Talk:Ethnography

should enter a discussion on business ethnography here as well

Hoyamann 20:16, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

need to distinguish between the genre of writing and the research done to support it

The term ethnography is actually more precise than what the article suggests: Ethnography denotes the monograph that scholars (anthropologists) write following their research. The research itself is called ethnographic research -- not ethnography! The methods are called ethnographic methods.

I agree but also there is different uses of the term and understanding of ethnography. Anthropologists and sociologists (at least in the US) use the same term for different things. 65.6.182.51 00:59, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Ruth Fulton Benedict

Mention should be made here of Ruth Fulton Benedict. The one person who was mentioned (until today) is someone I've never even heard of - I'd have to go back to the article to get her name in my head again, she's that obscure. I'll add Benedict and a few others when I get a chance, although I'm thinking maybe we just need a section saying See Also and then listing classic ethnographies, each of which should have a page (as should their authors). Lots of work to do. That Benedict isn't mentioned and the other person (Kim?) was, is amazing. --Levalley (talk) 20:55, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

I agree with your general point. I am not sure that Benedict is so important as an ethnographer, though - her greatest work was comparative and theoretical (and I am not sure if I would call The Chrysanthemum and the Sword ethnography as such). But I do agree with your general point. In addition to Malinowski, I consider James Mooney an unsung hero of ethnograpny, but of course Firth, Fortas, Evans-Pritchard, Bateson, Mead, Steward, Rappaport, Barth, Belmonte, Hannerz, Fei, Briggs ... I guess these are pretty obvious ... Slrubenstein | Talk 21:57, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

quantitative and qualitative

Ethnography isn't just qualitative research. It uses elements of quantitative data as well, depending on the style of the ethnographer. test

Agreed, ethnographic writing may include survey data and other quantitative writing. It's up to the author to include such fieldwork.falsedef 07:46, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

In the beginning of the article is stated that Ethnos=nation. when you look at the "Ethnicity" page here on wikipedia, it states ethnos=people. to my knowledge the latter is better corresponding with the original greek term.

Plagarized?

This whole article appears to be copied directly from http://en.allexperts.com/e/e/et/ethnography.htm

--192.43.227.18 12:21, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. Someone needs to start it from scratch.

Allexperts is clearly using the content from here, not the other way around, and they are using it according to the copyright as far as I can tell. --Ronz 23:55, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Digital Ethnography

I referenced Wikipedia's Ethnography entry in a published article focusing on Professor Wesch and Digital Ethnography. I think the Ethnography entry would benefit from Professor Wesch or other expert's opinion on Digital Ethnography. --Dkaufman1 15:38, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

I've read the article numerous times now and don't see any mention that any part of this article comes from a Chicago newspaper. It doesn't hold up to WP:EL. I suggest you post some sources here for examination by other editors. --Ronz 15:52, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Ethnography of communication

It seems here to me that the absence of description or even mention of the ethnography of communication is really obvious. And putting aside the fact that I personally think it should get at least a mention, I noticed that ethnography of communication redirects here, yet there is no explanation or further mention of it. Shall I try and work it in? I'll probably give it its own section... thoughts? Electriceel _[Talk] 11:43, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

Well, I've started it's own page (ethnography of communication) rather than section, so anyone with anything good to contribute, do! Electriceel [ə.lɛk.tʃɹɪk il] 01:24, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Awful Introduction

"Ethnography is the genre of writing that presents varying degrees of qualitative and quantitative descriptions of human social phenomena, based on fieldwork"

This is just bad. Can someone with knowledge of the field please come up with something a little less obtuse and less confusing?--Gatfish (talk) 22:50, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

I'm working on it. I think the article is shaping up. I like the last paragraph, though I'm not sure these are "subgenres" of ethnography (or what subgenres might be, I've been reading them for 40 years and have a huge collection, if I could put them into any kind of order, aside from geographic, I'd be really happy - so if someone can explain what the subgenres are, I'd appreciate it). Naturally, ethnography has changed over time. Goals of early ethnography were to detail disappearing cultures in as much detail as possible (Boas should be mentioned here). Later, people became more critical of their own work, the limitations of their knowledge, and their often eccentric status as "Western observer" or "downright outsider" inside a foreign culture. When can one be sure one is actually "inside" the culture became a big problem (still is). Then, more and more anthropologists turned to studying their own cultures, to see if they could do a good job in areas where presumably they knew the subject (I'm reading Desmond's book on tourism right now, her bibliography has a host of these emic studies in it, very interesting). But I see this as the evolution of ethnography, not as subgenres. Ethnographies used to be almost always (or always) situated a particular place and time (The Nuer as viewed by Evans-Pritchard over his stated number of years). Now, people write ethnographies on net cultures or activity-based groups (gamblers, sports fans, romance readers, etc.) that have no particular place, but clearly share elements of culture. I think the article should say more about all of this, but I'm learning that every time I make an edit, to avoid the claim that I'm doing "original research" (by looking around the room I'm sitting in at the various books), I have to have citations. That takes effort (I can only deal with getting down and opening so many books a day at this stage in my life!) Anyway, thanks for the feedback. This is a high importance article in anthropology.Levalley (talk) 20:53, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Levalley. I would just add, since I too would hate to have to come up with subgenres to group ethnographies, that we are best of sticking to our WP:NOR policy. It is not for us to propose genres and subgenres of ethnographies (or methods or approaches to methods): it is for us to find the significant views found in notable sources, and use them; if there are conflicting views, we ned to say so and explain the conflict. I o not have them in my posession ut I know in the past ten or fifteen years a number of books on ethnographic research and writing (aimed at college audiences) have come out - we could use them, for starts. I wish I remembered the neames, there are at least a few. One author's last name is Van something, I think - I wish I could be more helpful. Slrubenstein | Talk 22:02, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

Lack of Definition

I've read through all of the details & posts and I am still unclear on how to describe what ethnography or ethnographic research actually is. Can anyone help? I'm no layman...but seriously what is this all about?A.howie (talk) 00:59, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

I tried to help. It may need more work. I'm happier with the article now, myself, than I was. An ethnography is simply a field report on a people or a culture, when all is said and done. They almost always follows an outline, remarkably the same from book to book.--Levalley (talk) 20:48, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

I agree, but according to another definition it is, a branch of anthropology dealing with the scientific description of individual cultures.[1] It has at a point, during a case study, that is does involve some writing. However with most of it nothing to do with writing and according to the other definitions. I think that ethnography is also related to people watching as well. So on the page, for ethnography i would put, at the end, what is is related to and the definition to people watching.--Mdbridges (talk) 23:55, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

Definition

The Definition of ethnography is, a branch of anthropology dealing with the scientific description of individual cultures...it has nothing to do with writing

--Mdbridges (talk) 22:28, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

Ethnographics

Hi I created a digital design research process based upon Ethnography called Ethnographics in 2002 which is now being taken up by various usability companies. Should Ethnographics have a seperate page or become a subset of Ethnography?Karl smith (talk) 13:19, 15 Feb 2009

Subgenres

While I'm questioning the use of that word (can't make it make sense to myself), I'm thinking that what might have been intended there was some mention of the fact that, besides professional anthropologists churning out dozens of doctoral dissertations and monographs that are ethnographies, each year, there are number of other categories of things that are also ethnographies, for example:

Films (including Hollywood movies - see Karl Heider's book) Museums (often do a very good job of presenting a culture, and with lots of words involved) Novels (ethnographic novels are my favorite kind of ethnography and anthropologists Stanley Diamond and Renato Rosaldo, among others, have argued that they may be better in some cases than what anthropologists write about a culture, War and Peace comes to mind) Poems (Stanley Diamond wrote and published a lot about poetry as ethnography) Journals and diaries (many anthropologists include them in the category of ethnography, if the writer is writing about general cultural or social issues in their area).--Levalley (talk) 20:59, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

Not sure how these things got in the lead

descriptions of human societies, which as a methodology does not prescribe any particular method (e.g. interview, questionnaire), but instead prescribes the nature of the study (i.e. to describe people through writing) . If someone can figure out what parts of these are being cited (and why) and work them back in that would be good, otherwise, let's stick to really well known methodologists - like Naroll - or ethnographers - like Evans-Pritchard or Maybury-Lewis and similar, especially in the lead.--Levalley (talk) 21:10, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

I still can't get through the whole article in one read, it doesn't flow. I'm going to be adding some editorial tags, not because the article is bad, but because it's a wiki and at some point got a little disorganized.Levalley (talk) 21:51, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

Anthropological methods are valid methods of observation

I am not going to argue that, with anyone, any more than I'd argue with people who study bears about whether they study bears. Anthropologists study people and they do it mainly by doing fieldwork and writing it up as ethnography. It's that simple. Ethnography is pretty straightforward and deserves a really good article, hopefully with great bits of writing from some of them. And pictures. I like many things about the existing article, btw., but am also committed to improving it. Please bear with me as I find the actual citations, I have them, I'm just getting pretty slow these days about getting up on the stepstool to pull everything down. All help and commentary welcome. There is, however, no need to get into meta-aspects of various observational methodologies on this page - that can be for another article.--Levalley (talk) 21:36, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

I agree with you 100%. The article is a mess, a typical result of several diferent people adding information in an uncoordinated way. I am sure your work will be a real improvement. I have a few ideas, based on my reading of the curent article: (1) it is important to distinguish between "ethnography" as a genre of writing, and "ethnographic methods" meaning the research medods that eventually produce an ethnography (which include question and answer method, participant-observation, and so on); (2) while I agree with you that ethnography is the core work of anthropology (or at the core), we do have to recognize that other disciplines use the word with their own traditions e.g. the Chicago school of sociology; (3) further to point 1, I think it would make sense to have one section of the article on different methods and methodological debates, perhaps in subsections (perhaps use Mead-Freeman as a case-study of a debate on research reliability/authority), as well as debates on research ethics (perhaps using Chagnon-Tierney/Turner as a case-study in ethics) and research politics (it may be enough to use Scheper-Hughes' Current Anthropology article on militant anthropology and the responses to it!) ... and another section on ethnology as a genre of writing, drawing on the 1986 books by Clifford, Marcus and Fisher and perhaps others who have written on the topic ... certainly there are big differences between We the Tikopea and The Cunning of Recognition or Discourses of the Vanishing or Shamanism, Colonialism, and the Wild Man - how ethnographies are written have changed. I am not sure in which section I would put a discussion of "reflexive ethnography" (Rabinow, Powdermaker, Behar ... there are a number of good examples) - it is definitely a genre of writing, but its objective is to reveal the personal dimension of ethnographic research i.e. it has a methodological significance. Does this make sense? Slrubenstein | Talk 21:49, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

Yes, indeed, it does make sense. While it might be possible to have a disambiguation page, it seems more helpful simply to organize the article along the lines you suggest, with a principle distinction between "ethnography" as a kind of writing and "ethnography" as a kind of method. The further distinction between the anthropological and sociological uses could then be included. I would certainly include Geertz in the list of authors mentioned, along with those you suggest. I think Levi-Strauss and Renato Rosaldo should also be mentioned, for methodological reasons. The Chicago School began to use the word at a certain point in time (I would have to look up the date) but certainly long after the term was in use in anthropology - so a brief history of the term should be included. Oh, and Gil Herdt's work is interesting in the same way that Rabinow et al are interesting - and I agree with whoever said Ruth Benedict should be mentioned. Emic ethnographers, like Alphonso Ortiz should be mentioned as well. Then, there are also ethnographic works by filmmakers, novelists and poets, most of whom were not academics (Stanley Diamond wrote quite a bit on this, and began writing ethnography/poetry late in his life). Organizing it into various sections will take time - I'm busy with finals and grant-writing right now, but I really want to work on this article ASAP.Levalley (talk) 02:21, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

I basically agree with everything you write - I agree that for now one article best serves both the genre of writing and the research methods; if it gets long it can be disambiguiated but it would be easy to start on it including both. As to who and who not to incluce, with the exception of Benedict (see above) I agree, I think to avoid WP:NOR objections, it would be best if we let Reliable Sources do the chosing for us - I bet that drawing on Writing Culture and Anthropology as Cultural Critique as well as review articles from Annual Reviews other secondary sources on "ethnography" we would end up listing most people you, I and other editors would agree are notable ethnographers, and if some personal favs don't make it, at least we have an objevctive standard and won't have to argue among ourselves. Slrubenstein | Talk 14:38, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Unnecessarily long-winded lede

An interesting source is used for lede. A simple ethnology textbook, dictionary, or encyclopedia would provide a better definition than "a feminist perspective on the loves of women"! Also, the definition states the same thing twice: "provides descriptions of human societies" ... "to describe people through writing". The dictionary.com definition is clearer and more concise. MisterSheik (talk) 20:29, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

Agreed. The opening is weak, and it doesn't inspire confidence. I was showing this to an anthropologist who was not impressed. Any intro anthro text would provide a better example. Someone have one like http://www.amazon.com/Cultural-Anthropology-Conrad-Phillip-Kottak/dp/0072832258 or http://www.amazon.com/Cultural-Anthropology-Serena-Nanda/dp/0534617069? mnewmanqc (talk) 15:50, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Is this along the lines of people watching?

Hi, I just learned what "ethnography" means and is in along the lines of people watching? If so i think maybe we should put that somewhere on here.So, maybe at the end i can put that is is similar to people watching and define it? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mdbridges (talk • contribs) 17:57, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

Well I suppose "people watching" is one way to describe part of it, but I would say it's misleading to say "it is similar to people-watching" - to try and explain, that would be a bit like saying "biology is like flower arranging"! --mcld (talk) 20:55, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

Citation for definition is dictionary.com

The citation for the definition of "ethnography" at the head of this article is to dictionary.com - that can't be a good choice of source, right? Seems weird to me, and I've never seen it in another wkp article. Should it be replaced by a citation to a proper piece of work introducing ethnography?--mcld (talk) 20:52, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

Greek etymology

The introduction says "Greek ἔθνος ethnos = folk/people and γράφειν graphein = writing". -γράφειν- is the infinitive = 'to write', while the equivalent for 'writing' in this case, would be γραφία [graphia], which gives us the -graphy suffix here and in geography, photography etc. See also: http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/-γραφία

I have changed the article accordingly. Please feel free to undo if I made a mistake.

93.173.183.16 (talk) 21:35, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

"Ethnography is a scientific research strategy"?

The intro begins with "Ethnography [...] is a scientific research strategy" - why is the word "scientific" there? To me it feels a bit like it's protesting too much. Ethnography doesn't sit in the core realm of what many people mean by the term "science", so it might imply things that are not meant - for example predictiveness, falsifiability. Wouldn't it be better to call it an empirical research strategy or even just a "research strategy"? I conduct ethnographic research myself, so please don't mistake this as an over-scientistic rant, but that adjective just sits wrong for me. Anyone else? --mcld (talk) 12:29, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

I would agree ... but rather because the field of "social sciences" is mentioned shortly afterwards. It should thereby be sufficiently clear that ethnography is not an esoteric or otherwise unscientific endeavour. (BTW: I am also a graduated anthropologist, from Germany though.) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.12.0.142 (talk) 00:06, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

"Data collection methods"

I am thinking of cleaning up this section. There are many grammatical errors and am concerned about the line that talks about transcribing interview data by using genealogical methods. It appears to be creating a mash up of two different things. I also think that a few sentences should be added on "reflexivity" either in this section or perhaps in its own new section?2ytbal (talk) 02:12, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

I eliminated the 1st section of the data collection methods and made two new paragraphs. The 1st paragraph mostly rewords the content that was already there, making it more accurate. The second paragraph introduces reflexivity which is an important element in discussing interviews and participant observation.2ytbal (talk) 03:12, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Update to Social and Cultural Anthropology section to reflect 25th anniversary of Writing Culture

The section on ethnography as practiced in social and cultural anthropology ended rather abruptly at the early 1980s and contained no information on developments in the field since this point. Also, the now canonical text, Writing Culture, was not mentioned at all (and neither was its companion piece, Anthropology as Cultural Critique). To me, this seemed to be a rather glaring omission given the profound influence the text(s) have both within anthropology itself and outside the discipline (in terms of critical ethnography in other disciplines, like sociology, literary criticism, educational studies and information studies). Given that 2011 is the 25th anniversary of Writing Culture and that there are still new books, articles and conferences being devoted to it (Duke's Writing Cultures at 25 being the most recent conference), I felt that at the very least a paragraph should be included to remedy this omission.

Also, I've added 3 more texts to the 'Suggested Reading' section. The first two reflect the new paragraph by including Writing Culture and Anthropology as Cultural Critique. The third book by Westbrook is a good overview of contemporary ethnography, especially as practiced by anthropologists, in that it is aimed at introducing non-specialists to ethnography. It offers a quick and succinct way for those new to ethnography to enter the conversation and get their bearings, as it were. Ryantjohnston8 (talk) 19:19, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

I also slightly rearranged the Suggested Readings section to better reflect an alphabetized ordering of the sources. Ryantjohnston8 (talk) 19:27, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

ETHICS

I added a bit to the ethics section of this article on Ethnography. I decided to take some information from the American Anthropological Association since they are well known in the Anthropology field and their code of ethics is applied when doing anthropological field work and ethnography. I spoke mainly about the ethics and moral obligations of those doing ethnographic research. Shimmeryshad27 (talk) 17:05, 25 October 2011 (UTC)