Ethnographic and Observational Research

Ethnographic and
Observational
Research

Introduction to Ethnography
Ethnographic Topics and Field Sites
Data Collection in the Field
Focus on Observation
Basic Ethnographic Analysis

• Ethnographic Method
• Involves the collection of information about the
material products, social relationships, beliefs, and
values of a community
• Ethnographic Product
• Is a report that incorporates the information
collected by the method into a holistic description of
the culture of the community

Ethnography is the art and science of describing a
human group - its institutions, interpersonal
behaviours, material productions, and beliefs
Ethnographic researchers are primarily concerned
with the routine, everyday lives of the people they
study

Field Based Personalised Multifactorial

Long Term Inductive Dialogic Holistic

Participant observation is not a method in itself, but rather
a personal style adopted by field-based researchers who,
having been accepted by the study community, are able to
use a variety of data collection techniques to find out
about the people and their way of life

Ethnographic Topics and Field Sites

Developing people’s own perspectives

Define a research problem
Ethnographic research is used to…

Define a research problem
that cannot immediately be expressed in if x, then y teams

Identify participants in a social setting

Document a Process

Design setting-appropriate measures

• Your emotional state
• Your physical and mental health
• Your areas of competence and incompetence
• Your ability to set aside preconceptions about
people, behaviours, or social and political
situations
What is…

• The issue you are exploring is likely to be seen in a clear
fashion
• The site itself is comparable to others that have been
studies but not one that has itself been over-studied
• There is a minimum of ‘gatekeeping’ obstacles
• You will not be more of a burden than you are worth to
the community
Select a site where:

• Don’t assume that communities closer to home or with
cultures most similar to your own will be easier to work with
• Don’t take too much for granted
• Don’t allow yourself to be captured by the first people that
make you feel welcome
• Make sure that the people that guide you around the
community are respected and liked
• Make every eﬀort to be helpful
Generating Rapport

• Take the time to explain your purposes
• Do not be afraid to express your own point of view
• Make sure that you recognise and are respectful of social
conventions of the community
• Inform people about the parameters of your observation
• If you are working as part of a research team, are sure that
you don’t become your own ‘group’
Generating Rapport

Participant observation is not itself a data collection
technique, but rather the role adopted by an ethnographer
to facilitate his or her collection of data
1. Observation
2. Interviewing
3. Archival Research

Observation is the at of perceiving the activities and
interrelationships of people in the field setting through
the senses of the researcher

Statement about the particular
setting
e.g. school, home church, store
Enumeration of the participants number, general characteristics, eg. age, gender
Descriptions of the participants
rendered in as nearly objective a form as possible: ‘the
man wore a torn, dirty pair of jeans’, not ‘the man looked
poor’
Chronology of events
Description of the physical setting
and all material objects involved
use great detail, take nothing for granted
Descriptions of behaviours and
interactions
avoiding interpretations “The man was weeping and
repeatedly struck his head with his ﬁst’, not ‘the man
looked deranged’
Records of conversations or other
verbal interactions
as near to verbatim if possible

Interviewing is a process of directing a conversation so as
to collect information

• Try to avoid interjecting yourself too much into the
narrative
• Try to monitor and understand non-verbal cues
• Spend some time in ice-breaking chit chat
• Personalise the interview!
• Accept hospitality when oﬀered

Archival research is the analysis of materials that have
been stored for research, service, and other purposes
both oﬀicial and unoﬀicial

• Maps
• Records of births, deaths, marriages, real estate
transactions
• Census, tax, and voting records
• Specialised surveys
• Court proceedings
• Minutes of meetings

There are something to be aware of when conducting
archival research:
• Archived data is not always unbiased - who collected it,
for what purpose? What might have been left out?
• Computerised databases are not free from error. The
data might have been transcribed properly, but was it
right to begin with?
• Physical or logistical issues in working with data stored
in inconvenient or physically unattractive places

Good ethnographic research relies on a composition of
observational, interview, and archival sources.

Complete Observer
• Detached as possible from the setting being studied
• Observers are neither seen or noticed
• Can be seen as deception
Cahill (1985) study on the human interaction within
public bathrooms (…wtf!?)

Observer-As-Participant
• Researcher conducts observations for brief periods to
set the scene for interviews etc,
• Research is known to the ‘subjects’ but only as a
researcher
Fox (2001) study on self-change among violent
oﬀenders

Participant-As-Observer
• More fully integrated into the life of the group and is
engaged with the people
• Seen as a friend or as a neutral researcher
Anderson (1990) study on mixed race communities

Complete Participant
• Researchers becomes a participant and disappears into
the setting of the world they are in
• Going Native
• A native may receive better rapport with those they are
working with

Observational Process
Site Selection Gain Entrée
Begin
Observing
If in a team,
training may need
to occur first
Take notes 
(on everything)
Develop
Patterns
Continue until
theoretical saturation

• Descriptive Analysis is the process of taking the stream
of data and breaking it down into its component parts;
what patterns, regularities, or themes emerge?
• Theoretical Analysis is the process of figuring out how
those component parts fit together; in other words, how
can we explain the existence of patterns in the data, or
how do we account for the perceived regularities?

Patterns
• Consider each statement that was made by someone in
the community you are studying
• Was it made to others in everyday conversation?
• Was it elicited by you in an interview?
• For each of the above, consider if it was:
• Volunteered by the person
• Directed in some way by you

Patterns
• Consider each activity that you observed.
• Did it occur when you were along with a single
individual
• Did it occur when you were in the presence of a
group
• For each of the above, consider if it was:
• Volunteered by the person
• Directed in some way by you

Patterns
• Patterns can be discovered though:
• Emic Perspective (how do the people under study
understand things?)
• Etic Perspective (how can the researcher link data
from the community being studied to similar case
studies conducted elsewhere?

Analysis Framework
• There isn’t a clearly set way to do analysis (this is
beginning to be a theme here…)
• A lot of it is about picking a process that works for you
• But here are some suggestions…

Analysis
Framework
Data
Management
Overview
Reading
Clarification of
Categories
Presentation of
Data
Classificatio
n
Descriptive
Comparison
Table
Hierarchical
Tree
Metaphors
Hypothesis
Keep clearly organised field notes,
these can either be computerised or
can be pen and paper. No method is
better than the other, just depends
on how you like to work

Analysis
Framework
Data
Management
Overview
Reading
Clarification of
Categories
Presentation of
Data
Classificatio
n
Descriptive
Comparison
Table
Hierarchical
Tree
Metaphors
Hypothesis
Read through your notes before
beginning with formal analysis.
There may be things that you have
forgotten since first collecting the
data

Analysis
Framework
Data
Management
Overview
Reading
Clarification of
Categories
Presentation of
Data
Classification
Descriptive
Comparison
Table
Hierarchical
Tree
Metaphors
Hypothesis
Begin by describing what you hav
seen in your notes and then start to
take apart the narrative and identify
categories or themes

Analysis
Framework
Data
Management
Overview
Reading
Clarification of
Categories
Presentation of
Data
Classification
Descriptive
Comparison
Table
Hierarchical
Tree
Metaphors
Hypothesis
Present your data in an easy to
understand manner. Matrix, tree,
metaphor and hypothesis
approaches are all valid

Information in this
presentation was
based on…

Ethnographic and Observational Research

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