Advantages And Disadvantages Of Ethnography: Anthropology And Field Work

Ethnography is the systematic study of people and cultures, it is designed to explore cultural phenomena where the researcher observes society from the point of view of the subject of the study. It is the best 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

Holistic means looking at a situation as a whole and not just part of it. The holistic approach is paramount in driving forward the way service users are assessed and implementing the planning for a robust care and support

Ethnography tells about a culture and the members that comprise this culture. A definition is the scientific description of the customs and individual people of a culture. The process of doing this assignment allowed me to explore another aspect of a cultural group. I was able to learn extensively about interactions between individuals and how see them as a culture. The group that comprises my ethnography is a cultural group very common to Utah. The culture I focused on was the LDS culture, to be more specific I studied a sub-culture of this group. My subculture was a group of 12 year old adolescents that are a Sunday school class in this culture.

Answer: Ethnographic research is different from other social science approaches to research because it goes more in depth. With an ethnographic research you are required to eat, sleep, and breath what is being studied. In order to get a better understanding you will need to incorporate such living (as that of the culture being studied) into your life. It’s more of a research to gain the knowledge of a current situation as oppose to something that has happened in the past. For example Sterk was researching prostitution. She followed the lives of many

Ethnographic research is the scientific description of specific human cultures, foreign to the ethnographer. Each ethnographer has his or her own way of conducting research and all of these different ideas can be transmitted and understood in a number of different ways. Because there is no one set idea of how an ethnographer should go about his or her research, conflicts arise. In Reflections on Fieldwork in Morocco, Paul Rabinow uses a story like process to discuss his experiences during his research in Morocco. This makes it easier for the reader to understand his ideas then just having a technical book about the many different aspects of Moroccan life that he may have discovered. In Writing Culture: the Poetics and Politics of

For my ethnographic fieldwork, I decided to do my research on the Jewish culture. I interviewed a friend of mine at her house, which is the field site I decided to work in. To protect her identity I changed her name to Rebecca. As soon as I got to her house I notice there was a small piece of metal on the side of her doorpost with hebrew text written on it. I enter the house and she greeted me and took me to her living room.In her living room I noticed she had a tray of bite size cookies for us and a Snapple drink. The cookies were sweet and they did not have strong odor. My friend wore black slacks a white blouse and a star necklace around her neck. After a while, her brother and father came in and I noticed they had a little cap on the top of their heads. I asked her questions about her religion and culture.

James P. Spradley (1979) described the insider approach to understanding culture as "a quiet revolution" among the social sciences (p. iii). Cultural anthropologists, however, have long emphasized the importance of the ethnographic method, an approach to understanding a different culture through participation, observation, the use of key informants, and interviews. Cultural anthropologists have employed the ethnographic method in an attempt to surmount several formidable cultural questions: How can one understand another's culture? How can culture be qualitatively and quantitatively assessed? What aspects of a culture make it unique and which connect it to other cultures? If

Ethnography is a qualitative method of research in which the researcher takes part in the activities of a group such that they are able to complete their observations over a period of time in a natural, real-life environment.

"The whole is greater than the sum of its parts". In short, to be completely holistic you must see a person as more than just organ systems, mental health, sexuality, etc. You must see how all aspects of their life impact on each other and the factors that influence them.

In the beginning, when it was said to my class that we were expected to right and ethnography. I had no idea what that was. Dr. Cairo began to explain to us what she did, what and anthropologist did, and, most importntly,what an ethnography was. First thing I thought to do my Ethnography on was a church or public place. My choice changed about three times but I finally choose to study a Hispanic Culture club here at SIUE (Southern Illinois University Edwardsville). I made this decision because I wanted to learn more about what Hispanic students that go to this school go through, what traditions do they practice, and what is thier family background. Another expirience that changed my topic is one that took place in Anthropolgy class. That

As we begin to go on an excursion through literature, it is important to understand the concept of what an ethnography is. Ethnography is known to be a descriptive type of work that analyzes culture and customs of individual people. James Clifford has implemented this work into his studies and has influenced many others to do the same. I saw through the books I have read, ethnography makes these books become vivacious for a reader.

Ethnographic methodology provides rich and complex data (Brownlow, 2012). In the ethnographic approach a researcher joined the studied group in their natural environment, stayed as a part

The purpose of this reading was to introduce what ethnography is and what exactly do anthropologists do. Ethnography is based on the fact that in order to fully understand a culture, it is best to observe the culture itself and to interact with them over a long period of time. The authors, Monaghan and Just, do fieldwork. Fieldwork is commonly done in small communities with very simplistic lifestyles so to say. In the first chapter, Peter Just did his fieldwork in the Village of Dorro Ntika. In order to be successful with this research, Peter had to build trust and create a good relationship with the people of the native tribe. Meaning Peter was able to learn well beyond the superficial facts. To be an ethnographer one must commit to years

There are multiple characteristics of ethnographic approach. This research is considered to be more of a descriptive type research approach, that is intended for “in-depth research and descriptions of ethnic groups, cultures, large organizations, and their features” (Percy, Kostere, & Kostere, 2015, p. 16). This type of research immerses its selves in the organization or culture they are reviewing, and becoming a part of the culture, so that we can learn about it from the inside out. Therefore, this methodology often involves longer time frame for information collection, and consists of researchers returning a number of times to the location where the research is to acquire more information. Some “doctoral learners tend to avoid ethnographic studies, because of the typical long time-commitments, however, it can be a fruitful approach, even in shorter periods, for understanding the customs, culture, belief systems, and implicit rules of organizations and large groups” (Percy, Kostere, & Kostere, 2015, p. 15)

Anthropology is field where research plays the biggest part in dissecting and understanding a topic. Surveys and questionnaires, are not as effective in this field as it would have been in engineering is because, anthropology deals with people. According to me people would not be slight bit interested divulging the details of their life with a stranger, whom they just met on a piece of flimsy paper. Even if they are willing to do that, they may only give a vague sketch of their life or the worst case scenario, where the participants are illiterate. Thus Field work regardless how excruciatingly long and hard it is, it is very important because it gives the holistic view on a topic as an outsider as well as an insider.