Ethnography

For first M. Phil paper, related to questions of method & methodology.

Bibliographic Deets

 * Ethnography: Principles in Practice. Second Edition. Martyn Hammersley & Paul Atkinson. Routledge. London & New York. 1995.

Overview

 * Book engages with the technique of ethnography, taken from Anthropology for use in qualitative research methods in the social sciences, specifically in Sociology.

Introduction

 * Discussion of Positivism vs. Naturalism (3- 10)
 * Positivism as study based on models & experimentation taken from natural sciences, like physics (4)
 * Naturalism as study undertaken in 'natural' world undisturbed by researcher -> observation (6)


 * Ethnography as a slightly different path
 * Reflexivity of the researcher (at once human/in society and studying humans/society) is one of the grounding principles of ethnography (16).
 * Positivism & Naturalism fail to acknowledge this.


 * "The image of the researcher is brought into parallel with that of the people studied, as actively making sense of the world, yet without undermining the commitment of research to realism" (19)

Research Design

 * No clear beginning -> "such research cannot be programmed ... its practice is replete with the unexpected" (23)
 * "social events themselves may stimulate research" (27)
 * some problem or theory as a starting point
 * These are called the "foreshadowed problems" by Hammersley quoting Malinowski (24)
 * Interplay between "the topical and the generic, or the substantive and the formal" (31)
 * Importance of selecting an ideal setting (36-40)

Access

 * Is tough to negotiate. Including permissions.

Field Relations

 * Initial Responses -> prejudice and distrust (80-81)
 * Impression management -> "personal appearance can be a salient consideration. Sometimes it may be necessary for the researcher to dress in a way that is very familiar to the people to be studied." (83)
 * "by systematically modifying field roles, it may be possible to collect different types of data, whose comparison can greatly enhance interpretation of the social processes under study" (123)

Insider Accounts

 * "It is a distinctive feature of social research that the 'objects' studied are in fact 'subjects' and themselves produce accounts of their world" (124)
 * This section is about the fact that "everyone is a participant observer" and can possibly be asked/trained to furnish additional views and ideas on sociological phenomena (125)

Record & Organizing Data

 * Fieldnotes
 * Organizing/Structuring Field Notes

The Process of Analysis

 * "Theories are not the only product of ethnographic work; equally common and important are descriptions and explanations" (238)