Ethnography

Ethnography originated as a distinct methodology in the early twentieth century with the professionalization [Page 310]of anthropology under Franz Boas in the USA and Bronislaw Malinowski in England. These pioneers shaped the practice of living in field communities for months or years as participant observers and as collectors of texts and accounts. For sociologists, the important methodological moment was the development of the Chicago School of ethnography, led by Robert E. Park and Ernest W. Burgess, whose interest in ‘natural areas' and social ecology produced a vigorous and wide-ranging set of studies of urban social change. Ethnography, much expanded and much interrogated as a methodology, was subsequently appropriated and honed in a wide range of disciplines and subject areas, including education, medical studies, science and technology, deviance studies, innovation and entrepreneurship, conflict resolution, international development, communications, organizational development and, not least, action research. All these fields use ethnography as a means of illuminating lived experience where social and cultural contexts are poorly understood. Ethnography, which intrinsically involves a feedback cycle of using newly acquired information to inform and modify the direction of the inquiry, fits well with the process of collaborative or co-generational action research, in which researchers and practitioners develop an increasingly comprehensive understanding of an actual or potential social, community or organizational change. The following entry deals with the general uses of ethnography, the varieties of ethnographic approaches, the basics of research design, approaches to data collection, the writing of field notes, interviewing and capturing multiple realities.

Ethnography is primarily used for discovery and secondarily for verification, while quantitative studies are best for assessing the distribution or range of known phenomena in different populations. Ethnography is often seen as an alternative to quantitative research; however, it can be combined with a variety of quantitative approaches, using an ethnographic ‘wrap’ around a quantitative method. In ethnography, the researcher is the primary instrument of fieldwork, usually within a natural community, often as a guest in face-to-face interaction with other participants, with no more than moderate control over the field situation, particularly in Participatory Action Research, in which the community collaborates in the research.