The Evolution of Ethnography

The introductory readings for the class provided some interesting insights about the history and evolution of ethnography. I found it interested that ethnography is currently in a sort of state of flux. As it was created in anthropology by anthropologists who Anthropologists who “do” ethnography: “Work with living peoples to explore and document their culture.” Traditionally, ethnography refers to both a process and a product. Traditional science is notably different than ethnography, but ethnography lacks a clear fit in either the humanities or the social sciences. Both inform the practice of ethnography, but some propose a new family for ethnography. Important concepts to consider in ethnography have to do with navigating the collaborative relationship between researchers and community, providing an understanding and context within the global community, and addressing how the ethnographer himself interacts with the data. Models of research are being created that have resemblance to ethnography, so it is necessary to further explore label of ethnography. Agar believes that the complex nature of ethnography calls for a new family of basic ethnographic epistemology is needed. While it is complex to address the concerns of anthropologists and maintain their support in the field of ethnographic study to ensure that they support the evolution, at this point I agree with Agar that it is necessary to start creating a new epistemology of ethnography. Ethnography needs to be more clearly defined and be a strong research force in and of itself. Of course, a difficulty of creating a new epistemology is that ethnography is not easily defined. This creates a challenge, but also an opportunity for researchers to truly address what ethnography is and what ethnography does. Ethnography keeps changing and evolving, which creates an exciting avenue to explore. Theory heavily influences ethnography because it shapes how the research is done and how results are interpreted. While some may be overwhelmed by the amount of theory, this in fact is what keeps ethnography evolving and meeting the needs of researchers and the communities studied.

Goals of Ethnography are 1) “To describe in rich detail and interpret the cultural life of particular social groups.” 2) “To contribute to our general knowledge about the kinds of life-worlds humans create and the nature of the cultural processes operating to create these worlds, and” 3) “To help people imagine and create better worlds.” The third goal creates the most questions for me. If ethnography is not meant to provide judgment or evaluation, it is difficult to see how ethnographers are not overlaying their own values on the research. While of course research can never be value free, if the goal is to create better worlds, the question becomes who is defining these better worlds. It seems like a danger of ethnography could be that while they may not consciously know it, ethnographers may desire to change the status quo and provide more opportunities to those they feel are underserved. This feeling could influence the way they do their research. Of course, the participants may themselves discover ways to create a better world based on more serious reflection of what it currently happening in their world. Either way, it is necessary for researchers to carefully evaluate and reflect on their own views to ensure that they are not simply imposing a new value system on the communities studied.

The Characteristics of Ethnography are 1) “It is holistic, contextual, and comparative;” 2) “It is systematic but uses multiple, nonstandard, and recursive methods; and” 3) “It elicits the group member view of reality.” These characteristics help ensure that behaviors of informants are interested within a context, that the researcher continues to develop new questions as the research progress, and that research is a systematic process.
Two interesting terms I discovered in these readings were emic and etic. In ethnography, both Emic (group member perspective) and etic (outsider perspective) are valued. Of course, that leads to questions about who determines, in the end, what is published. If the researchers do member-checking and informants disagree with their perspective, what should the process for negotiating those differences should be. I imagine that possibly the research results would reflect on the differences in the emic and etic perspective. That would lead to complex results, but it would also provide a rich view of the data.

Finally, these readings discussed how ethnography has helped to redefine what education, literacy, and classroom practice mean and look like. They have developed what it means to be literature, and helped instructors reflect on the inherent biases in their classrooms. For me, this is a very useful concept in ethnography. The more we consider what is happening in the classroom, the more we can reflect on how our practice influences the students and their learning. When we understand that education happens beyond the school, we can incorporate their own lives into the education. I imagine that at times, it can be difficult for a researcher to not want to impose their own sense of what is right and wrong, particularly if they sense that one group in the classroom is not receiving the best possible education. This is an issue I’d like to consider more as the class progresses.