Introduction to Ethnography

“what manner of men are these?”

(Geertz, 1973: 16).

Dr Lynne Pettinger

L.Pettinger@warwick.ac.uk

SO238 spring term lecture 1

Structure of Lecture

1. Epistemological underpinnings of ethnography naturalism

2. Definition / history of ethnography

3. The scope of ethnography Data, time and and space, access.

4. The researcher Insider and outsider; Covert, overt, ‘shallow cover’;

reflexivity

5. From fieldwork to writing Observing, describing, interpreting, writing

1. Epistemological Underpinnings of Ethnography

Epistemology – branch of philosophy concerned with the nature, scope and the limitations of knowledge

Hammersley and Atkinson suggest that a dichotomy underlies much social science research:

Positivism vs naturalism

Positivism

The exemplary model for the social sciences is the natural sciences; e.g. the study of universal laws that underpin human actions

Generalizability and replicability should be key goals of social research

Positivists emphasize studying the observable, or that which can be inferred from observable data; studying the intangible risks yielding speculative, non-testable theories

Naturalism

Studying phenomena in natural setting helps to derive data that is not influenced or compromised by the researcher and their tools (e.g. surveys of alcohol consumption)

The “hope of discovering laws of human behaviour is misplaced…since human behaviour is continually constructed, and reconstructed, on the basis of people’s interpretations of the situations they are in” (Hammersley and Atkinson)

To understand human behaviour, we must understand the context and motives behind their statements

What people don’t tell us is often as important as what they do tell us.

2. What is ethnography?

Ethnography is the study and descriptive recording of human cultures and societies. Research questions are emergent rather than

predetermined

‘Making the strange familiar’; walking a mile in someone else’s shoes Study the social world as it is understood and

experienced by ‘respondents’

Research is undertaken through ‘fieldwork’ – extended stays in the everyday environment of a culture or group of individuals under study it is interpretive

A very brief history of Ethnography

The term originates from 19th-century Western anthropology, typically used to refer to the descriptive study of a culture outside the West.

Celebrated early proponent was Bronislaw Malinowski (1884-1942), of the 20th-century’s most famous anthropologists.

The goal of ethnography is to “grasp the native’s point-of-view, his relation to life, to realize his vision of his world” (Argonauts of the Western Pacific).

The Chicago School

From the 1920s on, sociologists at the University of Chicago emphasized the need to study aspects of urban life through detailed ‘case studies’ of different demographic groups, exploring how urban growth and other factors affected social, political and economic relationships.

Proponents included George Herbert Mead and Robert E Park

"Go and sit in the lounges of luxury hotels and on the doorsteps of the flophouses; sit on the Gold Coast settees and on the slum shakedowns; sit in the Orchestra Hall and in the Star and the Garter Burlesque. In short go and get the seat of your pants dirty in real research” (Park)

A ‘recent classic’ example

Women on the Line. (1982) Miriam Glucksmann (as Ruth Cavendish)

Wider social / political problem – how do staff members collectively protest unjust working conditions within monitored work environments?

A study of migrant and minority ethnic women employed in a motor components factory, which chronicles their daily experience and reflects on the relationship between class, gender and politicization

Contemporary ethnographies

Andrew Canessa (2013) Intimate Indigeneities: race, sex and history in the small spaces of Andean Life.

Ashley Mears (2011) Pricing Beauty: the making of a fashion model.

3. The scope of ethnography

In order to facilitate in-depth investigation, ethnographies are typically focused on the study of small-scale phenomena, i.e. a single setting, or a single group of individuals.

Recently, there’s been a growth of ‘multi-sited ethnography’

to study phenomena and social relations influenced by globalization and the cross-national flow of capital, labour and products (Burawoy, global ethnography)

To recognise flows, networks and movement (Marcus, multi sited ethnography)

What kind of data?

Data is drawn from number of different sources: semi-structured interviews with research subjects informal conversations ‘participant observation’ – detailed recordings of everyday

behaviour through fieldnotes, voice recordings, visual records and so on.

Documents, photographs

Data are gatehred through interaction; the researcher’s observations and experiences form the data.

Giampetro Gobo: all data counts, but observation is key

Temporality

Ethnographies typically take place over a period of months and years.

This is part of the naturalist epistemology

Within limited time periods, it is possible to carry out ‘micro-ethnographies – rapid ethnographies (Handewerke). For these, it’s particularly advisable to focus on one or two aspects of an organization or group. I.e. in call centres, how do staff discuss work problems amongst themselves when they are constantly monitored by employers?

Accessibility

Much of social life is ‘private’– commercial organizations, schools, cults, extreme political movements

Other groups are more ‘public’ – mainstream political organizations (Labour / Lib Dem constituency offices), community groups, cultural spaces, marginalized groups (homeless, drug users)

Open/Public settings Hobb’s research on ‘entrepreneurship’ in London’s East End

Closed settings Thiel’s research on a NHS-owned construction site in London

Politics of accessibility

Even the most seemingly open and accessible public groups have tacit codes and membership rituals

Most organizations have ‘liminal’ spaces :Liminality – an area or state characterized by ambiguity, openness, and indeterminacy‘

‘Open’ groups are often no easier to access than private groups (Whyte, Street Corner Society)“As I began hanging about Cornerville, I found that I needed an explanation for myself and for my study. As long as I was with Doc and vouched for by him, no one asked me who I was or what I was doing. When I circulated in other groups or even among the Nortons without him, it was obvious that they were curious about me” (Whyte, 1955: 300).

4. You the researcher:a. Insiders and outsiders

The ‘insider’ already knows something...

gets access, can get on. The ‘outsider’ can be delightfully ignorant (remember

the idea of making the familiar strange... It’s good to ask naive questions)

The insider risks ‘going native’ The outsider risks never getting it We’re rarely JUST insiders or just outsiders. Complex

negotiation (Venkatesh: being ‘insider’ one group means being ‘outside’ another)

Status has implications for ethics

b. Covert vs Overt research

Pros of covert research Avoids the difficulties of accessing private organizations Helps ensure “ecological validity” – research sources are less

to likely to adjust their behaviour due to the presence of the researcher

Cons

Raises serious ethical issues (deception, absence of informed consent)

Ethnographer faces constant anxiety over having ‘cover’ blown

Recording observations is difficult

‘shallow cover’

Fine (1993) suggests that a midway point between overt and covert research is ‘shallow cover’, where a researcher admits that he/she is conducting research for possible publication, but is vague about the ultimate goals.

Mears (2011) ‘Pricing Beauty’ purposefully adopted a ‘shallow cover’ role so that sources wouldn’t refrain from candid comments about which ‘looks’ are valued most in fashion modelling

c. Reflexivity

The notion that “the orientations of researchers will be shaped by their socio-historical locations, including the values and interests that these locations confer on them” (See Hammersley and Atkinson, 15).

People’s biases matter (e.g. the publication of Malinowski’s research diaries after his ethnographic studies undermined perceptions of his integrity)

Research has a politics, and all forms of observation have the potential ability to change the character of situations that are studied.

TO BE CONTINUED….

5. Field work to writing:On Field Work, Erving Goffman

Participant observation involves “subjecting yourself, your own body,

your own personality, and your own social situation, to the set of

contingencies that play upon a set of individuals, so that you can

physically and ecologically penetrate their social situation, their work

situation, or their ethnic situation...you are in a position to note their

gestural, visual, bodily response to what’s going on around them and

you’re empathetic enough – because you’ve been taking the same

crap they’ve been taking – to sense what it is they’re responding to.

To me, that’s the core of observation” (Goffman, 1989, 126)

The practicalities

A little notebook and plenty of toilet breaks

Recordings, photos and video?

Documents

writing everything?

What are you looking for: ‘Thick description”

Clifford Geertz, The Interpretation of Culture (1973)

Social context is crucial to ethnographic interpretations

There is a difference between a ‘wink’ and a ‘blink’ in all social endeavours

Ethnographers must decode the social implications and functions of different social rituals

Analysis and interpretation

The analysis of data involves the researcher’s interpretations of the meanings and implications of human actions and behaviour, often relating actions to the wider social, political and economic environment.

The analysis is usually centered on narrative descriptions rather than statistical analyses

Writing “tiny moral tales” (Denzin)

"Theory, writing, and ethnography are inseparable material practices. Together they create the conditions that locate the social inside the text" (Denzin, 1997: xii).