What do ethnographers pay attention to

The researcher must not intentionally try to redirect or influence the environment or participants under examination. A challenge the ethnographer faces is that, although the researcher must keep a neutral frame of mind and avoid bringing personal bias into the equation, their direct participation in the study involves them on a personal level.

This happens when their own lived experience mixes with the environment and reacts to the subjects and environment involved Alasuutari, ; Murchison, ; Tombro, In order to drill down and gain access to the personal experiences of a society or culture in action, the ethnographer must become involved on a personal level to some degree. It has been argued that participant-observation involves acquiring important first-hand knowledge of the subjects being studied but it can cause the ethnographer to involuntarily abandon their objective stance.

When this occurs, the ethnographer may experience social or cultural empathy that could sway the conclusions of the investigation.

While all this may be necessary, there is the opposite assumption that a researcher who becomes a "participant" cannot maintain the ability to capture and acknowledge the larger picture. Instead, the ethnographer may absorb the experience of events and may not have the ability to remain objective once they have immersed themselves in the study over a period of time.

This can occur when concentrated experiences and emotions have actively ensued over a prolonged time period. The first-hand experience of the ethnographer can change the long-term perception of their environment when they continue to act as a participant-observer long term Ladner, ; Murchison, Ethnographic research methods require the participant-observer to spend considerable time at their field site.

Ethnography happens over a period of weeks, months, or years. Spending time in the field helps facilitate better data collection and helps the ethnographer develop a deeper sense of the events or culture under investigation. During an ethnographic study, participant-observation allows the researcher to meet with and speak to all levels of employees or members of society, not just a select few chosen by leadership ranks. Most times there is a direct correlation between the quality of the study when compared with the amount of time spent in the field.

It has been noted though that over time the research relationship evolves as participants become more familiar with the study and comfortable with the relationship they have formed with the ethnographer Geertz, ; Murchison, ; Tombro, Therefore, allowing for extra time necessitates that the ethnographer plans their project timing and deadlines carefully to allow for a full investigation of the phenomena under consideration.

Another thing to keep in mind is the fact that most of the time ethnographers work under deadlines or departure dates. The goal then should be to ensure that the researcher's time is optimized within the structure of these deadlines. It has been noted that when a researcher first chooses to use the ethnographic method and has not developed enough experience with this approach, they may delay the start of the participant-observation process.

This stems from a real lack of knowledge on what to expect from the process and how to approach the social nature of the study Averill, ; Tombro, The ethnographer may even stall fieldwork due to apprehension or a lack of confidence. However, procrastination is detrimental to an ethnographer's research study because precious time is lost. This can result in reduced research opportunities and outcomes.

It is important to remember that planning and timing are critical aspects of any successful ethnographic venture. The ethnographer puts a lot of work into their project and starts out with an exciting set of ideas. The researcher should keep in mind that building on this enthusiasm during the first stages of the research process is an important first step.

Participants are commonly perceptive and inquisitive when it comes to ethnographic projects and their purpose Alasuutari, ; Tombro, ; Van Maanen, You may receive countless questions about your research project including queries about how the idea to organize the study originated, what the utility of the project is, why this audience, or why you chose to evaluate this environment rather than another. As a research expert, the investigator must be prepared to answer these questions and to clarify your commitment to the process.

As a researcher, you will likely have fairly lengthy responses to the questions delivered, but you should also be ready to provide relatively short versions of the answers as well Murchison, We have already learned that deception and misrepresentation are not acceptable practices. When you begin your field research, you should keep in mind the importance of avoiding miscommunication and deception with the process and to demonstrate a sincere interest in the phenomena under investigation to your participants Bryman, ; Murchison, To get participants to fully engage in the process and assist you with your research, you should be able to explain and your own interest with clear examples.

The ethnographer knows that potential participants are acknowledging the study if they tell you that they are excited and committed to the process. The main thing to remember is to exhibit your own genuine interest in the process. It is important to communicate fully to your participants about the sacrifices both of you will be making throughout the process.

This can be achieved by spending time to educate and communicate with participants about the process prior to getting started. When participants understand the reasoning behind the project, they are more likely to understand the potential advantages that complement your research process and become supportive within the group or social unit.

When explaining your research process in diverse situations, you may discover that the explanations can lead to interesting conversations that help shape or even sometimes redirect the project. This exchange is part of the engaged nature of ethnographic research Geertz, ; Murchison, Getting ready to enter the field or environment under investigation, it is important to be prepared for the unknown.

In ethnographic research, there can be many unknowns, so how does one prepare for this? When deciding how to approach a research project, many researchers turn to research books and journals found in their local libraries or bookstores. The most important thing to remember when approaching ethnographic research is to just get started! Once your research begins, it will reduce much of the fear and apprehension of observing living participants Ladner, ; Murchison, ; Tombro, If you have decided to go into the field where you are a non-native, either in your appearance or in speaking the language, you may feel out of place.

Keeping in mind that the first step in the ethnographic research process is usually the most difficult will help the ethnographer alleviate stress and launch the process.

Something to consider when preparing for your research project is to make sure you have a well-developed research plan prior to beginning your research Bryman, ; Creswell, ; Murchison, ; Tombro, Having a well thought out and prepared research plan allows the ethnographer to feel better prepared to face the research process and can reduce some of the uncertainty they may feel. The ethnographer's participant-observer role relinquishes a lot of the control over to the research environment and participants at hand.

This is something that the ethnographer must reconcile amongst the preparation in the research plan and its implementation. Equally important to note is confronting the pressure involved with conducting your research project in a familiar environment. If this is the case, the ethnographer performs the research in a familiar place. If so the researcher may face various expectations from participants that could create a sense of apprehension about their own role as researcher. The preliminary stage of your research is important because it sets the tone for the research that follows.

It also creates first impressions that can be hard to change Creswell, ; Ladner, It is important to note that facing these fears head on will help guard against stalling your project and instead get you started.

It is important to note that getting started is the biggest hurdle to overcome. Once the process has begun and you have completed your first participant-observation, you will discover that your stress is alleviated and that the process will become easier moving forward. Fieldwork means being visible to your participants and to personally collect data through hand-written note taking and ethnographic mapping.

The ethnographer as participant is always there taking notes, making observations, and acting as the primary research instrument to navigate the complexity of being within the social environment Ladner, The use of recording devices are not always a viable option, so the researcher must be prepared to have pen and paper ready at all times.

Passive observation within a framework of active participation makes the whole process a delicate balance to reconcile between observer and participant. It is also important to remember that at the beginning of the process, most participants will be curious and excited to begin.

It is imperative to build upon this beginner's enthusiasm to capture the trust and cooperation of the participants and to also maintain momentum as your move forward. As the research expert, the ethnographer should be prepared to respond to questions and be able to explain your dedication to the process. A researcher should prepare both longer or shorter responses to the possible questions asked due to differences in time constraints and the audience at hand Murchison, ; Van Mannen, A challenging task in ethnography comes in the form of sorting the routine or regular things observed versus the extraordinary or unique items observed.

Many researchers in the past have been drawn to emphasizing the extraordinary discoveries as they made for a better story and captured a more exotic appeal over time. However, the downside to overemphasizing things is that the data collected, which is a primary goal in ethnography, can sometimes lead to being counterproductive as most humans cannot relate to the cultural or social phenomena being documented. Yet, focusing solely on regular or routine aspects of cultural or social phenomena under investigation shifts the focus of the reader to miss important variations between the social lives of different cultures and environments.

Identifying distinctive interests and peculiarities and the role that creative and inventive ways social attitudes or conflicts can stimulate significant variety within the way groups interact is also significant. Therefore, the researcher should plan to identify both the regular and the extraordinary aspects of the phenomena under investigation.

The outcome of the data collected may emphasize one dimension over another, but they must be reconciled against what needs to be addressed in both the routine and extraordinary. When conducting participant-observation and writing notes and creating ethnographic maps, you should remember to pay attention to any repetition and to that which is unique. In the beginning of the participant-observation the ethnographer will not be able to identify that a particular action or occurrence happens every time or that certain words or symbols always appear until they have been observing long enough to identify multiple similar events or discussions.

It is important to keep in mind that being aware of signs of repetition is important from the outset. The researcher must pay attention to things that repeat so that the study can proceed as a more functionally effective observation. A lot of the experience gained over time occurs through observation of repetitive practices, any types of imitated behaviors and a bit of trial and error. In situations where the researcher comes to a field site as an obvious outsider, they should try to ensure their first instinct is to observe.

That way the ethnographer has the opportunity to observe and learn the appropriate manners or behavior of a particular situation to better blend in with the group and develop trust among the participants.

Developing a default pause to see how others are react or respond to a particular situation with help determine whether a certain behavior or approach is appropriate for the group dynamic. Becoming a student who learns through observation is helpful in determining what is acceptable or not in a given situation.

The researcher may find that some aspects of a culture or environment become so routine that most participants are no longer consciously aware of their behaviors or actions. The process of participant-observation can sometimes reveal that some conventions that exist or certain expectations derived by the researcher about the environment may require that the research perspective may need to change in order to blend in slightly different behaviors, customs, or responses.

Aside from becoming a more effective participant-observer, paying closer attention to details of repetition allows the ethnographer to study the central features of shared cultural and social systems. It is known that individuals repeat things for a reason, which is to say that they are usually important aspects of a culture or society.

Therefore, noticing repetitive events, behaviors, phrases, or symbols can shed light on the most important shared social and cultural components of the environment under study. In this chapter, we reviewed how to create a foundation for productive participant-observation. With this knowledge, we can start to understand how the participant-observation process evolves into a well-detailed research study.

Many women said that they did not know. Others stated that weaving was easy and could be boring so they liked to make changes to keep the huipiles interesting and to keep weaving from getting dull. Though I spent hundreds of hours observing women preparing to weave, weaving, and selling their textiles to tourists, I did not truly understand what the women were telling me until I tried weaving myself. When I watched them, the process seemed so easy and simple.

They attached strings of thread vertically to two ends of the back-strap looms. When weaving, they increased and decreased the tension on the vertical threads by leaning backward and forward with the back strap and teased individual threads horizontally through the vertical threads to create the desired pattern.

After each thread was placed, they pushed it down with great force using a smooth, flat wooden trowel. They did the entire process with great ease and fluidity. When I began to weave, it took me several days simply to learn how to sit correctly with a back-strap loom and achieve the appropriate tension.

I failed repeatedly at setting up the loom with vertically strung threads and never got close to being able to create a design. Thus, I learned through participant observation that weaving is an exceptionally difficult task.

Even expert weavers who had decades of experience sometimes made mistakes as half-finished weavings and rejected textiles littered many homes. Although the women appeared to be able to multi-task while weaving stoking the fire, calling after small children, cooking food , weaving still required a great deal of concentration to do well. Through participant observation, I was able to recognize that other factors likely drove the changes in their textiles.

Participant observation was an important tool in my research and is central to most ethnographic studies today. Another primary technique for gathering ethnographic data is simply talking with people—from casual, unstructured conversations about ordinary topics to formal scheduled interviews about a particular topic. An important element for successful conversations and interviews is establishing rapport with informants.

Sometimes, engaging in conversation is part of establishing that rapport. Ethnographers frequently use multiple forms of conversation and interviewing for a single research project based on their particular needs. They sometimes record the conversations and interviews with an audio recording device but more often they simply engage in the conversation and then later write down everything they recall about it. Life histories provide the context in which culture is experienced and created by individuals and describe how individuals have reacted, responded, and contributed to changes that occurred during their lives.

They also help anthropologists be more aware of what makes life meaningful to an individual and to focus on the particulars of individual lives, on the tenor of their experiences and the patterns that are important to them. Researchers often include life histories in their ethnographic texts as a way of intimately connecting the reader to the lives of the informants.

The genealogical kinship method has a long tradition in ethnography. Developed in the early years of anthropological research to document the family systems of tribal groups, it is still used today to discover connections of kinship , descent, marriage, and the overall social system.

Because kinship and genealogy are so important in many nonindustrial societies, the technique is used to collect data on important relationships that form the foundation of the society and to trace social relationships more broadly in communities. When used by anthropologists, the genealogical method involves using symbols and diagrams to document relationships. Circles represent women and girls, triangles represent men and boys, and squares represent ambiguous or unknown gender.

Equal signs between individuals represent their union or marriage and vertical lines descending from a union represent parent-child relationships. The death of an individual and the termination of a marriage are denoted by diagonal lines drawn across the shapes and equal signs. Kinship charts are diagramed from the perspective of one person who is called the Ego, and all of the relationships in the chart are based on how the others are related to the Ego.

Individuals in a chart are sometimes identified by numbers or names, and an accompanying list provides more-detailed information. Within any culture or subculture, there are always particular individuals who are more knowledgeable about the culture than others and who may have more-detailed or privileged knowledge. Anthropologists conducting ethnographic research in the field often seek out such cultural specialists to gain a greater understanding of certain issues and to answer questions they otherwise could not answer.

When an anthropologist establishes a rapport with these individuals and begins to rely more on them for information than on others, the cultural specialists are referred to as key informants or key cultural consultants.

Key informants can be exceptional assets in the field, allowing the ethnographer to uncover the meanings of behaviors and practices the researcher cannot otherwise understand. In addition, ethnographers can check information they obtained from other informants, contextualize it, and review it for accuracy.

Having a key informant in the field is like having a research ally. The relationship can grow and become enormously fruitful. Individuals who are more knowledgeable about their culture than others and who are particularly helpful to the anthropologist. A social worker introduced Whyte to Doc and the two hit it off. He introduced Whyte to his family and social group and vouched for him in the tight-knit community, providing access that Whyte could not have gained otherwise.

Field notes are indispensable when conducting ethnographic research. Generally speaking, ethnographers write two kinds of notes: field notes and personal reflections. Field notes are detailed descriptions of everything the ethnographer observes and experiences. They also frequently include the content of conversations the ethnographer had and things the ethnographer overheard others say.

Ethnographers also sometimes include their personal reflections on the experience of writing field notes. Often, brief notes are jotted down in a notebook while the anthropologist is observing and participating in activities. Later, they expand on those quick notes to make more formal field notes, which may be organized and typed into a report. It is common for ethnographers to spend several hours a day writing and organizing field notes.

Ethnographers often also keep a personal journal or diary that may include information about their emotions and personal experiences while conducting research.

These personal reflections can be as important as the field notes. Ethnography is not an objective science. Everything researchers do and experience in the field is filtered through their personal life experiences.

Two ethnographers may experience a situation in the field in different ways and understand the experience differently. For this reason, it is important for researchers to be aware of their reactions to situations and be mindful of how their life experiences affect their perceptions.

The work of anthropologist Renato Rosaldo provides a useful example of how anthropologists can use their emotional responses to fieldwork situations to advance their research. In , Rosaldo and his wife, Michelle, were conducting research among the Ilongots of Northern Luzon in the Philippines.

Rosaldo was studying men in the community who engaged in emotional rampages in which they violently murdered others by cutting off their heads. Although the practice had been banned by the time Rosaldo arrived, a longing to continue headhunting remained in the cultural psyche of the community.

Whenever Rosaldo asked a man why he engaged in headhunting, the answer was that rage and grief caused him to kill others. At the beginning of his fieldwork, Rosaldo felt that the response was overly simplistic and assumed that there had to be more to it than that.

He was frustrated because he could not uncover a deeper understanding of the phenomenon. Only through the very personal and emotionally devastating experience of losing his wife was Rosaldo able to understand the emic perspective of the headhunters.