Ethnography

Introduction Creswell (2007) describes ethnography as a “qualitative design in which the researcher describes and interprets the shared and learned patterns of values” (p. 68). Ethnographic research provides a study on individuals in their own environment. Throughout the research, researchers attempt to answer questions in regards to human behavior. According to Schwartzman (1993), “Ethnography is used for research involving cultural sharing, and is linked to the use of anthropology as a way to

Ruth Benedict once wrote, “The adequate study of culture, our own and those on the opposite side of the globe, can press on to fulfillment only as we learn today from the humanities as well as from the scientists.” (Benedict 2011). Anthropology, as a discipline, is concerned with what it means to be human and seeks to address this study by understanding past and modern cultures across the globe, as well as language, human biology, and our evolutionary history. Considering the rather holistic approach

Bourgois’ ethnography delved deep into the everyday lives of a pocket of society situated in El Barrio (also commonly referred to as East Harlem). Through permanently situating himself and his family within the illicit underground culture, he developed a string of firm friendships with drug dealers, crack addicts, and individuals emotionally defeated through the corrupt employment chain of New York. Bourgois adopted a relatively humanistic anthropological approach to gathering fieldwork, being granted

The anthropologist is not a data classification machine. The anthropologist is a human being with specific angles, interpretations, and background. Reality is perception. By reading ethnographies, we are learning from other's perception. The range of approaches is specifically what gives this discipline it's richness and depth. Johannes Fabian in Remembering the Present: Painting and Popular History, comments, Which and whose reality

century, and when it reached the United States, it became even more WORD-widespread? Since then, it has continued to develop as a field, with new approaches becoming standard about every twenty years. Two of the main approaches to writing works of ethnography include ethnographic accounts of a culture foreign to the writer, and fictional stories, often based on the culture the writer himself belongs to. Each approach has its strengths and drawbacks, and both seek to achieve different objectives, but

provide important insights into the nature and organization of the social setting under study. In what ways can issues influence the outcome of ethnographic research? What strategies can researchers adopt to overcome obstacles to access? ‘Ethnography is branch of anthropology which has aided social researchers in the quest for a deeper understanding of different societies, social groups or cultures’ (Hammersely, 1995p365). The purpose this essay is to gain an insight into the problems that researchers

First, ethnographies emphasise the point of view of the actor. However, as Becker (1996: 57-8) argues, this a technical rather than an epistemological point. All researchers need to interpret actions and guess meanings. What separates quantitative questionnaires and ethnography is only that ethnographers demand more accuracy in interpretation. But as Becker (1996: 59) notes, ‘”don’t make up

Savage Minds is a sociocultural anthropological blog who’s writing is meant to be accessible to the public. The authors vary between graduate students and anthropologists whose relevant discussions may be appreciated by those looking to read for leisure, as well as, anthropologist looking to stay up to date with their colleagues and the modern topics they are entertaining. I have chosen blog posts by Adam Fish and Nick Seaver. Adam Fish is a cultural anthropologist, a teacher and researcher at the

participants over a period of 3 months (from May 4 to August 17). A total of 70 participants took part in the research. Data Collection In the field, ‘’data collection methods and technique, and analyses are the fundamental elements of ‘’doing ethnography’’ (Bickman and Rog 2009:544). Social researchers generally rely on primary and secondary sources of data [Ranjit 1996]. This ethnographic study, relied on secondary data to

One exemplary case to understand this ideology is Moreman’s (1988) approach to combine ethnography with conversation analysis to seek “how cultural agents were symbolized in Thai culture and how this symbolic activity occurred within an apparently universal conversational structure of person reference.” (160) This approach reveals that, via