Qualitative Research Techniques

Ethnography
 Ethnography
• What is ethnography?
• Gaining access to the research site
• Overt/covert research
• Doing fieldwork: the researcher’s roles
• Sampling
• How to take fieldnotes and what to do with
them
• Leaving the research setting
 Definitions
• Ethnography – an umbrella term for a family of
qualitative research methods
• Often used interchangeably with ‘participant
observation’
• The ethnographer immerses herself in a chosen
setting for a prolonged period of time
• Watching, participating, asking questions
• Ethnography is both the method and the
outcome
• E.g. An ethnography of a primary school/
convent/nightclub etc.
 Ethnography entails
• immersed in a social setting for an extended period of time;
• makes regular observations of the behaviour of members of
that setting; listens to and engages in conversations;
• interviews informants on issues that are not directly
amenable to observation or that the ethnographer is unclear
about (or indeed for other possible reasons);
• collects documents about the group;
• develops an understanding of the culture of the group and
people’s behaviour within the context of that culture;
• and writes up a detailed account of that setting.
THIS?
 Ethnography and fieldwork: getting
‘out there’
1. Developing a research problem (what will
you study and why?)
2. Choosing a setting (where?)
3. Participants (who?)
4. Access (how?)
5. Fieldwork: observation, field notes
interviews, and focus groups (what?)
 Access
• One of the key and yet most difficult steps in
ethnography is gaining access to a social
setting that is relevant to the research
problem in which you are interested.
• The way in which access is approached differs
along several dimensions, one of which is
whether the setting is a relatively open one or
a relatively closed one (Bell 1969).
 Access
Why it may be hard to get in:
• Personal attributes (age, gender, skin colour,
nationality, class, sexual orientation)
• Research topic
• First impression
• Covert, overt, or semi-overt research?
 Access
• Adjusting to the field
• Power relations
• The power of neutral information
• Learning from own mistakes and trying again
• Official/unofficial route
• Time
• Learning the language

N.B. The process of gaining access never stops

 Gaining access: an example
• Whyte (1955) Street
Corner Society
• A study of young men in
‘Cornerville’
• A public
setting/difficulties getting
in
• Whyte befriended Doc,
who turned into his key
informant and gatekeeper
 Covert/overt research
• Most ethnography nowadays is semi-overt
• Covert – the ethnographer does not reveal
their ‘true’ identity - not disclosing the fact
that you are a researcher.
• Overt – the participants are aware of the
researcher’s motives and they grant their
consent for the data to be used
 Covert research: an example
• Humphreys, L. (1970) Tearoom
Trade: Impersonal Sex in Public
Places. Chicago: Aldine

• Participant observation in
public toilets
• Humphreys was a ‘watch
queen’
• Obtained the men’s personal
details and subsequently
interviewed them
 Advantages- Covert

• There is no problem of access. Adopting a covert role

largely gets around the access problem, because the
researcher does not have to seek permission to gain
entry to a social setting or organization.
• Reactivity is not a problem. Using a covert role also
reduces reactivity because participants do not know
the person conducting the study is a researcher.
Therefore, they are less likely to adjust their
behaviour because of the researcher’s presence.
 Disadvantages- Covert
• The problem of taking notes- notes are very important to an
ethnographer, and it is too risky to rely exclusively on your
memory.
• The problem of not being able to use other methods.
Ethnography entails the use of several methods, but, if the
researcher is in a covert role, it is difficult to steer
conversations in a certain direction for fear of detection and it
is essentially impossible to engage in interviewing
• Anxiety. The covert ethnographer is under constant threat of
having his or her cover blown
• Ethical problems. Covert observation transgresses two
important ethical tenets: it does not provide participants with
the opportunity for informed consent
Doing fieldwork: the researcher’s roles

Different roles (Gold, 1958)

• Complete participant
• Participant as observer
• Observer as participant
• Complete observer
This distinction is not always useful –
you are never simply an observer
 ‘Going native’
• Bryman (2012)‘Going native’ refers to a plight that is
supposed sometimes to afflict ethnographers when they lose
their sense of being a researcher and become wrapped up in
the worldview of the people they are studying.
• The prolonged immersion of ethnographers in the lives of the
people they study, coupled with the commitment to seeing
the social world through their eyes, lie behind the risk and
actuality of going native.
• When the ethnographer becomes a member of the studied
group/ loses the sense of being a researcher
• May be dangerous but it happens
• Religious conversion, romantic involvement with a research
participant, taking on the views of the group studied
 Hunter Thompson (1967) Hell’s
Angels
By the middle of summer (1965) I became
so involved in the outlaw scene that I was
no longer sure whether I was doing research
on the Hell’s Angels or being slowly
absorbed by them. I found myself spending
two or three days each week in Angel bars,
in their homes, and on runs and parties. In
the beginning I kept them out of my own
world, but after several months my friends
grew accustomed to finding Hell’s Angels in
my apartment at any hour of the day or
night. Their arrivals and departures caused
periodic alarm in the neighbourhood and
sometimes drew crowds. (Thompson, 1967:
283)
 Field notes
• Because of the frailties of human memory,
ethnographers have to take notes based on their
observations.
• These should be fairly detailed summaries of events
and behaviour and the researcher’s initial reflections
on them.
• The notes need to specify key dimensions of
whatever is observed or heard.
 Ethnographic fieldnotes
• When? What? How?
• When? ASAP, best during an observation but
not always possible
• How? Rushed and fragmented, key words,
pictures and drawings, even elaborate notes
need refining
CONSISTENCY! ‘If in doubt, write it down’
 Ethnographic fieldnotes (cont.)
What?
• Impossible to record everything

• Sophistication comes with time

• Detailed can be good

• Especially if we are dealing with conversations

and emotional situations
 Types of fieldnotes
• Jottings – brief phrases to be developed
• Description – everything you recall about the
occasion (time, place, people, surroundings,
animals, smells, sounds etc.)
• Analysis – what have you learned so far?
• Reflection – what was it like for you?
 Sampling
• Whatever is available
or
• Convenience and snowball sampling
Or
• Theoretical sampling – gathering data in
accordance with the emerging theory
• From a general research question to a
hypothesis
 When does the ethnographer stop?
• Data saturation OR the field disintegrates
• Can be difficult because:
a) Your participants do not wish you to leave
b) You find it hard to leave the setting

• You may feel relieved,

• Or sad,
• Or guilty…

Oritz, S. (2004) Leaving the Private World of Wives of Professional

Athletes, Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, 33(4)
Hunter Thompson (1965) Hell’s Angels
 Aftermath
• Keeping in touch: a moral obligation?

• Feeding the data back to the participants

• Follow-up research