Case Study Research in Anthropology

Definition and Formulation

It is difficult, in anthropology, to find an exact definition of ethnography, and there is much disagreement about what exactly an ethnography constitutes. Broadly speaking, it can be defined as “the art and science of describing a group or culture,” which involves the ethnographer writing about the routine, daily lives of people. Alternatively, [Page 87]it could be defined as studying behavior in everyday contexts, engaging in “unstructured” (although not unsystematic) data collection, using a small number of cases, and analyzing these through interpreting the meaning of human actions. Ethnography can also be said to be characterized by “naturalism”; that is, understanding naturally occurring human behavior in context as opposed to through artificial settings or structured interviews. While this sort of research technique is also found in other disciplines, such as sociology, it is not as central to other disciplines as it is in anthropology.

The lack of structure, and the focus on particular cultures, may explain the difficulty of defining ethnography. The nature of the study is guided by its specific research problem, techniques, duration, budget, and theoretical underpinning. Furthermore, ethnography is unique in that the researcher and his or her identity become basic parts of the research process itself, and yet, a balance must be achieved between maintaining enough involvement to get the sense of life in the culture under study, and maintaining an objective distance for the purpose of analysis. The ethnographer's personal experiences effectively become central to the research process, but are restrained by the impersonal standards of observation and, to the extent that it is possible, objectivity. Many, however, would argue that the lack of agreement on the nature of ethnography is one of its greatest strengths, giving it a degree of flexibility and richness.

The anthropological case study is also expected to develop a balance between the emic (insider's) and etic (outsider's) perspectives on the culture under study. Again, however, there is much variation in the degree to which each is favored. While some ethnographers focus upon obtaining an objective approach, of chronicling events and behaviors, others argue that the key to ethnography is in conveying the insider's perspective on his or her own culture to outsiders. In writing terms, ethnography is generally characterized by thick description and vivid, narrative-style content, with the aim being to capture the complexity of human life.

While the image of ethnographic research that frequently emerges in anthropological literature is of a rugged, scientific anthropologist immersed in the culture under study, the reality is often less romantic. It has been noted, principally by Renato Rosaldo, that the result of British anthropologist E. E. Evans-Pritchard's efforts to edit, as it were, the outside world out of his case study of the Nuer, in the name of objectivity and of defining the “true nature” of Nuer culture, resulted in a kind of contextless image that ignores the historical specificities of the time. The belligerence that Evans-Pritchard identifies as typical of the Nuer was, he argues, most likely a specific condition inspired by British encroachments upon their territory at the time of Evans-Pritchard's field work. Most anthropologists also rely substantially on translators and informants with an unusual social background, frequently those used to dealing with outsiders, even social scientists. Some researchers also challenge the notion that anthropologists can truly become immersed in the culture they study—or, indeed, whether this is desirable (e.g., for anthropologists studying criminal subcultures). While immersion in the field is desirable, the degree to which this immersion is possible, or conveyed in research, varies.

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