minutes). This section should correspond to the Discussion section of Part B .
• Conclusion (2.5 points/1 minute). This section should correspond to Conclusion section of Part B .
• References and Formatting (2.5 points). Include in-text citations and a references list (at the end of the presentation) for all quoted and unquoted material referenced for this report. Format the presentation according the formal citation styles used in Part A and Part B .
• Q&A (2.5 points/2-3 minutes). Students in the audience should be prepared to ask questions and presenters should be prepared to answer them.
• Visuals (2.5 points). The presentation should contain photographs and other relevant visuals related to the topic and the three cultures.
• Exam Question (2.5 points). Write a multiple-choice question (four choices) based on your presentation and submit it on Moodle as a separate file. It might be included in Exam 3.
• Audio and/or Video Component [optional]. You may play a standalone audio and/or video clip during your presentation. Clips must not last more than ¼ of the total presentation time.

Note: Students will be notified of any changes made to these criteria.

[1] e.g., pp. 296-325 in Buck, P. H. (1952).  Coming of the Maori . Retrieved from https://ehrafworldcultures.yale.edu/document?id=oz04-003

[2] e.g., pp. 83-94 in Terwiel, B. J. (1975). Monks and Magic: An Analysis of Religious Ceremonies in Central Thailand . Retrieved from https://ehrafworldcultures.yale.edu/document?id=ao07-019

Ryan O. Begley

3- Proposing the Ethnographic Research Project

Chapter 3 provides basic information regarding the writing of a proposal for an ethnographic research project.

Ask the average college student where they usually conduct research and chances are the answers will be the internet and, maybe, the library.  Research understood this way is usually going to be secondary research, research that results in the gathering, summarizing and assessing of data that already exists.  It is most likely that most of the research you have conducted to date would be classified as secondary.  But, it’s also possible that you have some experience with primary research. Have you ever conducted an interview?  Have you ever designed and/or administered a survey? These sorts of actions are categorized as primary research, research that involves direct collection of data from real world interactions.

An ethnographic writing project is one that requires the melding of both primary and secondary research.  And, while secondary research is of definite importance, it is the primary research that serves to classify the kinds of projects discussed in this text as ethnographic in character.  In the case of an ethnographic research project, primary research will take place at a specific research site, one of your own choosing.  This chapter focuses on primary research by assisting you in choosing a research site, a first step in this process.  Chapter 4 focuses on the process of creating primary data—of converting observations made into fieldnotes.  Your fieldnotes will, in time, be analyzed and examined for patterns of meaning and behavior, patterns that may be the focus of a larger ethnographic essay. Chapter 5 outlines the process of collecting secondary resources in order to help you better understand and analyze your primary research data.

But, we’re getting ahead of ourselves.  In order to begin primary research, you must first select a research site.  But, even before you choose a research site, it’s a good idea for you to consider the primary object of focus for ethnographic research—the cultural text.

Table of Contents

• Introduction
• 1a- Connecting to Ethnographic Writing
• 1b- Identifying with Ethnographic Writing
• 1c- Rhetorical Strate­gies for Ethnographic Writing
• 2a- Writerly Ethos
• 2b- Under­stand­ing Pla­gia­rism
• 2c- Eth­i­cal Conun­drums in Com­munity Research
• 3a- Examining Culture as Text
• 3b- Selecting a Research Site
• 3c- Access to Your Research Site
• 3d- Rhetorical Strategies for Research Proposals
• 4a- Rhetorical Strategies for Writing Observations
• 4b- Considering Types of Fieldnotes
• 4c- Expanding and Revising Fieldnotes and Observations
• 5a- Searching for Sources: Keywords, Databases, Catalogs, and Shelves
• 5b- Ethical Considerations when Conducting Research of Secondary Sources
• 5c- Impact of Technology on Conducting Research of Secondary Sources
• 5d- Sorting Sources and Eating Books
• 5e- Popular Culture Source Material
• 5f- Summarizing Sources
• 5g- Building an Annotated Bibliography
• 6a- Introducing your Research
• 6b- Presenting the Methodology and Focus
• 6c- Selecting Examples and Evidence
• 6d- Selecting Effective Secondary Source Evidence
• 6e- Quoting, Paraphrasing, and Documenting Source Material
• 6f- Concluding in a Meaningful Way
• 6g- Reviewing and Revising Your Essay
• Supplemental Modules
• How to Use this Textbook
• Teaching with EC
• How to Become a Contributing Author

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• Implement Res Pract
• v.2; Jan-Dec 2021

A scoping review of the use of ethnographic approaches in implementation research and recommendations for reporting

Alex k gertner.

1 Department of Health Policy and Management, Gillings School of Global Public Health, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA

Joshua Franklin

2 Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA

Isabel Roth

3 Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Program on Integrative Medicine, UNC School of Medicine, Chapel Hill, NC, USA

Gracelyn H Cruden

4 Oregon Social Learning Center, Eugene, OR, USA

Amber D Haley

Erin p finley.

5 VA Center for the Study of Healthcare Innovation, Implementation & Policy, VA Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System, Los Angeles, CA, USA

Alison B Hamilton

6 Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences, David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, USA

Lawrence A Palinkas

7 Department of Children, Youth and Families, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA

Byron J Powell

8 Brown School and School of Medicine, Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, MO, USA

Associated Data

Supplemental material, sj-pdf-1-irp-10.1177_2633489521992743 for A scoping review of the use of ethnographic approaches in implementation research and recommendations for reporting by Alex K Gertner, Joshua Franklin, Isabel Roth, Gracelyn H Cruden, Amber D Haley, Erin P Finley, Alison B Hamilton, Lawrence A Palinkas and Byron J Powell in Implementation Research and Practice

Background:

Researchers have argued for the value of ethnographic approaches to implementation science (IS). The contested meanings of ethnography pose challenges and possibilities to its use in IS. The goal of this study was to identify sources of commonality and variation, and to distill a set of recommendations for reporting ethnographic approaches in IS.

We included in our scoping review English-language academic journal articles meeting two criteria: (1) IS articles in the healthcare field and (2) articles that described their approach as ethnographic. In March 2019, we implemented our search criteria in four academic databases and one academic journal. Abstracts were screened for inclusion by at least two authors. We iteratively develop a codebook for full-text analysis and double-coded included articles. We summarized the findings and developed reporting recommendations through discussion.

Of the 210 articles whose abstracts were screened, 73 were included in full-text analysis. The number of articles increased in recent years. Ethnographic approaches were used within a wide variety of theoretical approaches and research designs. Articles primarily described using interviews and observational methods as part of their ethnographic approaches, though numerous other methods were also employed. The most cited rationales for using ethnographic approaches were to capture context-specific phenomena, understand insiders’ perspective, and study complex interactions. In reporting on ethnographic approaches, we recommend that researchers provide information on researcher training and position, reflect on researchers’ positionality, describe observational methods in detail, and report results from all the methods used.

Conclusion:

The number of IS studies using ethnography has increased in recent years. Ethnography holds great potential for contributing further to IS, particularly to studying implementation strategy mechanisms and understanding complex adaptive systems.

Plain language summary:

Researchers have proposed that ethnographic methods may be valuable to implementation research and practice. Ethnographic approaches have their roots in the field of anthropology, but they are now used in many fields. These approaches often involve a researcher spending time in “real-world” settings, conducting interviews and observation to understand a group of people. That said, researchers disagree on the meaning of ethnography, which presents a challenge to its use in implementation science (IS). We searched for articles in the field of IS that described their methods as ethnographic. We then reviewed the articles, looking for similarities and differences in how and why ethnographic approaches were used. Many of these articles said they used ethnographic methods because they were interested in issues like context, research participants’ views, and complex interactions. We found a large amount of variation in how ethnographic methods were used. We developed recommendations for describing ethnographic methods in a way that readers can clearly understand. We also made several observations of the value ethnographic approaches can bring to IS. Ethnographic methods may be especially useful to studying unplanned and unexpected changes that take place during implementation. These recommendations and observations could be helpful to implementation researchers wishing to use ethnographic methods.

The field of IS makes use of research methods and frameworks from various scholarly traditions ( Bauer et al., 2015 ; NIH Fogarty International Center, 2018 ). The field’s inclusive methodological ethos facilitates innovation and allows implementation researchers to draw on a diverse research toolset ( Bauer et al., 2015 ; Proctor et al., 2009 ). However, this methodological breadth can also present a challenge to the interpretation of research, particularly when there is a lack of agreement on common meanings and standards in the use of approaches ( Newhouse et al., 2013 ).

In recent years, researchers have argued for the value of ethnographic approaches in IS. Ethnography distinguishes itself from other approaches in health research by its deep engagement in a small number of cases to produce highly detailed data, its focus on human interaction in everyday environments to capture data outside of formal research processes, and its emphasis on building relationships with participants to access insiders’ perspectives, referred to as the “emic” viewpoint ( Reeves et al., 2008 ). These features are potentially well suited to delineating complex implementation processes, revealing contextual factors that affect implementation, and incorporating the perspectives of end-users in implementation, among other benefits ( Baumbusch et al., 2018 ; Bunce et al., 2014 ; Cohen et al., n.d .; Hamilton & Finley, 2020 ; Tumilowicz et al., 2015 ). Implementation researchers have also developed approaches based in ethnography for use in implementation research and practice. Palinkas and Zatzick (2019) developed a rapid approach to clinical ethnography that can be used to understand implementation processes and capture contextual details. Finley and colleagues (2018) proposed a process of periodic reflections based in ethnography for timely development of insights into implementation processes in dynamic contexts. Proposals for the use of ethnographic approaches have also been made more broadly in clinical and healthcare research ( Greenhalgh & Swinglehurst, 2011 ; Huby et al., 2007 ; Morgan-Trimmer & Wood, 2016 ; Savage, 2000 ).

Despite the potential value of ethnographic approaches to IS, differing ideas of what ethnography means present a challenge to their use. Because the meaning of ethnography can vary, it can be difficult to interpret what is meant by use of the terms “ethnography” or “ethnographic” in IS work, and thus to evaluate the rigor and reliability of the approach taken. Modern ethnographic approaches have their roots in anthropology, but what is meant by “ethnography” is contested across and within disciplines ( Agar, 2006 ; Brink & Edgecombe, 2003 ; Hammersley, 2018 ; O’Reilly, 2012 ). Ethnography may refer to a method, such as participant observation, or set of methods, sometimes including quantitative methods. However, it may also be understood as a process involving researcher reflexivity, an epistemological orientation emphasizing interlocutors’ perspectives, or a particular research product ( Agar, 2006 ; Clifford & Marcus, 1986 ; Hammersley, 2018 ; O’Reilly, 2012 ).

Given the diverse notions of ethnography, implementation researchers may employ ethnography in different ways. The objective of this scoping review is to examine the uses of ethnography in implementation research. The goal of this study was to identify sources of commonality and variation and distill a set of recommendations for reporting ethnographic approaches in IS.

Our research team included scholars with expertise in ethnographic methods and IS, including four trained anthropologists (EPF, JF, ABH, LAP). We chose to undertake a scoping review because of the exploratory nature of our research question. We did not seek to assess the quality of studies, as is typically done in systematic reviews. We followed the approach to scoping reviews delineated by Levac and colleagues (2010) . Our primary research questions were as follows: how are ethnographic approaches used in IS, why are they used, and what constitutes ethnographic approaches? In examining what constituted ethnographic approaches, we principally considered what methods were described and how they were used.

Search criteria

We included English-language academic journal articles meeting two criteria: (1) IS articles in the healthcare field and (2) articles that described their approach as ethnographic. For the purposes of conducting searches, we operationalized the first criteria as articles containing the phrases “implementation science,” “implementation research,” “knowledge translation,” or “knowledge to action.” We operationalized the second criteria as articles including variants on “ethnography” (search term: “ethnograph*”) in the title or abstract. In March 2019, we implemented our search criteria in four academic databases: MEDLINE, Web of Science, EMBASE, and ProQuest Health Management. We also conducted a search in the journal Implementation Science for articles that included the term “ethnograph*” anywhere in the article.

Abstract review

Our search produced 210 unique records. Three co-authors (JF, AKG, ADH) screened the abstracts to ensure that they fit our criteria of IS articles in the healthcare field that described their approaches as ethnographic. At this stage, we used Eccles and Mittman’s (2006) definition of implementation research: “the scientific study of methods to promote the systematic uptake of research findings and other evidence-based practices into routine practice” (p. 1). We did not require that articles make explicit reference to the IS field to be considered as implementation research.

We included all articles that described their approach as ethnographic but excluded meta-ethnographies (a method of synthesizing qualitative evidence from multiple studies). We included study protocols in our review. Two co-authors screened every abstract. If there was disagreement between the two co-authors, a third co-author broke the tie. We excluded 92 articles that did not describe their approach as ethnographic, 40 articles that were not considered implementation research, and 5 articles that were not health-related. The excluded articles referenced ethnography and IS, which is why they were captured in our search, but these articles did not characterize their own approaches as ethnographic or did not report on implementation research. After abstract review, 73 unique articles remained for full-text review, of which 21 articles were study protocols (see Appendix 1).

Full text analysis

The 73 included articles were published between 2004 and 2019, with 52 (71%) articles published since 2014. The articles were published across 31 academic journals. The most common journals were Implementation Science, BMC Health Services Research , and Social Science & Medicine .

We iteratively developed a codebook using inductively and deductively developed codes. To understand how ethnographic approaches were used in IS, we coded several article characteristics including characteristics of study design, study objectives, outcome types, and theory, model, or framework (TMF) used ( Nilsen, 2015 ). We coded outcome types as implementation outcomes, service outcomes, and client outcomes following Proctor and colleagues (2011) . We developed a simple schema for characterizing articles’ objectives: (1) developing tools for implementation research; (2) assessing implementation determinants (e.g., context, barriers, and facilitators); and (3) evaluating implementation strategies. Articles could be classified as having more than one of these objectives.

To understand why ethnographic approaches were used, we coded articles’ rationales for use of these approaches. We only coded explicit explanations of why ethnographic approaches were used to minimize subjective inferences. To understand what constituted ethnographic approaches, we documented what methods were used and the descriptions of these methods.

Four co-authors (GHC, JF, AKG, IR) coded the same six articles, iteratively revising codes until there was agreement on coding. The final codes were reviewed by the entire study team. These four co-authors then alternatively paired to double-code each article. Coding pairs first independently coded each article and resolved discrepancies by consensus. Any codes that could not be aligned by paired consensus were resolved by the additional coders. Coders also kept unstructured memos noting observations of interest that were not captured by codes. As such, memos did not produce quantitative results but observations on notable practices and distinctions. After coding, the results were summarized and reviewed by the study team to draw out key insights. Based on these results and reviews of existing recommendations for reporting on the qualitative methods, the study team developed recommendations for clear reporting on ethnographic approaches in IS ( Tong et al., 2007 ).

How are ethnographic approaches used in IS?

To understand how ethnography is deployed in IS, we documented the characteristics of IS articles that used ethnographic approaches. Of the 73 articles included, 32 (44%) articles did not report using a specific TMF ( Table 1 ). The remaining articles cited 27 distinct TMFs, with some using multiple approaches. Prominent IS frameworks were the most frequently employed. The most cited TMFs were the Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research (CFIR; Damschroder et al., 2009 ); Promoting Action on Research Implementation in Health Services (PARiHS; Kitson et al., 2008 ); Reach, Effectiveness, Adoption, Implementation, Maintenance (RE-AIM; Glasgow et al., 1999 ); and Diffusion of Innovations ( Rogers, 2003 ).

Characteristics of articles using ethnographic methods in IS.

IS: implementation science; CFIR: Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research; PARiHS: Promoting Action on Research Implementation in Health Services; RE-AIM: Reach, Effectiveness, Adoption, Implementation, Maintenance.

When it came to articles’ objectives, 64 (88%) articles were focused on assessing the determinants of implementation. Some of these articles aimed to better understand contexts in which implementation efforts could take place without seeking to assess a specific intervention. For instance, Charani and colleagues (2017) used observations and interviews to understand how surgical teams made decisions about antibiotic use. Twenty (27%) articles evaluated implementation strategies, nearly all using multi- or mixed-methods approaches. Sax and colleagues (2013) described a protocol for a mixed-methods evaluation of a “work package” of interventions to improve infection control in intensive care units. Eleven (15%) articles developed tools for implementation research. Some of these developed novel methods, as the previously discussed examples led by Palinkas and Zatzick (2019) and Finley and colleagues (2018) . Other articles used ethnographic approaches to elaborate theoretical approaches. For example, Jenkins and colleagues (2016) used an approach involving site visits, meetings, and written communication to develop a framework for guiding community-based knowledge translation. Bardosh (2018) used three rapid ethnographic studies to inductively develop a framework for assessing the effectiveness of interventions aimed at neglected tropical diseases.

Seventy-two (99%) articles included implementation outcomes. Many of these sought to identify barriers and facilitators to implementation of interventions in specific contexts. Some articles identified specific implementation outcomes of interest to them. In their study of an innovation to improve dysphagia care, which employed a mixed-methods approach that included use of an “ethnographic field journal,” Ilott and colleagues (2013) clearly identified “adoption and adaptation” as their primary outcomes of interest. Other articles framed their objectives in terms of capturing a particular point of view or aspect of practice. Dainty and colleagues (2016) used interviews and observation to describe the implementation of a post-cardiac arrest consult team “from the participant perspective.” Boaz and colleagues (2016) examined the roles of patients across several quality improvement projects using interviews, observations, reflective diaries, and document analysis ( Boaz et al., 2016 ). Fifteen (21%) articles included service outcomes. Jacobsen and colleagues (2017) used survey instruments to track person-centeredness of care in nursing homes before and after an educational initiative. Fifteen (21%) articles included client outcomes. Mumtaz and colleagues (2016) described a protocol for evaluating the quality of maternal health services that included interviewing women about their care experiences.

Forty-three articles (59%) reported on multi- or mixed-methods research with 10 (14%) of these reporting on hybrid implementation-effectiveness studies ( Anguera et al., 2018 ; Curran et al., 2012 ). In memos, coders noted that these studies at times employed ethnographic approaches sequentially and at times concurrently with quantitative methods. Some articles reported qualitative and quantitative findings together, while others referenced quantitative findings published separately. Dorsey and colleagues (2015) used a “rapid ethnographic assessment approach” to inform measurements in a subsequent randomized controlled trial of a psychosocial intervention. Clarke and colleagues (2013) drew upon interviews, observations, and document review for process evaluation of a stroke care training intervention. Both articles reported on results of ethnographic approaches separately from quantitative trial results.

Sixty-two (85%) articles described studies in healthcare settings and 22 (30%) in other settings, including homes, places of worship, and social service offices. Sixty-six (90%) articles included clinical providers as participants. Of these, 55 (75%) also included other types of participants, most often administrators and non-clinical staff. Thirty (41%) articles involved patients or their families. In memos, coders noted that articles generally presented settings and participants as planned prior to data collection. By contrast, Shaw and colleagues (2017) described beginning their study of transitional care in a hospital but then following patients into other settings, including patients’ homes, as the study progressed.

Why are ethnographic approaches used?

Thirteen (18%) articles did not provide an explicit rationale for the use of ethnographic approaches ( Table 2 ). For the remaining articles, we grouped rationales for ethnographic approaches into six inductively developed categories, which reflected authors’ stated intent to understand context-specific phenomena (52 articles, 71%); clarify emic (insiders’) perspectives (31 articles, 42%); study complex interactions (28 articles, 38%); examine sociocultural factors (21 articles, 29%); strengthen reliability of findings through use of triangulation (16 articles, 22%); and integrate theoretical models or frameworks (7 articles, 9.6%).

Description of ethnographic methods in IS.

IS: implementation science.

Several studies drew on more than one of these rationales. Bunce and colleagues (2014) discussed the value of an ethnographic approach for process evaluation as “placing the intervention in its historical and social context, ‘being there’ to document the process as it unfolds and as interpreted by its participants” (p. 2). In their study of knowledge translation strategies to improve spinal care, Webster and colleagues (2014) explained that, through an ethnographic approach, “the cultural norms, local context and specific needs of various professionals can be explicated when building an account of how policymakers, clinicians, and hospital administrators interact” (p. 2). Dixon-Woods and colleagues (2012) succinctly explained multiple rationales for their ethnographic approach to studying a patient safety program in British hospitals:

Ethnography enables detailed, contextualized descriptions of behavior and of how people make sense of the situations in which they live and work and, consequently, why their own actions make sense (Hammersley & Atkinson, 2007). Ethnography is an especially useful approach to studying patient safety, as it provides an opportunity to observe firsthand how events are classified and communicated in particular ways, as well as the social, cultural, and organizational influences on such classificatory work ( Bosk, 2003 ; Waring, 2009 ). In particular, ethnography enables insights into how professionals in health care settings account for patient safety issues ( Bosk, 2003 ) in ways that other methods may not detect. (p. 554–555)

Several studies applied ethnographic approaches to reveal processes by which implementation strategies worked or failed to work at specific sites. These studies emphasized the value of ethnography for the study of context and complex systems. Drew and colleagues (2019) used an ethnographic approach to understand divergences in client and implementation outcomes across different hospitals as part of an initiative improve hip and knee replacement surgery in the United Kingdom. McCullough and colleagues (2015) used semi-structured interviews and observations to understand how contextual factors affected differential uptake of evidence-based anticoagulation practices across clinics in a network.

Some studies used ethnographic approaches to mobilize, legitimize, or formalize experiences of researchers and practitioners working in implementation efforts. These studies emphasized the value of ethnography for the study of complex systems and emic perspectives. Reflecting on their role as applied anthropologists working in a program to provide mental health crisis services in New York City, Pope and colleagues (2016) argued that “ethnographically based qualitative research might be used to convert the ‘noise’ of actual implementation process into information with instructive power ( Hohmann & Shear, 2002 ; Rapkin & Trickett, 2005 )” (p. 508). English and colleagues (2011) made a similar proposal as they drew on their own experiences to reflect on why an implementation strategy to improve pediatric hospital services in Kenya produced variable effects. Finley and colleagues (2018) formalized this potential of ethnographic approaches to provide knowledge and insights on implementation efforts as they unfold by developing a procedure for guided discussion.

What constitutes ethnographic approaches?

Articles generally described using a distinct set of methods that constituted their ethnographic approaches, primarily interviews and observation. However, we noted substantial diversity in how methods were described. In particular, the meaning of “ethnographic” was not always articulated.

Sixty-eight (93%) articles used interviews as a part of their methods ( Table 2 ). Forty-five (62%) articles described interviews as semi-structured, four (5.5%) as structured, and one (1.3%) as unstructured. Sixteen (22%) articles described interviews as formal and 14 (19%) as informal. Eleven (15%) articles described using conversations as part of their methods. Seventeen (23%) articles used interviews without describing the type of interview conducted.

In memos, coders noted variation in the level of detail with which articles described interviews or explained how interviews contributed to an ethnographic approach. Sobo and colleagues (2008) used semi-structured interviews as a part of their “focused ethnographic assessment” of an HIV testing intervention for US veterans. They explicitly described what was meant by their “ethnographic” interview approach:

Interviewers adopted techniques designed to elicit information that interviewees themselves deemed important and to expose understandings existing below any official discourse ( Campbell & Gregor, 2004 ). For example, interviewers adopted an “interested listener” rather than a dictatorial role ( Quinn, 2005 , p. 41). They sought to avoid collusive conversational turn-taking and gapfilling in which implicit meanings are assumed to be shared ( Campbell & Gregor, 2004 ). (p. 445)

Sixty-two (85%) articles described using observation as part of their methods. Of these, 20 (27%) described observation as participant, 20 (27%) as non-participant, and 24 (33%) did not specify. As with interviews, coders noted in memos variation in the level of detail with which observational methods were described. In several articles, the only mention of an ethnographic approach was to describe the use of “ethnographic observations” without elaborating on what this meant. By contrast, Latif and colleagues specified the constructs and variables researchers attempted to document through observations in their study of an intervention to improve patient adherence across pharmacies in England. They also provided an explanation of how observation contributed to their ethnographic approach: “Through first-hand observation and direct engagement, organizational ethnography offered an in-depth or ‘thick’ description of the social, through which analysis of the social-cultural and organizing context was possible” (p. 969).

Many articles described use of fieldnotes in conjunction with observation. In all, 60 (82%) articles described using fieldnotes. Some articles merely noted that fieldnotes were used, while others described the contents of fieldnotes and how they were used. In a protocol for the study of the implementation of a federal Canadian mental health strategy, Park and colleagues (2015) described how trained observers would keep fieldnotes of events such as team meetings that would capture contextual factors and personal interactions. They also described how observers and other research team members would reflect on fieldnotes as part of their planned data analysis.

A variety of other methods were also used as part of ethnographic approaches. Forty-three (59%) articles described analyzing documents as part of their methods. These primarily involved reviewing existing documents from study sites, such as written communications and protocols. Twenty-five (34%) studies used focus groups. Other methods were used less frequently. Zobrist and colleagues (2017) used cognitive mapping in their study of young child feeding interventions in Senegal. Patel and colleagues (2014) described a plan to use video ethnography in their study protocol for an initiative to improve cardiovascular risk management in primary care clinics.

Articles generally provided little information on researchers’ training and positionality (role and social position in relation to participants) as part ethnographic approaches. Forty (55%) articles did not provide any description of the researchers involved in ethnographic data collection. Only 12 (16%) of articles mentioned researchers’ training in use of ethnographic methods and relationship to the study’s setting. When descriptions were provided, they were often minimal. By contrast, Dlamini-Simelane and Moyer (2017) detailed Dlamini-Simelane’s participation as an HIV counselor as part of data collection for their study of nurse-led HIV treatment in Swaziland, reflecting on the insights that could be gained in this role.

There was lack of clarity in how long researchers were engaged in data collection. Fifty-six (77%) articles provided some information on study duration. However, there was substantial variation in how duration was reported. Some studies reported the start and end dates of data collection, while others reported number of site visits or hours of observations performed. Of the studies reporting on length of data collection, the shortest period was 2 weeks and the longest was 5 years ( Bunce et al., 2014 ; Dorsey et al., 2015 ).

Coders noted in memos that studies primarily described results from interviews, less often describing results from observational methods, such as descriptions of settings or events. Coders also noted that studies often described results without referencing larger sociohistorical context or reflecting on the positionality of researcher regarding the research subject, in contrast to how ethnographic results are often presented in social science fields. One exception was Dixon-Woods and colleagues’ (2012) study of a program to reduce catheter-related infections in British hospitals. These researchers provided detailed descriptions of how staff responded to the program, placing these reactions within historical context of the British healthcare system.

With regard to analyzing study results, 64 (88%) articles used some form of data coding to identify themes, at times using formal named approaches (e.g., qualitative content analysis, framework analysis, matrix analysis) and at times describing more ad hoc approaches (i.e., developing themes through reading and discussion without a specific or formal process). Studies that did not use data coding either did not explicitly describe an analytic approach or drew on other approaches to the analysis of ethnographic data. In their study of how nurses use research in a pediatric critical care unit, Scott and colleagues employed Fetterman’s two-phase approach to ethnographic analysis involving “making order of data” followed by interpretation ( Fetterman, 1998 ; Scott et al., 2008 ).

Our findings suggest that ethnographic approaches are well-accepted in IS. The number of implementation research articles reporting use of ethnographic approaches has increased substantially in recent years, with many articles published in prominent journals. In addition, the use of ethnographic approaches appears compatible with a wide array of TMFs in IS. Ethnographic approaches can be deployed in a variety of mixed and multi-methods designs, including as a part of hybrid implementation-effectiveness studies.

We found that interviews and observations were the most frequently used methods in the articles we reviewed. However, we noted substantial variation in the detail with which these approaches were described. In some studies, the only mention of ethnography was to describe observations as “ethnographic.” This finding suggests “ethnography” is at times used to legitimize observational methods in IS. We also found a few articles reported using informal interviews and conversations. Such informal interactions could reveal valuable insights that are not as easily appreciated in formal interviews.

Ethnographic approaches were primarily used to assess implementation outcomes in healthcare settings. A minority of articles reported data collection with patients or in community settings. This finding is not surprising given that implementation efforts are typically aimed at clinical professionals. That said, ethnographic approaches are well suited for multisite research and capturing perspectives from diverse actors. Ethnographic approaches also allow for incorporation of new sites and participants as studies progress. These may represent underutilized possibilities of ethnographic approaches in IS.

The leading reasons given for using ethnographic approaches among the included articles were studying context-specific phenomena, capturing emic perspectives, and studying complex interactions. These rationales are consistent with proposals for the use of ethnographic methods in healthcare research ( Huby et al., 2007 ; Savage, 2000 ). In particular, we noted that ethnographic approaches were used to detail implementation processes and formalize the experience of individuals involved in implementation as research results.

The rationales for use of ethnographic approaches in IS suggest that collaborative approaches to ethnography may be especially valuable for studying adaptations to interventions and implementation strategies ( Stirman et al., 2019 ), “mechanisms” by which implementation strategies succeed or fail ( Lewis et al., 2018 , 2020 ; Powell et al., 2019 ; Zuckerman et al., 2017 ), and complex adaptive systems ( Braithwaite et al., 2018 ; Reed et al., 2018 ). The iterative nature of ethnography makes it well-suited to investigating emergent phenomena that are a feature of such systems, especially as interventions and strategies interact with contextual factors.

An additional possible contribution of ethnography to implementation is increased reflexivity and awareness of positionality ( Barry et al., 1999 ; Bikker et al., 2017 ). There is growing recognition in academic healthcare for the ways systems of oppression (e.g., racism, sexism, and colonialism) operate within and through healthcare institutions ( Evans et al., 2020 ; Horton, 2019 ; National Academies of Science Engineering and Medicine, 2018 ). Especially, given that underrepresented minorities are often excluded from academic positions, researchers must critically address their positionality in relation to systems of oppression when conducting research ( Association of American Medical Colleges, 2019 ; Blackstock, 2020 ; McKay, 2018 ; Sufrin, 2015 ).

Some scholars have argued that research is only “ethnographic” if it employs a particular theoretical orientation, not merely a distinct set of methods ( Jowsey, 2016 ; Lambert, 2002 ; Waring & Jones, 2016 ). In conducting this review, we did not seek to reconcile tensions between traditional ethnographic approaches and more structured or abbreviated approaches used in health fields. Rather, our intention was to promote clear communication and thoughtful application of ethnographic methods, so that such tensions may be productive sources of critique and innovation, rather than merely sites of discord or misjudgment. Toward that end, we developed reporting recommendations.

Recommendations for reporting

Rather than develop criteria for reporting on ethnographic methods de novo, we sought to build on existing recommendations. The Consolidated Criteria for Reporting Qualitative Research (COREQ) is a checklist intended to improve reporting of qualitative research in health sciences ( Tong et al., 2007 ). It is the most cited of the EQUATOR Network’s key reporting guidelines for qualitative research ( Centre for Statistics in Medicine, n.d .). COREQ consists of 32 items separated into three domains: (1) research team and reflexivity, (2) study design, and (3) analysis and findings. Our study team agreed that these criteria were useful for the reporting on ethnographic methods. However, we noted several areas where additional information and emphasis could improve clarity in reporting ( Table 3 ).

Recommendation for reporting on ethnographic approaches in implementation research.

COREQ: Consolidated Criteria for Reporting Qualitative Research.

Domain 1: research team and reflexivity

COREQ’s first domain includes criteria on researcher credentials (Item 2), occupation (Item 3), gender (Item 4), experience and training (Item 5), and relationship with participants (Items 6–8). Reflecting on researchers’ characteristics and relationship to studies can add substantially to ethnographic approaches ( Barry et al., 1999 ; Bikker et al., 2017 ). As Dixon-Woods (2003) has argued, “researchers are required to be reflexive—that is, to reflect on and be able to give an account of how they produced their interpretations—and to be able to show that their interpretation is warranted by the data” (p. 326). Information on researchers’ training can improve readers’ confidence in the execution of methods. Explanations of researchers’ positionality can improve readers’ understandings of how studies were conducted and what insights were available to researchers.

We found that a few articles in our review included information on researchers’ training and relationship to study sites and participants. We recommend that articles delineate researchers’ training and experience in ethnographic methods, including any training provided for completion of the study. We also recommend providing detailed information on researchers’ relationship to the study site and participants, which may go beyond the items explicitly listed in COREQ. Discussing researchers’ social position and characteristics in relation to study sites and participants may be relevant depending on the study’s context and aims.

In the IS field, clarifying how researchers were perceived by participants and their existing roles in organizations is especially important. Implementation efforts may be perceived as burdensome top-down initiatives by some staff. In these situations, staff may withhold their honest views if they perceive researchers as surveillance agents for organizational leadership. Researchers can contextualize these dynamics by clarifying their position within organizations and explicating their relationship with participants. Delineating any strategies that were used to gain participants’ trust is recommended.

Domain 2: study design

COREQ’s second domain includes criteria on methodological orientation and theory (Item 9), participant selection (Items 10–13), setting (Items 14–16), and data collection (Items 17–23). In our review, we found substantial diversity in articles’ study designs, with many using mixed- or multi-method designs. This diversity makes comprehensive reporting of study designs crucial.

Beyond the existing items in COREQ’s Domain 2, we recommend that researchers explain why an ethnographic approach is appropriate for their research question, clarifying what they mean by “ethnographic” and, if relevant, the relationship between their theoretical approach and their use of ethnographic methods. If appropriate, we recommend that researchers consider applying and referencing approaches to focused or rapid ethnography when planning and reporting studies ( Higginbottom et al., 2013 ; Knoblauch, 2005 ; Palinkas & Zatzick, 2019 ; Wall, 2015 ). Such approaches often provide clear guidelines for their use and are typically understood to be distinct from conventional ethnography, which may help avoid ambiguity ( Knoblauch, 2005 ; Wall, 2015 ).

Given the contested meanings of ethnography, we recommend that researchers consider whether referencing ethnography adds or detracts from understanding their approaches. We propose that the invocation of ethnography merely to justify the use of observation in methods is unnecessary. Describing observational methods as ethnographic is rarely clarifying, given the breadth of meanings associated with ethnography that we observed. Rather, researchers may focus on detailing how observational methods were employed, by whom, and what their goals were. Similarly, researchers merely seeking to convey that their studies were conducted in “real world” settings or during routine activities may describe their work as in situ rather than as ethnographic.

Ethnographic approaches often involve informal interactions in mundane activities that can be difficult to convey in a formal description of methods. Clifford Geertz (1998) famously theorized ethnographic work as “deep hanging out.” Few articles in our review conveyed such unstructured immersive approaches, possibly because they were not used or because researchers were concerned that these would not be perceived as rigorous. We encourage researchers to describe informal, unstructured, and unplanned interactions that contributed meaningfully to data collection and provide important insights. Phenomenological approaches may prove useful to implementation researchers who wish to engage with such unplanned or unstructured research experiences ( Cohen et al., n.d .; van Manen, 2016 ).

An advantage of ethnographic approaches is that they are commonly iterative. Study settings and participants can evolve as researchers gain knowledge and insights ( Agar, 2006 ). We recommend that researchers explicitly delineate how their planned approaches evolved over the course of the study and why. Such descriptions can provide valuable information for readers. Clear descriptions of such iterative approaches may also contribute to evolving ethnographic methodologies and study designs in IS.

Domain 3: analysis and findings

COREQ’s Domain 3 includes criteria related to data analysis (Items 24–28) and reporting (Items 29–32). COREQ presumes that researchers will use some approach to data coding leading to theme derivation in analyses. While ethnographic analyses do generally involve identification of themes, they may not involve explicit data coding ( Agar, 2006 ). Regardless of how themes are derived, we recommend that researchers’ reflexivity be explicitly considered in analyses, given its central importance to ethnographic approaches ( Barry et al., 1999 ; Bikker et al., 2017 ). We similarly suggest that researchers present results within their sociohistorical context if it will improve the understanding of their findings.

Given the diversity of study designs within which ethnographic approaches are used in IS, differing approaches to presenting results are to be expected. COREQ emphasizes the importance of presenting quotations in results (Item 29). We additionally recommend that researchers present results from all methods used as a part of ethnographic approaches, including observational methods. Doing so may include descriptions of settings or events that were noteworthy. Use of digital media, including audio, photographs, and video, may also be used to convey researchers’ observations ( Underberg & Zorn, 2013 ).

Researchers seeking to follow our recommendations may encounter structural barriers from journals in the form of word limits or formatting requirements. Notably, sociology and anthropology journals, where ethnographic research has traditionally been published, have word limits in the range of 9,000–15,000, rather than 2,000–4,000 that is typical of health journals, and do not dictate the article structure. We encourage health journal editors to allow longer article lengths for qualitative and mixed-methods work. Editors may consider allowing longer versions of methods and results for online publication with abbreviated print versions.

In some instances, our recommendations may suggest a blurring of traditional article structures and headings. Researchers may need to preview results if they describe how methods iteratively evolved or preview discussion topics if they present their results within a sociohistorical context. We encourage researchers and editors to be open to flexible presentations of studies if these convey more faithfully iterative, recursive, and reflexive approaches. We recognize that article length and structure guidelines are unlikely to change in the near term. We encourage researchers to seek creative ways in which to communicate their ethnographic and mixed-methods approaches within existing parameters. This may include using supplemental materials sections or publishing separate study protocols that provide additional methodological detail.

Limitations

As a scoping review, our study provides an exploratory rather than a comprehensive view of ethnography in IS. Our analyses are likely influenced by our disciplinary backgrounds, though we sought to recruit a multidisciplinary team and critically challenge our implicit notions through iterative coding and discussions. Our recommendations are aimed at improving clarity and comprehension in communicating ethnographic approaches, but we did not make suggestions for what ethnography is or how it should be done in IS.

Ethnographic approaches to IS may allow researchers to gain insights that would not be available through other methods, particularly on the interactions between implementation processes and context as well as insiders’ views of implementations efforts. Comprehensive and harmonized reporting approaches could improve the understanding of ethnographic approaches, enhancing its value in IS.

Supplemental Material

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding: The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: A.K.G. was supported by the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health under award number F30DA044668. B.J.P. was supported by the National Institute of Mental Health under award number K01MH113806. A.B.H. and E.P.F. were supported by the VA Quality Enhancement Research Initiative under award numbers QUE 15-272 and QUE 20-028. I.R.’s contribution to this article was partially supported by a T32 Fellowship from the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (5T32AT00378). The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.

Supplemental material: Supplemental material for this article is available online.

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Ethnography is a qualitative method for collecting data often used in the social and behavioral sciences.  Data are collected through observations and interviews, which are then used to draw conclusions about how societies and individuals function. Ethnographers observe life as it happens instead of trying to manipulate it in a lab.  Because of the unpredictability of life, ethnographers often find is challenging to nail down their projects in a protocol for the Board to review.  Nevertheless, the Board needs a good explanation of a study in order to approve it.  Helping the Board to understand the parameters of the study, the situations in which the participants will be contacted and will participate, and the risks involved will allow them to approve studies where some flexibility is needed. 

The following sections generalize typical situations in an ethnographic study. However, your study may not fit these models exactly, so please  contact  our staff if you have questions about what is appropriate, etc. The Board expects you to interact with your participants in a way that is natural, polite, and culturally appropriate. D iscuss the cultural context and how that shapes your methodology, demonstrating that you are aware of your participants' particular needs and sensitive to the way that they navigate their world.  

Interviews and observations are common methods for data collection in an ethnographic study; please see Interviews and Observations for more information. 

As an ethnographer becomes integrated in a community, he or she will talk to many people in order to become familiar with their way of life and to refine the research ideas. Not everyone that an ethnographer interacts with is necessarily a  participant in the research study . Participation depends on the type of information that is collected and how the data are recorded. If you are recording information that is  specific to a person  and about that  person’s experiences and opinions , and if that information can be  identified with a specific person (whether anonymous or not), that person becomes a participant in the study. For example, talking to an individual on the bus about general bus policies and atmosphere would not qualify the conversation as part of the human subjects aspect of your research.  Talking to that same individual about their specific experiences as a passenger on the bus and recording that information in your notes qualifies that individual as a participant in the study. Depending on whether you gather identifying information about the person and the potential to harm the person will determine what level of consent information you should provide and how it should be documented. Understanding when a person becomes a participant will help you to understand when you should obtain consent from that person or when an interaction can be defined as just a casual conversation.  For specific examples of when a casual conversation becomes an interview, please see  Interviews  for more information.     

Ethnographers are often involved with their participants on a very intimate level and can collect sensitive data about them, thus it is important to recognize areas and situations that may be risky for participants and develop procedures for reducing  risk . Participants in ethnographic studies may be at risk for legal, social, economic, psychological, and physical harms. A well-designed  consent process  can be an easy way to reduce risk in a study. For participants where consent has limitations (i.e.  children ,  prisoners , other  vulnerable participants ), additional requirements may be made in order to facilitate the consent process, such as providing a minor with an assent form and obtaining parental consent (though it may be necessary to modify this process so that it is culturally appropriate). Some participants may be  highly sensitive to risk  because of who they are and the situation in which they live and you may need to make additional accommodations for participants where the potential for harm is high. Often a participant’s potential for harm doesn’t end when your interaction is over; protecting the materials you collect will continue to protect your participants from harm.  Loss of confidentiality  is a risk that participants may face when participating in an ethnographic study; in some cases, participants may not be interested in keeping their information confidential but it is important to maintain a clear dialog with participants so that they understand the implications of sharing their data with you. Identifying the needs of your participants and modifying your approach in order to accommodate those needs will help to protect participants from incurring harm as a result of participating in your study.

Before you include participants in your study, you will need to identify who is eligible to participate. Often in ethnographic studies it is important to integrate into the community and tap into the community’s network in order to identify potential participants. You may use word-of-mouth methods to reach your participants or more formal methods such as advertisements, flyers, emails, phone calls, etc (please include samples of your recruitment materials with your study). When you describe your procedures in your protocol, it is important to include information about how you will navigate the community you will study and access eligible participants.

The consent process begins as soon as you share information about the study, so it is important that when you contact participants, you are providing them with accurate information about participating in the study. Participants should know early on in the process that you are researcher and you are asking them to participate in a study, and you shouldn’t provide information that is misleading or inappropriately enticing. For further guidance on recruiting participants, see  Participant Recruitment .

The consent process outlined in the  Basic Consent  section describes the baseline expectation for obtaining consent from participants, as described in the  federal regulations . However, this scenario does not always fit every research study nor is it adequate for providing informed consent to all participants, and there is some flexibility in modifying the informed consent process. The Oral Consent section describes how to conduct an oral consent procedure, which modifies the consent procedure to accommodate participants where presenting a written consent form would be inappropriate. If you feel that it is necessary to provide your participants with a modified informed consent process, it is important that you provide a complete and accurate description of the process, and provide justification as to why the process is necessary and will provide the best informed consent opportunity for your participants. Including information about cultural norms, language issues, and other important factors will help the Board to understand your population and why it is necessary to approach the population in the manner in which you recommend. As you develop your procedure, it is important that you consider not only the informed consent meeting, but also the recruitment process and how you will document consent. 

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