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15 Great Ethnography Examples

ethnography examples and definition, explained below

Ethnography is a research method that involves embedding yourself in the environment of a group or community and recording what you observe. It often involves the researcher living in the community being studied. This leads to a much richer understanding of the people being examined than doing quantitative research.

The thing I love about ethnography is that it paints a thorough picture of people’s lives. It is, in its own way, the most raw, honest, and detailed form of academic research.

In my previous blog posts, I have discussed my admiration for thick description as a way to pierce beyond stereotypes and view the world through the lens of our subjects.

And there’s no doubt that ethnographic research has helped us learn so much more about how people navigate their cultural circumstances.

Below are some examples of ethnography – both abstract (with the hope that it helps students think about some ways they can do ethnography) and real-life (with the hope that you will read some inspiring ethnographic studies).

Ethnography Examples

To start, here are some ways you could potentially do ethnography:

  • Ethnography of Indigenous People: There are many examples of ethnographic studies that look at indigenous cultures and how they’re similar or different to Western culture. Beware of the trap of colonialism during this work.
  • Mundane Ethnography: Remember, ethnography doesn’t have to happen in a far off land. You can do autoethnography where you study yourself , or a study of somewhere very banal, like your workplace or home.
  • Educational Ethnography: There is a rich history of teachers and researchers using ethnographic methods in classrooms to explore how learning happens.
  • Ethnography in a Shop: Be the ethnographer within a supermarket by interacting with the people there on a daily basis (maybe as the cashier) and observe how people interact and collide within the space.
  • Working-Class and Immigrant Ethnography: Many sociologists use ethnographic methods to take an inside look at how people on the margins of society grapple with global concepts like capitalism, globalization, and race.
  • Digital Ethnography: Since the rise of the internet, there have been many researchers interested in the digital lives of people. Some of my favorite studies have revealed how we create our identities online.

My Favorite Ethnographic Research Books

1. learning to labour.

Author: Paul Willis

One of my favorite ethnographic works, Learning to Labour follows working-class ‘lads’ in the British Midlands as they participate in counter-cultural and ‘anti-social’ behaviors.

The most fascinating aspect of this book is the rich elucidation of how these working-class boys reject narratives of upward mobility and revel in rejecting mental work at school. But at the same time, they create their own value hierarchies.

In fact, the boys don’t even leave school when they are legally allowed, despite giving a veneer of being anti-school. Instead, they remain there, because there is their own social and even educational value they can get out of it. They prize the manual labor they do in class and, after leaving school, continue to prize physical labor in the workplace while deriding and dismissing mental labor.

2. Being Maori in the City

Author: Natacha Gagné

When indigenous people live in urban environments, their authenticity as indigenous peoples is often brought into question.

Thus, Gagné’s examination of Maori identity in Auckland presents a valuable insight into how people continue to live out their indigenous identities in a changing, urbanized, and colonized landscape.

Gagné spent two years living with Maori people in Auckland and highlights in the book how their identity continues to be central to how they interact both with one another and with broader society.

3. Ethnography of a Neoliberal School

Author: Garth Stahl

While a wide range of academic research has looked at how neoliberalism can affect education, an ethnographic approach allows Stahl to demonstrate how it turns up as lived experience.

Neoliberalism is an approach to governance that focuses on the corporatization of society. In education, this means that schools should be run like companies.

There is no better example, of course, than charter schools .

In my favorite chapter, Stahl demonstrates within one anonymized charter school how teachers are increasingly subjected to performance quotas, KPIs, and governance that narrow down the purpose of education and give them very little freedom to exercise their expertise and provide individualized support to their students.

4. Coming of Age in Samoa

Author: Margaret Mead

Margaret Mead’s groundbreaking ethnography, Coming of Age in Samoa , had implications for two important reasons:

  • It highlighted the importance of feminist perspectives in ethnographic research.
  • It challenged a universalizing stage-based conceptualization of human development.

Mead’s work was conducted at a time when the Western world was in a moral panic about adolescents’ stress and emotional behaviors. The prevailing idea – promoted mainly by male psychologists – was that most of those behaviors were a natural part of the developmental cycle.

Mead, however, saw that female Samoan adolescents had much different experiences of adolescence and would not have fitted into the western mold of how a female adolescent would behave or be treated.

The Samoan society’s liberal ideas around intimacy and the lower levels of academic stress placed on the girls meant they lived very different realities with far less stress and social pressure than their Western counterparts.

5. Ghetto at the Center of the World

Author: Gordon Mathews

Mathews’s Ghetto at the Center of the World explores a multiethnic high-density housing complex in Hong Kong.

While seen by many locals as a ghetto (despite its relative safety!), Mathews shows how the motley group of residents, migrants, and tourists in the building live rich lives at what appears to be ground zero of globalization.

For the people in the building, globalization has offered opportunities but hasn’t solved all their problems. Each person that Mathews follows has their own story of how they navigate a globalized world while maintaining hope for a better future.

Additional Influential Ethnographic Studies

  • Argonauts of the Western Pacific – This study was notable because it presented a turn toward participant observation in ethnography rather than attempts at fly-on-the-wall objectivity.
  • The Remembered Village – A study of caste systems in India, this study is most notable for its methodological influence. Srinivas, the author, lost his field notes, but he continued on with presenting his findings, causing widespread controversy about its methodological merits.
  • Space and Society in Central Brazil – This study explores the experiences of the Panará indigenous people of Brazil as they attempt to secure protected space from the colonialization occurring around them. It’s notable for its insights into how the Panará people organize themselves both culturally and spatially.
  • White Bound – This book follows two groups, a white anti-racist group and a white nationalist group, and explores how each deals with whiteness. While the groups have fundamentally different goals, even the anti-racist group continue to contribute to white privilege .
  • City, Street and Citizen – Suzanne Hall’s study of the mundane city street explores how multiethnicity is played out in globalized cities. It is a fascinating look at how lives take place within shared spaces where social contact occurs.

Ethnography is, in my humble (and of course subjective) opinion, the most exciting form of primary research you can do. It can challenge assumptions, unpick social norms, and make us all more empathetic people.

Chris

Chris Drew (PhD)

Dr. Chris Drew is the founder of the Helpful Professor. He holds a PhD in education and has published over 20 articles in scholarly journals. He is the former editor of the Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education. [Image Descriptor: Photo of Chris]

  • Chris Drew (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/chris-drew-phd/ 50 Durable Goods Examples
  • Chris Drew (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/chris-drew-phd/ 100 Consumer Goods Examples
  • Chris Drew (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/chris-drew-phd/ 30 Globalization Pros and Cons
  • Chris Drew (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/chris-drew-phd/ 17 Adversity Examples (And How to Overcome Them)

3 thoughts on “15 Great Ethnography Examples”

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Thanks very much for that. I am an early childhood teacher, already published on the topic of bilingual and multilingual children in our sector. One of my lecturers has suggested an ethnographic study of some of our immigrant children. Not sure where to start with that, but this has put me in the right frame of mind. Thanks again

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Dear Chris,

Any suggested topic on ethnographic research i can start with here in the hospital where i am working. I am a nurse for cardiovascular patients undergoing open heart surgeries.

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As you’re in a high risk setting, you might be best asking your managers at the workplace about this one. You could also consider an autoethnography where you do a study on yourself within the settings.

Best of luck with the study.

Regards, Chris

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  • What Is Ethnography? | Definition, Guide & Examples

What Is Ethnography? | Definition, Guide & Examples

Published on March 13, 2020 by Jack Caulfield . Revised on June 22, 2023.

Ethnography is a type of qualitative research that involves immersing yourself in a particular community or organization to observe their behavior and interactions up close. The word “ethnography” also refers to the written report of the research that the ethnographer produces afterwards.

Ethnography is a flexible research method that allows you to gain a deep understanding of a group’s shared culture, conventions, and social dynamics. However, it also involves some practical and ethical challenges.

Table of contents

What is ethnography used for, different approaches to ethnographic research, gaining access to a community, working with informants, observing the group and taking field notes, writing up an ethnography, other interesting articles.

Ethnographic research originated in the field of anthropology, and it often involved an anthropologist living with an isolated tribal community for an extended period of time in order to understand their culture.

This type of research could sometimes last for years. For example, Colin M. Turnbull lived with the Mbuti people for three years in order to write the classic ethnography The Forest People .

Today, ethnography is a common approach in various social science fields, not just anthropology. It is used not only to study distant or unfamiliar cultures, but also to study specific communities within the researcher’s own society.

For example, ethnographic research (sometimes called participant observation ) has been used to investigate  football fans , call center workers , and police officers .

Advantages of ethnography

The main advantage of ethnography is that it gives the researcher direct access to the culture and practices of a group. It is a useful approach for learning first-hand about the behavior and interactions of people within a particular context.

By becoming immersed in a social environment, you may have access to more authentic information and spontaneously observe dynamics that you could not have found out about simply by asking.

Ethnography is also an open and flexible method. Rather than aiming to verify a general theory or test a hypothesis , it aims to offer a rich narrative account of a specific culture, allowing you to explore many different aspects of the group and setting.

Disadvantages of ethnography

Ethnography is a time-consuming method. In order to embed yourself in the setting and gather enough observations to build up a representative picture, you can expect to spend at least a few weeks, but more likely several months. This long-term immersion can be challenging, and requires careful planning.

Ethnographic research can run the risk of observer bias . Writing an ethnography involves subjective interpretation, and it can be difficult to maintain the necessary distance to analyze a group that you are embedded in.

There are often also ethical considerations to take into account: for example, about how your role is disclosed to members of the group, or about observing and reporting sensitive information.

Should you use ethnography in your research?

If you’re a student who wants to use ethnographic research in your thesis or dissertation , it’s worth asking yourself whether it’s the right approach:

  • Could the information you need be collected in another way (e.g. a survey , interviews)?
  • How difficult will it be to gain access to the community you want to study?
  • How exactly will you conduct your research, and over what timespan?
  • What ethical issues might arise?

If you do decide to do ethnography, it’s generally best to choose a relatively small and easily accessible group, to ensure that the research is feasible within a limited timeframe.

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There are a few key distinctions in ethnography which help to inform the researcher’s approach: open vs. closed settings, overt vs. covert ethnography, and active vs. passive observation. Each approach has its own advantages and disadvantages.

Open vs. closed settings

The setting of your ethnography—the environment in which you will observe your chosen community in action—may be open or closed.

An open or public setting is one with no formal barriers to entry. For example, you might consider a community of people living in a certain neighborhood, or the fans of a particular baseball team.

  • Gaining initial access to open groups is not too difficult…
  • …but it may be harder to become immersed in a less clearly defined group.

A closed or private setting is harder to access. This may be for example a business, a school, or a cult.

  • A closed group’s boundaries are clearly defined and the ethnographer can become fully immersed in the setting…
  • …but gaining access is tougher; the ethnographer may have to negotiate their way in or acquire some role in the organization.

Overt vs. covert ethnography

Most ethnography is overt . In an overt approach, the ethnographer openly states their intentions and acknowledges their role as a researcher to the members of the group being studied.

  • Overt ethnography is typically preferred for ethical reasons, as participants can provide informed consent…
  • …but people may behave differently with the awareness that they are being studied.

Sometimes ethnography can be covert . This means that the researcher does not tell participants about their research, and comes up with some other pretense for being there.

  • Covert ethnography allows access to environments where the group would not welcome a researcher…
  • …but hiding the researcher’s role can be considered deceptive and thus unethical.

Active vs. passive observation

Different levels of immersion in the community may be appropriate in different contexts. The ethnographer may be a more active or passive participant depending on the demands of their research and the nature of the setting.

An active role involves trying to fully integrate, carrying out tasks and participating in activities like any other member of the community.

  • Active participation may encourage the group to feel more comfortable with the ethnographer’s presence…
  • …but runs the risk of disrupting the regular functioning of the community.

A passive role is one in which the ethnographer stands back from the activities of others, behaving as a more distant observer and not involving themselves in the community’s activities.

  • Passive observation allows more space for careful observation and note-taking…
  • …but group members may behave unnaturally due to feeling they are being observed by an outsider.

While ethnographers usually have a preference, they also have to be flexible about their level of participation. For example, access to the community might depend upon engaging in certain activities, or there might be certain practices in which outsiders cannot participate.

An important consideration for ethnographers is the question of access. The difficulty of gaining access to the setting of a particular ethnography varies greatly:

  • To gain access to the fans of a particular sports team, you might start by simply attending the team’s games and speaking with the fans.
  • To access the employees of a particular business, you might contact the management and ask for permission to perform a study there.
  • Alternatively, you might perform a covert ethnography of a community or organization you are already personally involved in or employed by.

Flexibility is important here too: where it’s impossible to access the desired setting, the ethnographer must consider alternatives that could provide comparable information.

For example, if you had the idea of observing the staff within a particular finance company but could not get permission, you might look into other companies of the same kind as alternatives. Ethnography is a sensitive research method, and it may take multiple attempts to find a feasible approach.

All ethnographies involve the use of informants . These are people involved in the group in question who function as the researcher’s primary points of contact, facilitating access and assisting their understanding of the group.

This might be someone in a high position at an organization allowing you access to their employees, or a member of a community sponsoring your entry into that community and giving advice on how to fit in.

However,  i f you come to rely too much on a single informant, you may be influenced by their perspective on the community, which might be unrepresentative of the group as a whole.

In addition, an informant may not provide the kind of spontaneous information which is most useful to ethnographers, instead trying to show what they believe you want to see. For this reason, it’s good to have a variety of contacts within the group.

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ethnography assignment example

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The core of ethnography is observation of the group from the inside. Field notes are taken to record these observations while immersed in the setting; they form the basis of the final written ethnography. They are usually written by hand, but other solutions such as voice recordings can be useful alternatives.

Field notes record any and all important data: phenomena observed, conversations had, preliminary analysis. For example, if you’re researching how service staff interact with customers, you should write down anything you notice about these interactions—body language, phrases used repeatedly, differences and similarities between staff, customer reactions.

Don’t be afraid to also note down things you notice that fall outside the pre-formulated scope of your research; anything may prove relevant, and it’s better to have extra notes you might discard later than to end up with missing data.

Field notes should be as detailed and clear as possible. It’s important to take time to go over your notes, expand on them with further detail, and keep them organized (including information such as dates and locations).

After observations are concluded, there’s still the task of writing them up into an ethnography. This entails going through the field notes and formulating a convincing account of the behaviors and dynamics observed.

The structure of an ethnography

An ethnography can take many different forms: It may be an article, a thesis, or an entire book, for example.

Ethnographies often do not follow the standard structure of a scientific paper, though like most academic texts, they should have an introduction and conclusion. For example, this paper begins by describing the historical background of the research, then focuses on various themes in turn before concluding.

An ethnography may still use a more traditional structure, however, especially when used in combination with other research methods. For example, this paper follows the standard structure for empirical research: introduction, methods, results, discussion, and conclusion.

The content of an ethnography

The goal of a written ethnography is to provide a rich, authoritative account of the social setting in which you were embedded—to convince the reader that your observations and interpretations are representative of reality.

Ethnography tends to take a less impersonal approach than other research methods. Due to the embedded nature of the work, an ethnography often necessarily involves discussion of your personal experiences and feelings during the research.

Ethnography is not limited to making observations; it also attempts to explain the phenomena observed in a structured, narrative way. For this, you may draw on theory, but also on your direct experience and intuitions, which may well contradict the assumptions that you brought into the research.

If you want to know more about statistics , methodology , or research bias , make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples.

  • Normal distribution
  • Degrees of freedom
  • Null hypothesis
  • Discourse analysis
  • Control groups
  • Mixed methods research
  • Non-probability sampling
  • Quantitative research
  • Ecological validity

Research bias

  • Rosenthal effect
  • Implicit bias
  • Cognitive bias
  • Selection bias
  • Negativity bias
  • Status quo bias

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The Writing Center • University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Anthropology

What this handout is about.

This handout briefly situates anthropology as a discipline of study within the social sciences. It provides an introduction to the kinds of writing that you might encounter in your anthropology courses, describes some of the expectations that your instructors may have, and suggests some ways to approach your assignments. It also includes links to information on citation practices in anthropology and resources for writing anthropological research papers.

What is anthropology, and what do anthropologists study?

Anthropology is the study of human groups and cultures, both past and present. Anthropology shares this focus on the study of human groups with other social science disciplines like political science, sociology, and economics. What makes anthropology unique is its commitment to examining claims about human ‘nature’ using a four-field approach. The four major subfields within anthropology are linguistic anthropology, socio-cultural anthropology (sometimes called ethnology), archaeology, and physical anthropology. Each of these subfields takes a different approach to the study of humans; together, they provide a holistic view. So, for example, physical anthropologists are interested in humans as an evolving biological species. Linguistic anthropologists are concerned with the physical and historical development of human language, as well as contemporary issues related to culture and language. Archaeologists examine human cultures of the past through systematic examinations of artifactual evidence. And cultural anthropologists study contemporary human groups or cultures.

What kinds of writing assignments might I encounter in my anthropology courses?

The types of writing that you do in your anthropology course will depend on your instructor’s learning and writing goals for the class, as well as which subfield of anthropology you are studying. Each writing exercise is intended to help you to develop particular skills. Most introductory and intermediate level anthropology writing assignments ask for a critical assessment of a group of readings, course lectures, or concepts. Here are three common types of anthropology writing assignments:

Critical essays

This is the type of assignment most often given in anthropology courses (and many other college courses). Your anthropology courses will often require you to evaluate how successfully or persuasively a particular anthropological theory addresses, explains, or illuminates a particular ethnographic or archaeological example. When your instructor tells you to “argue,” “evaluate,” or “assess,” they are probably asking for some sort of critical essay. (For more help with deciphering your assignments, see our handout on understanding assignments .)

Writing a “critical” essay does not mean focusing only on the most negative aspects of a particular reading or theory. Instead, a critical essay should evaluate or assess both the weaknesses and the merits of a given set of readings, theories, methods, or arguments.

Sample assignment:

Assess the cultural evolutionary ideas of late 19th century anthropologist Lewis Henry Morgan in terms of recent anthropological writings on globalization (select one recent author to compare with Morgan). What kinds of anthropological concerns or questions did Morgan have? What kinds of anthropological concerns underlie the current anthropological work on globalization that you have selected? And what assumptions, theoretical frameworks, and methodologies inform these questions or projects?

Ethnographic projects

Another common type of research and writing activity in anthropology is the ethnographic assignment. Your anthropology instructor might expect you to engage in a semester-long ethnographic project or something shorter and less involved (for example, a two-week mini-ethnography).

So what is an ethnography? “Ethnography” means, literally, a portrait (graph) of a group of people (ethnos). An ethnography is a social, political, and/or historical portrait of a particular group of people or a particular situation or practice, at a particular period in time, and within a particular context or space. Ethnographies have traditionally been based on an anthropologist’s long-term, firsthand research (called fieldwork) in the place and among the people or activities they are studying. If your instructor asks you to do an ethnographic project, that project will likely require some fieldwork.

Because they are so important to anthropological writing and because they may be an unfamiliar form for many writers, ethnographies will be described in more detail later in this handout.

Spend two hours riding the Chapel Hill Transit bus. Take detailed notes on your observations, documenting the setting of your fieldwork, the time of day or night during which you observed and anything that you feel will help paint a picture of your experience. For example, how many people were on the bus? Which route was it? What time? How did the bus smell? What kinds of things did you see while you were riding? What did people do while riding? Where were people going? Did people talk? What did they say? What were people doing? Did anything happen that seemed unusual, ordinary, or interesting to you? Why? Write down any thoughts, self-reflections, and reactions you have during your two hours of fieldwork. At the end of your observation period, type up your fieldnotes, including your personal thoughts (labeling them as such to separate them from your more descriptive notes). Then write a reflective response about your experience that answers this question: how is riding a bus about more than transportation?

Analyses using fossil and material evidence

In some assignments, you might be asked to evaluate the claims different researchers have made about the emergence and effects of particular human phenomena, such as the advantages of bipedalism, the origins of agriculture, or the appearance of human language. To complete these assignments, you must understand and evaluate the claims being made by the authors of the sources you are reading, as well as the fossil or material evidence used to support those claims. Fossil evidence might include things like carbon dated bone remains; material evidence might include things like stone tools or pottery shards. You will usually learn about these kinds of evidence by reviewing scholarly studies, course readings, and photographs, rather than by studying fossils and artifacts directly.

The emergence of bipedalism (the ability to walk on two feet) is considered one of the most important adaptive shifts in the evolution of the human species, but its origins in space and time are debated. Using course materials and outside readings, examine three authors’ hypotheses for the origins of bipedalism. Compare the supporting points (such as fossil evidence and experimental data) that each author uses to support their claims. Based on your examination of the claims and the supporting data being used, construct an argument for why you think bipedal locomotion emerged where and when it did.

How should I approach anthropology papers?

Writing an essay in anthropology is very similar to writing an argumentative essay in other disciplines. In most cases, the only difference is in the kind of evidence you use to support your argument. In an English essay, you might use textual evidence from novels or literary theory to support your claims; in an anthropology essay, you will most often be using textual evidence from ethnographies, artifactual evidence, or other support from anthropological theories to make your arguments.

Here are some tips for approaching your anthropology writing assignments:

  • Make sure that you understand what the prompt or question is asking you to do. It is a good idea to consult with your instructor or teaching assistant if the prompt is unclear to you. See our handout on arguments and handout on college writing for help understanding what many college instructors look for in a typical paper.
  • Review the materials that you will be writing with and about. One way to start is to set aside the readings or lecture notes that are not relevant to the argument you will make in your paper. This will help you focus on the most important arguments, issues, and behavioral and/or material data that you will be critically assessing. Once you have reviewed your evidence and course materials, you might decide to have a brainstorming session. Our handouts on reading in preparation for writing and brainstorming might be useful for you at this point.
  • Develop a working thesis and begin to organize your evidence (class lectures, texts, research materials) to support it. Our handouts on constructing thesis statements and paragraph development will help you generate a thesis and develop your ideas and arguments into clearly defined paragraphs.

What is an ethnography? What is ethnographic evidence?

Many introductory anthropology courses involve reading and evaluating a particular kind of text called an ethnography. To understand and assess ethnographies, you will need to know what counts as ethnographic data or evidence.

You’ll recall from earlier in this handout that an ethnography is a portrait—a description of a particular human situation, practice, or group as it exists (or existed) in a particular time, at a particular place, etc. So what kinds of things might be used as evidence or data in an ethnography (or in your discussion of an ethnography someone else has written)? Here are a few of the most common:

  • Things said by informants (people who are being studied or interviewed). When you are trying to illustrate someone’s point of view, it is very helpful to appeal to their own words. In addition to using verbatim excerpts taken from interviews, you can also paraphrase an informant’s response to a particular question.
  • Observations and descriptions of events, human activities, behaviors, or situations.
  • Relevant historical background information.
  • Statistical data.

Remember that “evidence” is not something that exists on its own. A fact or observation becomes evidence when it is clearly connected to an argument in order to support that argument. It is your job to help your reader understand the connection you are making: you must clearly explain why statements x, y, and z are evidence for a particular claim and why they are important to your overall claim or position.

Citation practices in anthropology

In anthropology, as in other fields of study, it is very important that you cite the sources that you use to form and articulate your ideas. (Please refer to our handout on plagiarism for information on how to avoid plagiarizing). Anthropologists follow the Chicago Manual of Style when they document their sources. The basic rules for anthropological citation practices can be found in the AAA (American Anthropological Association) Style Guide. Note that anthropologists generally use in-text citations, rather than footnotes. This means that when you are using someone else’s ideas (whether it’s a word-for-word quote or something you have restated in your own words), you should include the author’s last name and the date the source text was published in parentheses at the end of the sentence, like this: (Author 1983).

If your anthropology or archaeology instructor asks you to follow the style requirements of a particular academic journal, the journal’s website should contain the information you will need to format your citations. Examples of such journals include The American Journal of Physical Anthropology and American Antiquity . If the style requirements for a particular journal are not explicitly stated, many instructors will be satisfied if you consistently use the citation style of your choice.

Works consulted

We consulted these works while writing this handout. This is not a comprehensive list of resources on the handout’s topic, and we encourage you to do your own research to find additional publications. Please do not use this list as a model for the format of your own reference list, as it may not match the citation style you are using. For guidance on formatting citations, please see the UNC Libraries citation tutorial . We revise these tips periodically and welcome feedback.

Scupin, Raymond, and Christopher DeCorse. 2016. Anthropology: A Global Perspective , 8th ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson/Prentice Hall.

Solis, Jacqueline. 2020. “A to Z Databases: Anthropology.” Subject Research Guides, University of North Carolina. Last updated November 2, 2020. https://guides.lib.unc.edu/az.php?s=1107 .

University of Chicago Press. 2017. The Chicago Manual of Style , 17th ed. Chicago & London: University of Chicago Press.

You may reproduce it for non-commercial use if you use the entire handout and attribute the source: The Writing Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

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  • Dr. Xenia Cherkaev

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  • Anthropology

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Learning Resource Types

How culture works, ethnographic assignment 3: define personhood.

This assignment asks you to write a short ethnographic study of personhood, a seemingly obvious category that actually takes very specific, historically contingent forms.

Consider this anecdote:

“He would stride hurriedly down the sidewalks, almost running, but always, be it winter or summer, bareheaded, he didn’t have a hat at all. It was said that he had come to St. Petersburg during the stern reign of Emperor Paul I [1796–1801], and he happened once to be walking past Saint Michael’s Castle, where the emperor lived, and that this was the last time that he had a hat on his head. Noticed near the castle, he was chased down, had his hat knocked off in an impolite manner; and was himself taken to the castle. When it was learned that he was a foreigner, who did not know the customs of the time, he was released; but the fear so much affected him that he lost his mind on this point and never again put on a hat” (Pylyaev 1898: ch. 18).

In Notable Eccentrics and Queers , his 1898 collection of urban legend and folklore, M.I. Pylyaev notes that this was one of the few bareheaded people in 1840s St. Petersburg: a “slight old man, a teacher of the French language.” Assaulted for offending the hat-tipping traditions of the time, this unhappy Frenchman was disgraced so profoundly that he never recovered. The loss of his hat did not simply lower his status and decrease his opportunities, it somehow disturbed his sense of self.

It might sound ridiculous: four decades of nervousness over one hat! But to make some sense of this story, we should recall that up through the Second World War, throughout the “western world” (and not only there), it was often thought unseemly to be out in public bareheaded. Men and women covered heads differently. Often, women changed the type of headgear they wore once in their lives, when they got married, and men rearranged theirs many times a day—tipping the hat to one person, taking it off to another, touching the rim to a third. Such hat actions weren’t just about fashion. They were about decency: the physical enactment of social position in a gender-distinct and status-based social hierarchy.

What, for us today, might be an equivalent of shattering hat-loss? People wear hats in Boston today, but they rarely tip them. They have no need to, they don’t feel in their body the discomfort of a misplaced hat (like one might feel the discomfort of a misplaced pronoun). And yet, as we’ve seen throughout this semester, our Bostonian life is also ordered by social structures and hierarchies, transactions and statuses, ethics and glory and unquantifiable “extras.”

What persons inhabit this world, what relations and properties define and delimit their personhood?

Drawing on your own ethnographic observations of how persons relate to each other, and on our class discussions and texts, write a 3–4 page essay defining some aspects of personhood. Pay particular attention to which properties and relations are taken to be indispensable to being a person: which possessions, qualities, relations are commonly assumed to be inalienable, and which may be changed, forsaken, transacted? Gender and given name, for example, have long been highly inalienable but have quite recently become much less so. Today it is not out of the question that a person might choose a new legal and social identity in the middle of life, without fundamentally changing his/her self (perhaps explaining that s/he has now become the person s/he had really been all along).

How do persons relate to each other, and how do non-persons mediate these relations? Are there degrees of personhood and agency? Are some beings persons only in certain relationships? (Pet animals, maybe?)

Student Examples

“What is a Person but a Resume?” (PDF)

“Personhood Essay” (PDF)

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Contributed Content Teaching Tools

Ethnographic Experiments for Undergraduates: Reflections from The Ethnography Lab at the University of Toronto

By Noha Fikry

July 19, 2022

Cite As: Fikry, Noha. 2022. "Ethnographic Experiments for Undergraduates: Reflections from The Ethnography Lab at the University of Toronto." Teaching Tools, Fieldsights , July 19. https://culanth.org/fieldsights/ethnographic-experiments-for-undergraduates-reflections-from-the-ethnography-lab-at-the-university-of-toronto

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Watching and analyzing TikTok viral videos, walking and engaging with students on campus, and attending meetings of a particular social movement are examples of exercises that undergraduate students can undertake in social science courses both within and beyond anthropology departments. In most cases, stepping outside the library, the classroom, or Zoom is very captivating for students, especially as we move back to in-person teaching in various parts of the world.

As a Teaching Assistant (TA) at the American University in Cairo between 2016-2019, I was fortunate to work with professor Soraya Altorki, who incorporated ethnographic assignments in most of her undergraduate courses. Because these courses were usually focused on kinship and religion in the Middle East, most students found it accessible and exciting to work with their own families. Undergraduate students from various majors, including engineering, economics, and psychology, interviewed family members, looked for family albums, and wove together autoethnographies tackling issues of migration, religious belonging, and family intimacies in Egypt and the Middle East. Students initially found ethnographic assignments awkward, asking questions such as: “Why is my family, myself, or my “hanging out” worthy of attention?” As the semester progressed, students not only appreciated anthropological perspectives, but in many cases ended up changing their majors or minors to anthropology. This brief and playful ethnographic engagement reoriented students to understand themselves, their surroundings, and their assignments differently and with a new perspective.

At the University of Toronto, I have been a lead TA for the Ethnography Lab , an initiative by faculty and graduate students to promote ethnographic practice inside and outside the university. Among other interest groups and activities, the Ethnography Lab invites other departments to incorporate ethnographic experiments in their undergraduate courses. What follows here is a summary of a conversation with Professor Tania Li, who has taken up the role of promoting ethnographic practicums in other departments around the University of Toronto and who shares useful insights for instructors wishing to add some ethnographic spice to their courses.

“Students initially found ethnographic assignments awkward, asking questions such as: Why is my family, myself, or my “hanging out” worthy of attention? As the semester progressed, students not only appreciated anthropological perspectives, but in many cases ended up changing their majors or minors to anthropology.”

How It All Began: Ethnography of the University Course

Dr. Tania Li (University of Toronto) began teaching an undergraduate course titled “Ethnography of the University” in 2006, inspired by Professor Nancy Abelmann, the founder of the Ethnography of the University initiative at the University of Illinois. As Nancy Abelmann describes on the Ethnography of the University website , one of the origins of this initiative extends to her own experience when she began research on Korean American undergraduate students at the University of Illinois. As she searched for some demographic information on students, she realized that there are a lot of people on campus whose jobs were to research and report on the university. It was then that she realized that it is useful to think of the university not as a neutral background but as an active agent. Collaborating with her colleague the co-director of the Ethnography of the University initiative Professor Bill Kelleher, they began teaching undergraduate courses that invite students to research not at but on universities. During a meeting with Tania in 2006, Abdelmann proposed that Tania begin a similar course/initiative at the University of Toronto (U of T). Tania began teaching her Ethnography of the University course at U of T in 2012—a self-selected undergraduate course with around ten to fifteen students, each in their final year of undergraduate coursework.

Each semester, Tania picks a theme for the course—something broad such as power, time, or work, and the students spend the first two weeks reading a set of common texts on that theme, while preparing for their ethnographic projects. The purpose of the foundational readings is to open up lines of questioning and provide a shared vocabulary for class discussions. So, for example, when the course theme was power, or more specifically how power organizes life at the university, students read essays by Foucault and Weber; on the theme of work, they read Kathi Weeks and Frédéric Lordon; on diversity, they read Sara Ahmed.

After these two weeks of set readings, students individually engage in ethnographic fieldwork on campus, while working towards their final essay submission for the course, and Tania mentors them throughout the process. At the end of every semester, students showcase their final projects in a conference that Tania organizes on campus and in which students invite their friends, family, and professors. Equally excitingly, students also publish individual blog posts on the Ethnography Lab website in which they summarize and reflect on their semester projects.

After teaching this course for multiple semesters, Tania decided to expand these ethnographic experiments beyond the walls of the anthropology department. Under the auspices of the Ethnography Lab, she applied for funds to promote ethnographic research in other departments, including political science, history, and area studies. While many faculty members were excited about the prospective collaboration, most were concerned about two challenges: 1) class sizes and 2) the elaborate ethics application process since ethnographic research projects would include involvement with human subjects. In addition, some faculty were confused about grading procedures for student projects (i.e. How can we grade participant observation or “hanging out” in a gym?). Through the funds that Tania received, she hired a Teaching Assistant (TA) [myself] who is responsible for supporting faculty in designing and incorporating an ethnographic practicum component in their courses, along with facilitating an expedited ethics approval process through an internal review committee in the anthropology department.

Beyond the Classic Essay: Why Ethnography?

In incorporating an ethnographic component into undergraduate courses, instructors invite students to find a topic that puzzles them, something they are curious about, or a group of people that they wish to understand better. They locate that puzzle in one or more field-sites, and simply “hang out” there, while attuning themselves to social interactions, power hierarchies, and whatever their field-sites offer. The final assignment submission can be more flexible than in more usual classroom settings, including a long essay, a number of shorter written reflections, or a final in-class presentation.

Insider’s secret: Students are exceptionally excited about these ethnographic assignments. Alongside asking them to “hang out” for an assignment (every student’s dream!), we also advise students not to do any external readings for this assignment. Rather, only rely on your hang-outs, observations, and participation in your field-sites. In this sense, we push students to focus their undivided attention and effort on training and cultivating their ethnographic sensibilities. But more importantly, the main reason for discouraging students from carrying out any library research for this assignment is that we would like students to appreciate ethnography as a unique form of knowledge production. Theory may stimulate a line of questioning but ethnographic fieldwork is also theory-building: it is not mere “data” to be distilled or translated through the words of theorists and their books. As Tania eloquently clarifies, students are usually unconfident about their fieldwork, and running to the library is usually the first thing for them to do in efforts to corroborate or prove the truth of what they observed. Inviting students to reflect on their fieldwork and to think of their experiences as a contribution to knowledge is a way to help students foster confidence in their budding ethnographic skills.

In this view of ethnography as a unique mode of knowledge production, students learn to develop a methodology of weaving an essay slowly and entirely from their firsthand fieldwork experience. This is always a good reminder for students: An ethnographic assignment is a slow craft, one that cannot be rushed or pulled together in an all-nighter. As the final deadline approaches, however, students realize that they have all the threads they need to weave their creative final submission. Their fieldwork provides all the “knots” of data, and all they need to do is un-tie and re-tie these knots to provide a commentary on an existing social setting. As ethnography instructs, students begin with the banal everyday hang-outs with their interlocutors and ask themselves: How are these everyday moments meaningful? What can they tell us about how a particular group sees and lives in the world? In this playful engagement with their ethnographic material, students practice situating their fieldwork in broader discussions about power, work, religion, gender, or other topics that fit the theme of the course. No need to consult theorists here, for the students and their interlocutors become the theorists as they work through a given social situation.

“An ethnographic assignment is a slow craft, one that cannot be rushed or pulled together in an all-nighter.”

A Proposed Ethnographic Assignment Template

Based on Tania’s Ethnography of the University course and my experience as the Ethnography Lab TA, here is one suggested way to incorporate an ethnographic experiment in your undergraduate courses. This template is preliminary and flexible, open for you to modify creatively depending on your course content, theme, class size, and the broader course expectations:

  • Decide weight of the assignment: How much weight do you want this assignment to take? How much of the overall grade will be attributed to this assignment? Is it a major final assignment? A short fieldnote? A mid-semester essay? Create a rubric to guide students and TAs on your expectations and grading elements for ethnographic assignments. See  this sample ethnographic assignment with a grading rubric and a general grade breakdown of the course.
  • Provide a list of proposed themes/topics: Brainstorm and create a list of 10-12 broad topics or themes that students can pick from for their assignments. This list is not meant to limit student creativity, but to help ground their curiosities and provide some direction to students who are unsure of what they want to research. See this sample list of topics created for the course theme of Social Movements.
  • Mentoring TAs (Optional/If Applicable): Are your TAs experienced in fieldwork and grading ethnographic assignments? Make sure to meet with TAs on multiple occasions separately to give time for feedback and to answer any questions they determine over the course of meeting with undergraduate students. See this helpful “tips for TAs” guide .
  • Following up with your students : Make sure to touch base with your students frequently throughout the semester. Fieldwork can be (if not is always) confusing and overwhelming. Create “mini” submissions throughout the semester, graded or ungraded, such as bi-weekly fieldwork reports, proposals, sample field-notes, or reflections. This will help you and your students monitor how the project grows and matures throughout the semester, including giving opportunities for individual feedback. For ideas, see this list of suggested smaller ethnographic assignments .
  • Sharing and celebrating your students’ work : If possible, plan a mini conference or create a shared blog for your students to share their final projects with a wider audience. This can be a low-stakes, optional component of the assignment, a way in which students can celebrate and reflect on their ethnographic experiments after the semester. They can invite their friends, family, and mentors!

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Francine barone, human relations area files, yale university, view online:, interactive slideshow group project instructions | essay instructions, note to instructors | text syllabus | syllabus slideshow group project instructions | essay instructions.

Dr. Francine Barone | [email protected] Human Relations Area Files at Yale University  

Note to Instructors

This introductory course covers a variety of anthropological themes and aspects of culture. Students are encouraged to debate whether or not cultural universals exist by comparing and contrasting ethnographic examples from around the world. Assignments include a group project and essay.

The materials for each week have been curated with quality, scope, diversity and ease of access in mind (see below). The weekly discussion topics (“key readings”) focus on engaging articles from the HRAF homepage. These articles offer cross-cultural insight on fundamental anthropological themes supported by ethnographic examples sourced from the eHRAF databases. In addition, each week is supported by one or more videos or mini-lecture for in-class or at-home viewing. Textbook chapters and optional advanced ethnographic or theoretical readings are also provided, allowing for some flexibility across different class levels at the discretion of the instructor.

Where possible, links to relevant documents within eHRAF World Cultures are indicated. Note that eHRAF database membership is required for full paragraph-level access to documents. The writing assignment similarly requires that students conduct research within eHRAF World Cultures. One week of this syllabus is therefore dedicated to an eHRAF Workshop for teaching students how to search the databases for ethnographic sources to support their essays. Instructors unfamiliar with eHRAF may be interested in learning more about teaching research skills with the eHRAF Databases in a webinar and/or free trial .

Built for online learning

For faculty currently seeking online learning resources for transitioning from traditional classroom teaching to digital environments, this syllabus and its exercises have been formatted for easy adoption via remote platforms. It has been adapted in light of campus shutdowns in March 2020 to prioritize digital resources over physical books. The required videos and articles for each week are all freely available online. A small number of the optional “advanced readings” may have a paywall where noted.

An extended “companion” reading list with texts is offered below should instructors or students have access to the texts now or in the future. These traditional textbooks, monographs, and journal articles are listed as supplementary reading. Again, links to digital versions of texts available in eHRAF are provided where applicable. Instructors can choose to assign these should students have access to them.

For more about adapting coursework for online learning conditions, see:

Remote futures: tips for online teaching and learning in anthropology

Ethnographic Insights Across Cultures  

Course description.

Through the comparative study of different cultures, anthropology explores the most fundamental questions about what it means to be human. Drawing upon eHRAF World Cultures and eHRAF Archaeology, this introductory course encourages students to explore cultural similarities and differences to better understand how culture shapes who we are: our societies, our shared meanings, and our everyday lives. Beginning with unpacking the concept of culture in anthropology, each week covers a different anthropological theme, including love, ritual performance, gender, language, food, and kinship. Evaluating cultural universals will allow students to contemplate the rich diversity of the human experience. With remote learning in mind, wholly online sources on timely topics are interwoven with classic ethnographic accounts to inspire lively class discussions. The cross-cultural and database research skills developed throughout the course provide a solid framework for understanding and analyzing anthropological concerns both within and beyond the social sciences.

Learning Objectives

  • Develop an understanding of the concept of culture within anthropology
  • Distinguish between ethnography and anthropology
  • Read and interpret ethnographic data
  • Compare and contrast diverse cultural insights and belief systems
  • View one’s personal habits and beliefs within global social and historical context
  • Draw meaningful cross-cultural conclusions about human universals
  • Conduct independent database research

Timetable & Class Level

This teaching exercise is aimed at Introductory-level courses in socio-cultural anthropology at community colleges or universities. It is structured for approximately 2-3 course hours per week divided between a “lecture” portion as well as weekly “seminar discussions”. However, the syllabus is designed to be adaptable to suit other timetables, class sizes, and levels. It can be supplemented with more advanced ethnographic or theoretical material and additional reading to scale up for larger and/or more advanced level courses.

Suggested Grading Breakdown

Activity                                               Percentage

Attendance & Participation                 20%

Research Paper                                  50%

Group Project                                      30%

Required Texts

This syllabus prioritizes digital resources. The vast majority of the weekly materials (with the exception of the eHRAF Databases) are entirely open access. The recommended free and open-access textbooks for the course are the following:

  • Brown, N., Tubelle de Gonzalez, L. and T. McIllwraith (eds.) 2017. Perspectives: An Open Invitation to Cultural Anthropology (2nd Edition) . SACC, American Anthropological Association.
  • Dastrup, R. A. 2015. Introduction to Human Geography . PressBooks.
  • Stein, F., S. Lazar, M. Candea, H.Diemberger, J. Robbins, A. Sanchez & R. Stasch. 2018. The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Anthropology (CEA) .
  • Wesch, M. 2018. The Art of Being Human: A Textbook for Cultural Anthropology . New Prairie Press.

Recommended companion texts & supplementary advanced reading

This supplementary reading list contains additional recommended texts. Links to online versions are provided if available.

  • Barnard, A. & J. Spencer (eds) 1996. Encyclopedia of Social and Cultural Anthropology . Routledge.
  • Barnard, A. 2000. History and theory in anthropology . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  • Evans-Pritchard, E. E. (Edward Evan). 1937. Witchcraft, Oracles and Magic Among The Azande . Oxford: Clarendon Press. https://ehrafworldcultures.yale.edu/document?id=fo07-071 .
  • Hendry, J. 2016. An Introduction to Social Anthropology: Sharing Our Worlds . Red Globe Press.
  • Hobsbawm, E. and T. Ranger. 1938. The Invention of Tradition . Cambridge: CUP.
  • Ingold, T. 1996. Key Debates in Anthropology . London: Routledge.
  • Mead, Margaret. 1928. Coming of Age in Samoa: A Psychological Study of Primitive Youth for Western Civilisation . New York: W. Morrow & Company. https://ehrafworldcultures.yale.edu/document?id=ou08-003 .
  • Murdock, George P. 1949. Social Structure . Toronto: Macmillan. (PDF, archive.org)
  • Pountney, L. and Maric Tomislav. 2015. Introducing Anthropology: What Makes Us Human? Cambridge: Polity Press.

Group Project: Interview & Presentation

The purpose of this interview project is to learn about different cultural perspectives or experiences that your fellow classmates may have in comparison with yourself. Each student should share some aspect of their own “culture” and/or ethnic background or ancestry (e.g. ideas or practices learned from their parents or grandparents), or, alternatively, another country that they have lived in or traveled to. “American” cultural examples are acceptable, but groups should have at least 3 different regional examples from personal experience to compare and contrast.

Assignment : Teams of 3-4 students must interview each other on some aspect of the topic for the week that their group is assigned to. On the class day for that topic, the entire team must come prepared to present their findings in the form of a PowerPoint presentation with annotated slides. Total presentation time should be around 20-25 minutes . The subject of the presentation should roughly be what commonalities and differences your group found between the beliefs and practices of its team members’ cultures or ethnic backgrounds. Conclude the presentation by assessing whether or not the team members believe that the chosen aspect(s) of the weekly topic covered constitute a “cultural universal”. Why or why not?

Guidelines:

  • Students will be assigned into groups of 3-4 students.
  • The interview and presentation should be based on the general theme of the assigned week, but groups can choose a narrower focus within this thematic area (e.g. if the theme is “love”, marriage, dating, divorce or romance are acceptable topics).
  • Each team will meet – via Zoom, WebEx, Skype, or equivalent – at some point prior to the lecture for the week of their topic.
  • Student teams should prepare 3-5 unique questions to ask each other in the style of an interview. Interviewers within the group can each pose different questions if desired.
  • You do not have to include the exact answers to every question in your presentation.
  • The interviews should help you get to know your fellow classmates , while presentations should summarize the similarities and differences that you discovered .
  • Each team member should take an equal part in preparing and presenting to the class.
  • An open class discussion led by the team will follow the presentation.

Essay: Do cultural universals exist?

Choose any aspect of human life or anthropological theme and evaluate whether or not you believe it to be a cultural universal based on ethnographic evidence. Refer to the eHRAF articles that we have read and discussed for each week as a model. However, endeavor to choose an original subject to focus on. If you choose to explore one of the subjects from the weekly syllabus or aspects of it, you must use predominantly new examples and a new angle, supplemented with original theoretical and ethnographic research. Any of the listed textbooks are valid sources for theoretical background, but you are welcome to go beyond these texts by visiting anthropological journals.

While you are free to write about something that you have experienced in your own culture, use the eHRAF World Cultures database to decide on your topic or trait, and to conduct research across several cultures, to ensure that you will be able to gather enough ethnographic data for comparison. You may refer to the Outline of Cultural Materials (OCM) to decide on a topic. Paper topics and proposed titles must be emailed to the professor for approval at least 3 weeks before the deadline.

Research guidelines: Aim for 3-5 ethnographic examples from various parts of the world. You may choose any cultures that interest you as long as they are not all in the same world region (refer to Browse Cultures and/or the Search Results in eHRAF for a regional breakdown). As long as you meet the minimum content requirements, you may include additional ethnographic materials from outside of eHRAF. Remember to conclude your essay with reflections on cross-cultural differences and similarities.

References: All sources must be correctly referenced with in-text citations and listed in a bibliography. Refer to university guidelines on citations, plagiarism, and academic content.

Multimedia: You may supplement your essay with multimedia content including creating your own videos, presentations, photos, or digital artwork.

Word limit: Essays have a word limit of 2000 words. If including an original video or photo narrative, word limit is flexible at around 1,500 words in addition to the media. High resolution files must be hosted somewhere accessible by the essay due date.

Course Outline

Week 1: uniqueness and universals: an introduction to anthropology and culture..

According to Horace Miner (1956:503), “The anthropologist has become so familiar with the diversity of ways in which different people behave in similar situations that he is not apt to be surprised by even the most exotic customs”. Anthropology and anthropologists have thus acquired the reputation for making the strange familiar and the familiar strange. Taking this as a starting point for the exploration of culture, this week we will ask, what (if anything) makes humans unique? What accounts for cultural variation and difference within and between societies? Why might anthropologists want to draw generalizing conclusions across many cultures? Video:

  • Robert Sapolsky – The Uniqueness of Humans (~32 mins)

Key reading:

  • Making the strange familiar and the familiar strange
  • The Return of the Comparative Method in Anthropology

Textbook reading:

  • “Understanding Culture” , Introduction to Human Geography : Read section 3.2 up to and including the section on Norms.
  • Medeiros and Cowall. “The Culture Concept” , in Perspectives .

Advanced reading:

  • Miner, H. 1956. “Body Ritual among the Nacirema”. American Anthropologist , 58: 503-507. doi: 1525/aa.1956.58.3.02a00080
  • Howell, 2018. “Ethnography” , Cambridge Encyclopedia of Anthropology

Week 2. eHRAF database research workshop

This workshop will prepare students to conduct research within the eHRAF World Cultures and eHRAF Archaeology databases. It will begin with a brief overview of ethnography, anthropology and cross-cultural research, including the methods employed by cross-cultural researchers. The remainder of the workshop will be a practical guide to browsing, searching, and saving search results in eHRAF. Students will be shown how paragraphs in eHRAF are indexed by subject, as well as encouraged to conduct sample searches and recognize relevant results in preparation for their essay assignments.

Recommended reading from Introducing Cross-Cultural Research :

  • 1 – Introducing Cross Cultural Research (PDF)
  • 2 – What’s your Question? (PDF)

About HRAF :

  • History and Development of HRAF Collections
  • HRAF Timeline

Class Activity :

  • HRAF Jeoparody Game

Database Guides:

  • Database Contents: Subjects, Cultures, and Traditions (PDF)
  • eHRAF Video Tutorials (YouTube)
  • Search Examples
  • eHRAF User Guide (WebHelp)

Week 3. Emotions in motion: Feelings and their expression

How do different cultures around the world process and express their emotions? Are some peoples more warm and welcoming, while others are cold and stern, or are these merely stereotypes? This week looks at two specific emotions in cross-cultural perspective – fear and anger – to see how they are manifested and controlled in different societies. Do we all have the same fears? How can some cultures be better at controlling tempers than others? A class activity based on the Atlas of Emotions allows students to explore their emotions, possible triggers, and varied responses.

  • Are there universal expressions of emotion? – Sophie Zadeh (~5 mins)
  • How Culture Drives Behaviours – Julien S. Bourrelle (~12 mins)
  • Towards an Anthropology of Fear: Are some things universally terrifying?
  • How do parents around the world teach children to control their anger?

Class activity:

  • Explore the Atlas of Emotions
  • Russel, James A. 1991. “ Culture and the Categorization of Emotions ”, Psychological Bulletin . 110(3): 426-450 (PDF)

Week 4. Does romantic love look (and feel) the same everywhere?

You can’t eat. You can’t sleep. You can hardly concentrate on this sentence. Your heart skips a beat when the object of your affection walks into the room. In lieu of food and rest, you survive on daydreams of kisses and warm embraces. Do all cultures recognize this bizarre affliction as a tell-tale sign of being in love? This week we will discuss whether romantic love and kissing are cultural universals. The video for this topic explores the impact that technology may have on love and relationships. Has technology changed what it means to love? How many different types of love are there?

  • Technology hasn’t changed love. Here’s Why. – Helen Fisher (~19 mins)
  • Romantic or disgusting? Passionate kissing is not a human universal
  • Goleman, D. 1992. “ After Kinship and Marriage, Anthropology Discovers Love “. NY Times.
  • Wesch, M. Love in Four Cultures , in The Art of Being Human . (PDF)
  • Jankowiak, W. & Fischer, E. 1992. A Cross-Cultural Perspective on Romantic Love . Ethnology . 31. 149. 10.2307/3773618. (PDF)
  • Lindholm, C. 2006. Romantic Love and Anthropology . Etnofoor 10: 1-12. (online/PDF)

Week 5. Gestures of kindness and reciprocity, or when no good deed goes unpunished

Gift-giving as a means of displaying kindness and gratitude is one way that we show people that we care about them. In practice, finding the right gift can be stressful and full of potential landmines. What if the recipient hates the gift, or worse, feels insulted by it? This scenario gives us a hint that saying “thanks” can sometimes be a thankless experience in our own lives and relationships, let alone throughout cultures all across the globe. This week, we explore the anthropological perspective on gifts and other types of exchange, including reciprocity (generalized, balanced, and negative) and redistribution of wealth. We will also look at the language of exchange and the various forms a thank-you can take.

  • What is a gift economy? – Alex Gendler (~4 mins)
  • Gift-Giving – Anthropology Matters (~7 mins) , if assigning advanced reading below
  • Thanks, but no thanks: Expressions of gratitude in eHRAF World Cultures
  • Wesch, M. The Power of Language , and Creating the Good Life (pp. 307-312 only), in The Art of Being Human . (PDF)
  • Lyon, S. “ Economics: Modes of Exchange ”, in Perspectives . Read section “Modes of Exchange” only, pp. 127-135. (PDF)
  • Malinowski, Bronislaw. 1920. “Kula: The Circulating Exchange of Valuables in The Archipelagoes of Eastern New Guinea.” Man 20 (51): 97–105. https://ehrafworldcultures.yale.edu/document?id=ol06-007 .
  • Murdock, George Peter. 1970. “Rank and Potlach Among the Haida.” Yale University Publications in Anthropology . New Haven: Human Relations Area Files Press. https://ehrafworldcultures.yale.edu/document?id=ne09-002 .
  • Mauss, M. 2002 [1954]. The Gift: The form and reason for exchange in archaic societies . London: Routledge.

Week 6. Place, space and the dynamics house and home

Winston Churchill notably proclaimed, “We shape our dwellings, and afterwards our dwellings shape us.” How do the spaces we inhabit become places we embody? The concept of “home” goes well beyond the bricks and mortar (or wood or clay) of the dwellings in which we reside. How many memories of your home are of the structure itself, and how many of are the relationships that were nurtured inside of it? This week explores the concepts of house and home as both material and cultural constructions, and introduces the idea of place-making in urban anthropology.

  • Where is home? – Pico Iyer (~14 mins)
  • Home Truths: An Anthropology of House and Home
  • On Placemaking: An Anthropologist’s Perspective
  • Samanani, F. and J. Lenhard. 2019. “ House and Home ”, Cambridge Encyclopedia of Anthropology.
  • Ember, C. 2014. “ Dwellings ” in C. R. Ember, ed. Explaining Human Culture (HRAF).
  • Lawrence-Zuniga, D. 2017. Space and Place . Oxford Bibliographies.
  • Bourdieu, P. 1970. “ The Berber house or the world reversed. ” Social Science Information . 9(2): 151-170. (Paywall)

Week 7. Cultures and calendars: making and keeping time

Do all peoples conceive of time in the same ways? What does the past, present, or future mean for different cultures? How do we mark major milestones throughout the year, or events within our lifetimes? The videos for this week consider different ways of thinking and speaking about time and space, including deciphering the ancient Aztec calendar stone. The key readings focus on how two annual events – the spring and winter solstices – are celebrated around the world, and how these festivities mark time, space, and our place within the world.

  • How Do Different Cultures Think About Time? (~5 mins)
  • The Aztec Sun Stone (The Calendar Stone) (~6.5 mins)
  • Celebrating the Vernal Equinox
  • Winter Solstice Celebrations Around the World
  • Antrosio, J. 2020. “ Time ”, Living Anthropologically (Cultural Ecology 2020).
  • “Chapter III: Time and Space”, (pp. 94-138) in Evans-Pritchard, E. E. 1940. Nuer: A Description of the Modes of Livelihood and Political Institutions of a Nilotic People . Oxford: Clarendon. https://ehrafworldcultures.yale.edu/document?id=fj22-001 . (eHRAF access required)
  • Zeitlyn, D. “Looking Forward, Looking Back”, History and Anthropology 26(4): 381-407, DOI: 10.1080/02757206.2015.1076813

Week 8. Defining selfhood: gender, sexuality, identity and power

Is gender a product of culture, or of biology? How does society shape our understanding of gender, including gender roles and identities? This week will explore the connections between gender and power by focusing on the manifestation of female agency across societies. Even from within restricted or oppressed conditions, ethnographic data shows that women can assert authority and control over themselves and others in creative ways; for instance, by leveraging access to areas of society where men have little to no interest or jurisdiction. We will follow this up with ideas about fatherhood and masculinity around the world. Lastly, this week will examine the question of fixity or fluidity of gender categories by exploring pronouns. What insights can gender nonconforming children give us about the origins and/or mutability of gender as a cultural construct?

  • The power of women’s anger – Soraya Chemaly (~12 mins)
  • How to talk (and listen) to transgender people – Jackson Bird (~6 mins)
  • Women, Gender and Power in eHRAF
  • An Anthropology of Dads: Exploring fatherhood in eHRAF
  • Bennet, J. 2016. “ She? Ze? They? What’s in a Gender Pronoun “, NY Times.
  • Yong, E. 2019. “ Young Trans Children Know Who They Are ”, The Atlantic.
  • Ember, C., et al. 2019. “ Gender ”, In C. R. Ember, ed. Explaining Human Culture (HRAF)
  • Wesch, M. Becoming Our Selves , in The Art of Being Human (PDF)
  • Mukhopadhyay, C. Gender and Sexuality , in Perspectives (PDF)
  • Wilson, A. 2019. Queer Anthropology , Cambridge Encyclopedia of Anthropology.
  • Schäfers, M. 2017. “ Voice “, Cambridge Encyclopedia of Anthropology
  • Lozios, P, and E. Papataxiarchis. 1991. “Gender and Kinship in Marriage and Alternative Contexts”, Contested Identities: Gender and Kinship in Modern Greece . Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. https://ehrafworldcultures.yale.edu/document?id=eh01-079 .
  • Dubisch, J. 1993. “‘Foreign Chickens’ and Other Outsiders: Gender and Community in Greece”, American Ethnologist 20(2): 272–87. https://ehrafworldcultures.yale.edu/document?id=eh01-027 .

Week 9. “You’re, like, really pretty”: on bodies and beauty standards

Do you feel beautiful today? Is physical beauty perceived in the same ways everywhere in the world? This week we will explore how culture shapes the body and our perceptions of it. Western beauty standards promoted by the fashion industry, popular media – and perpetuated by each of us when we scroll through social media and like all the “pretty” people and things – have become ubiquitous, arguably encroaching upon every corner of the globe. But what about the majority of bodies in the world that are not tall, skinny, or white? What other perspectives on beauty exist?

  • Documentary on Societal Beauty Standards (~7 mins)
  • How People Define Beauty Around the World (~4 mins)
  • “I have worth”: female body confidence and perceptions of beauty around the world
  • Anderson-Fye E.P. Anthropological Perspectives on Physical Appearance and Body Image . In: Thomas F. Cash, editor. Encyclopedia of Body Image and Human Appearance, Vol 1 . San Diego: Academic Press, pp. 15–22.
  • Wesch, M. The (Un)Making of the Modern Body and The Dynamics of Culture in The Art of Being Human (PDF)
  • Gomółka, A. 2017. “Ugliness: A Cultural History” [book review] 3202/caa.reviews.2017.76 .
  • Nagar, I. & Virk, R. 2017. “The Struggle Between the Real and Ideal: Impact of Acute Media Exposure on Body Image of Young Indian Women”, SAGE Open. 1177/2158244017691327 .

Week 10. Let the good times roll: rituals, rites of passage and liminality

Anthropologist Victor Turner defined ritual as “prescribed formal behavior for occasions not given over to technological routine, having reference to beliefs in mystical beings and powers”. The subject of much anthropological analysis, rituals can in fact be secular or religious. They may mark major milestones for a society or community, constitute a rite of passage for individuals, or be enacted through more subtle behaviors in everyday life. Do all cultures have the same types of rituals? This week’s videos introduce Van Gennep’s three stages of rites of passage and Turner’s concepts of liminality and communitas in order to explore rituals as acts of social performance as well as personal transition. A case study of Cajun Mardi Gras ritual traditions from eHRAF World Cultures highlights the inversion of cultural norms symbolized by its carnival-like indulgences.

  • History of Ideas – Rituals (~13 mins)
  • Van Gennep’s Stages of Rites of Passage (~2 mins)
  • Laissez les bon temps rouler ! Mardi Gras and Cajun Traditions in eHRAF
  • Henninger-Rener, S. “ Religion ” in Perspectives
  • Griffith, L. “ Performance “, in Perspectives . Read section “Ritual as Performance”.
  • Brown, G. 2003. “Theorizing ritual as performance: explorations of ritual indeterminacy”. Journal of Ritual Studies , 17(1): 3–18. http://www.jstor.org/stable/44368641 .
  • Sjorslev, I. 1987. “Untimely Gods and French Perfume: Ritual, Rules and Deviance in The Brazilian Candomble”, Folk 29: 5–22. https://ehrafworldcultures.yale.edu/document?id=so11-009 . (Membership required)

Week 11. Witchcraft and sorcery: dealing with misfortune, magic, and a zero-sum universe

Why do some guys have all the luck? Why do bad things happen to good people? These are questions we often find ourselves asking when life seems distinctly unfair. In a zero-sum universe, one person’s good fortune is believed to come at the expense of another’s misfortune. Anthropologist Evans-Pritchard’s fieldwork and research on witchcraft and sorcery in Africa – detailed in his classic account, Witchcraft, Oracles, and Magic Among the Azande – is a rich starting point for exploring how other cultures view misfortune and malice in the absence of a belief in “chance” or “coincidence”. Rural Irish folktales about fairies and their magic in eHRAF provide a fun case study for cultural comparison.

  • Strange Beliefs: Sir Edward Evans-Pritchard (begin at 07:30; ~45 mins)

Key readings:

  • Luck of the Irish: Folklore and fairies in Rural Ireland
  • Evans-Pritchard, E. E. 1937. “Witchcraft, Oracles and Magic Among the Azande.” Oxford: Clarendon Press. https://ehrafworldcultures.yale.edu/document?id=fo07-071 . Read pages 69-70.

Textbook readings:

  • Benussi, M. 2019. “ Magic ”, Cambridge Encyclopedia of Anthropology
  • Espírito Santo, D. 2019. “ Divination “, Cambridge Encyclopedia of Anthropology

Advanced readings:

  • Malinowski, B. 1935. Coral Gardens and Their Magic: A Study of the Methods of Tilling The Soil and of Agricultural Rites in the Trobriand Islands. Vol. One, The Description of Gardening . New York: American Book Company. https://ehrafworldcultures.yale.edu/document?id=ol06-002 .
  • LeVine, R. 1963. “Witchcraft and Sorcery in a Gusii Community”, Witchcraft And Sorcery In East Africa [By] John Beattie London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. https://ehrafworldcultures.yale.edu/document?id=fl08-015 .
  • Beattie, J. 1963. “Sorcery in Bunyoro”, Witchcraft and Sorcery In East Africa By John Beattie And Others . London: Routledge and Paul. https://ehrafworldcultures.yale.edu/document?id=fk11-008 .

Week 12. Puppy love: animals and their humans

You may have noticed by now that the internet is full of cat photos and cute puppy memes. It is clear that the human love of pets is a powerful and global phenomenon. For many pet owners, their furry (or scaly) domestic companions transcend any simple categorization of non-human animal. Indeed, research shows that it is a growing global trend for pet owners to consider their animals to be full members of their families, to dote upon them as they would children or romantic partners, and to thereby develop strong mutual bonds of dependency, love, and support. What can anthropology tell us about the relationship between humans and their fur babies?

  • A Brief History of Dogs – David Ian Howe (~4 mins)
  • Why We Love Dogs More Than Humans (~4 mins)
  • Defining Domestication with Timothy Ingold (~3 mins)
  • Unconditional Love: Is devotion to pets a cultural universal?
  • White, T. and M. Candea. 2018. “ Animals “, Cambridge Encyclopedia of Anthropology

Advanced Reading:

  • “Chapter 10: The Sacrificial Role of Cattle”, 248-271, in Evans-Pritchard, E. E. 1956. “Nuer Religion.” Oxford: Clarendon Press. https://ehrafworldcultures.yale.edu/document?id=fj22-016 . (Membership required)
  • Leach, E. “Anthropological Aspects of Language: Animal Categories and Verbal Abuse”,Anthrozoös,2:3,151-165,DOI: 10.2752/089279389787058055 (Paywall)

Week 13. Good Eats: The Anthropology of Food

Food is powerful and omnipresent within human society. We need to eat to survive, yet the enjoyment of food is about much more than nutrition alone. The symbolic ability of food to connect people to time, place, and relationships makes it a diverse field of study for anthropologists. We all have strong feelings about foods that we love or hate. Is pineapple an acceptable topping for pizza? How do you feel about black licorice? And let us not get the British or Australians started on Marmite. Some aspects of food and eating are universal, such as commensality – the act of eating together with others. This practice, found the world over, reinforces strong bonds of family and friendship within a community. Food can also be a marker of social distance, as you will rarely share a meal with people you dislike (Thanksgiving dinner notwithstanding!). This week will take an ethnographic look at culinary adventures, including the social life of cheese, as well as the delights of chocolate and its origins in Mesoamerica.

  • The History of Chocolate – Deanna Pucciarelli (~4 mins)
  • American Kids try Dutch Food (~5 mins)
  • The Social Life of Cheese
  • The Mesoamerican origins of chocolate featuring eHRAF Archaeology
  • Craving Comfort: bonding with food across cultures
  • Nahum-Claudel, C. 2016. “ Feasting “, Cambridge Encyclopedia of Anthropology
  • Fox, R. 2014. Food and Eating: An Anthropological Perspective . SIRC. ( PDF )
  • Mintz, S., and C. M. Du Bois. 2002. “The Anthropology of Food and Eating”, Annual Review of Anthropology, 31: 99-119. Read online: jstor.org/stable/4132873
  • Douglas, M. 1972. “Deciphering a Meal”, Daedalus, 101(1): 61-81. Read online: jstor.org/stable/20024058

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Guide 2022 | How to Write an Ethnography

Assignments in anthropology, sociology, religious studies, and human and organisational growth, among other fields, frequently include ethnographies and research papers. Even though they combine fieldwork (observation, interview, survey) and thoughtful evaluation through the implementation of basic discipline or course principles it created a challenge. Writing ethnographies sometimes necessitates the formulation of a proposed study or hypothesis prior to doing research.

Anthropology is one of the sciences that are currently being explored. It is classified as a social science because it primarily concerns human origins, social conventions, and ideologies. However, it is considered to have originated in the departments of economics and theoretical physics.

The word "anthropology" comes from the Greek word Anthropos, which means "man." It finishes with ology, which is derived from the Greek word logia, which means "study." Anthropology is primarily concerned with the concept of life and its origin.

Other times, our research may lead to the development of a hypothesis. It can be difficult to strike a balance between the different types of research and writing. Read the guide to learn  how to write ethnography  significantly.

ethnography assignment example

Ethnography: Meaning & Example

It takes a long time to write ethnography. It can prove difficult to conduct research and analyse information. An ethnographer is a person who lives with a group of people in order to understand their history. They study people's behaviour and way of life. They collect data through a variety of ways in addition to observation. The ethnographic analysis is built using the data. We'll go through three alternative approaches in this section:

  • Interpretive;
  • Descriptive.

What Are The Main Genre Of Ethnography?

Ethnography is a type of writing that is widely used in the social sciences, particularly anthropology.

Ethnography is a detailed study of a community that teaches the reader through narrative engagement, which frequently includes reflecting the characteristics and storytelling tactics in addition to the accurate summary and standard interview style.

Ethnography straddles the line between journalistic trip reporting and classical valid explanation, blurring the lines between the two. To emphasise their position as both observers and important voices in the society they are studying, ethnographers frequently adopt the first-person standpoint in their writing.

Ethnographic writing necessitates your involvement on the scene: you can’t understand ethnography from a library or from Research online (unless you're gathering ethnographic facts on those specific locations, of course). It is not commonplace for ethnographic literature to begin with the ethnographer's arrival on the scene and progress through the research process. Some ethnographies need years of absorption and investigation in a culture, while others can be completed in a matter of hours. There are many  ethnography examples  that you can find online.

Most of the students face issues while drafting an Ethnography because of which they seek  Science assignment help   from the experts.

What Are The Basic Essentials Of Ethnography?

Ethnography is not the same as writing a journal or essay. Ethnography is a detailed version that raises awareness and helps people comprehend social patterns in a particular culture. Social scientists, such as anthropologists and sociologists, use ethnography to disseminate their research to a broader audience.

Dig Into The Five Components Required To Compose A Basic Ethnography:

It's a thesis.  The thesis outlines the investigation study's fundamental concept and message. This will aid in the organisation of your paper and its integration around a single main idea. It will also assist the reader in recognising the significance of the cultural trend you've researched. It might range from one to two sentences in length.

Review of the Literature  A literature review is an examination of prior research on the subject of your study. This will assist you in gathering background knowledge so that you may better comprehend the implications of your study issue. You must assess the study topic, analysis techniques, research outcomes, strengths and shortcomings, and how your study mainly will offer to this research in your evaluation of each article.

The gathering of information-  The data gathering section explains the techniques you used to obtain quantitative and/or qualitative data. This will aid in the development of your study design's dependability and applicability.

Analyse the data.  The interpretation of the data you gathered is called data analysis. This will assist give your facts a sense of significance and help you connect them to your argument. You should also give a sociological possible explanation of your findings. Include graphs of your data based on your information and what your market needs.

Reflexivity  When you express your own motives for completing a research study and the restrictions you encountered during the specific research, you are demonstrating reflexivity. This will help to clear up any misunderstandings in your data and erase any bias the client may have about your capital interest in the research project.

This rubric is influenced by personal encounters performing social research in college courses in sociology and anthropology. Your ethnography does not have to be written academically, but it should incorporate these elements. Ethnography is the study of people from different cultures. Fado Resounding is an excellent  ethnography example  of creative writing about a cultural phenomenon for an audience outside of academia. "Fado Resounding argues for the capacity of musical genre to sediment, circulate, and modify effect, sonorously portraying history and location as spiritual and emotion as public," according to the author.

Here Are the Main Steps in Writing Your Ethnography Paper

Ethnography is a discipline of study that analyses a particular ethnic group's life, culture, beliefs, and communities. Anthropology class since ethnography seems fascinating on paper and is, even more, engaging in reality if applied properly. An ethnography paper, on the other hand, is not an easy undertaking because there are so many aspects to every ethnographic topic that must be considered when writing a paper. Follow the steps to compile an engaged Ethnography document.

Choosing the correct topic is the simplest approach to ensure that your writing goes easily and produces positive outcomes. Professors frequently assign ethnographic paper themes to students, but if you already have any input, you can choose your own. We suggest considering a topic that you're either knowledgeable about or enthusiastic about, or a subject that you've never dealt with but has gripped you from the start.

Establish your thesis.

It's crucial to pick a topic for your paper, but you can't create a multi-page paper on something that's too comprehensive. To create a decent paper, you must restrict your topic reduced to a particular thesis that will constitute the basis for the rest of your research.

After you've completed your research, you should formulate a leading question and use the paper's thesis to respond to it. These two notions will assist you in concentrating on the task at hand rather than being side-tracked by trivial concerns.

Introduction

Most ethnographic paper writing instructions will tell you that you should start your paper with an introductory, which you will then utilise to stick to the paper's framework and stick to the subject. This approach to producing a paper based on WriteAnyPapers.com is absolutely viable and will produce the desired outcomes. Many students, on the other hand, find that postponing the introduction till later, when they know exactly what their work is about and can explain its argument in several phrases, is more acceptable.

A well-written outline is like the paper's spine; you can always go to it when you're unsure what to do, and it also functions as a guidance system for readership.

An ethnography writer's most frequent outline contains approach, market research, and conclusions. Focus on issues related to the following subsections, where you must explain to your audience how you acquired data for this research and what challenges you faced. In the data analysis section, present your data with an explanation, and in the conclusion, quickly summarise your findings.

Final version

After you've completed the three main elements of your ethnography paper outline, you may go on to the other sections, such as the title page and citations. Pay close attention to the references. Many academics search for this section in every paper. Finally, edit your work or have someone else proofread it for you to avoid receiving a perfect score due to grammar or spelling errors.

We hope that this guide has helped you in signifying your query “ how to write ethnography”  based on the research and the resources.

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Ethnography research

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Ethnography study  is a research method used in social sciences. It involves studying people in their natural environment. Researchers observe and interact with a group over a period of time to understand behaviors, and social interactions. The research can involve interviews, surveys, and direct observation. Your goal is to gain a deep understanding of how the group lives and sees the world.

If you’re here, you probably know that researchers should rely on ethnographic study to obtain accurate results. Indeed, as a qualitative research, it offers a far more realistic representation of human interactions than any other method. 

On the other hand, if you don’t know the tricks of ethnographic methodology, you are more likely to fall into the trap. It’s like throwing darts blindfolded. So, our paper writers have prepared this guide and ethnography examples to make sure that you never fail.

What Is Ethnography Research: Definition

Before we discuss the writing process, let’s first sort things out and define ethnography. Ethnography is a qualitative type of study where researchers examine a specific community in its natural environment through direct observation. In a nutshell, in this type of research you will examine or communicate with people in their local setting.  Ethnographic research method allows participants to feel comfortable while experiencing their authentic culture. Thus, it is perfect for studying things as they are.  The second meaning of “ ethnography ” is a written work that ethnographers complete after studying a community and gathering information about it. Sometimes, it may take years to collect necessary data about some group of people, especially when it comes to a tribe. For example, Claude Lévi-Strauss spent several years in different parts of Brazil before writing his notorious ethnographic work Tristes Tropiques (‘The Sad Tropics’).  Now that you know what ethnographic research is, let’s move on to the goals of study.

What Are The Goals of Ethnography Study?

As long as you are familiar with the ethnography meaning, let us look at this study’s main goals.  The primary purpose of ethnographic research is to get a whole picture about some community by observing how individuals interact in their natural environment. Ethnographers also use this research method to gain insights into culture and traditions of distant tribes. Besides just trying to understand distant and diverse societies, ethnographies also focus on our involvement in different cultures.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Ethnography

All qualitative research methods have their own advantages and disadvantages, and ethnography is not an exception. While being the only method that offers a hands-on approach to learning the interactions within any social or cultural group, this study is rather time-consuming. It’s important that you consider all pros and cons before selecting this research method.

Ethnographic Research: Main Advantages

Ethnographic research can benefit in many ways. Advantages of ethnography include:

  • Direct observation of some community.
  • Hands-on experience of any culture.
  • Comprehensive picture of any social group .
  • Flexibility and wide scope of study.
  • Accurate information about local traditions and practices.

So if you are seeking to learn about some community in an empirical way and communicate with the representatives directly, opt for ethnography. 

Ethnographies: Main Disadvantages

Main disadvantages of ethnography are as follows: 

  • Long duration of study.
  • Potential ethical issues.
  • High overall cost and many resources.
  • Difficulty to access or build a natural environment.
  • Geographical boundaries and geopolitical factors.
  • High tendency to bias due to subjectivity.

As you can see, a major disadvantage of ethnography is its time-consuming process. It is not an option if you need the results yesterday. Besides, this method requires thorough preparation and a considerable amount of expenses for a trip that may last years. This creates a high price label that not every novice researcher can afford.

Ethnographic Research Approaches

As a method of anthropology, ethnology has several peculiarities which define a researcher's approach. You will have to choose between such approaches:

  • Open or closed setting.
  • Overt or covert study.
  • Active or passive monitoring.

These techniques depend on the nature of study and the way you want to observe your participants. Let’s look closer at each of these approaches.

Ethnographic Study: Open vs. Closed Settings

The setting of your ethnography research is a location where you observe your subject group. An environment may have some boundaries or no limits at all. In other words, it can be either open or closed.  Intuitively speaking, an open setting is an environment without any borders or restrictions. It’s often called a public setting since you can access it easily. For instance, you may consider a local park or neighborhood because this setting doesn’t restrain you.

  • Open setting

Closed settings have restricted access. Generally, such environments are private and can block researchers from studying a social group. To access an open setting an ethnographer should get a special permission. For example, it can be an educational institution, a company or an organization.

  • Closed setting

Overt vs. Covert Ethnography Research Methodology

Ethnography research methodology implies particular procedures a researcher chooses in order to study a cultural or social group. Participation in ethnography – overt or covert – plays an essential role in choosing a setting and methods.  Overt ethnography is a research where participants are aware they are being examined. An overt method is considered ethical since the group’s members know the research is taking place and give their consent. To access a community, you need to directly explain your presence and be honest about your intentions.

  • Overt ethnography

Covert ethnography is a study where people have no clue they are being observed. Usually, to obtain access to such community, an ethnographer should pretend to be an actual group member. Though a covert method involves deception, it allows to avoid reactivity. The participants behave naturally, so the results will be more accurate.

  • Covert ethnography

Active vs. Passive Observation

The results of ethnographies also depend on the level of researcher’s involvement – active or passive. It is a context that defines your level of activity.  During an active observation, you will join the group and experience its culture together with the participants. In this case, people won’t be anxious. However, interference may cause reactivity.

  • Active observation

In a passive observation, researchers won’t interfere with the group and its normal functioning. The task is to observe what other people do. This method allows a more meticulous observation since researchers will have time to take notes.

  • Passive observation

Now let’s get to the part we know you’ve been eagerly waiting for since the beginning of our article. It’s time to learn how to write ethnographic research.

How to Write an Ethnography Step by Step

Writing an ethnography won’t be a challenge if you follow our step-by-step guide that will keep you on track. From getting access to creating notes and interpreting the dynamics, we’ve got you covered. Here’re 4 clearly defined steps you should go through to ensure that your research time is efficient.

1. Get Access to Group for Your Ethnography

One of the most critical and often challenging things in ethnography is getting access to a group. How an ethnographer should solve this question primarily depends on the setting and the type of sociologist participation (overt or covert). Here’s what should be considered:

Ethnographies are long-term studies. This means you should not only enter the field, but also maintain your access to the community. Therefore, an ethnographer should put extra effort to ensure a constant immersion in the setting, especially if it’s a closed one. Be ready for unexpected changes and try to behave naturally.

2. Find the Informants for Your Ethnographies

Informants are people who understand your ethnography research  and can share valuable insights about the community. They can tell you about group members, places and conditions. As providers of information, they can explain what behavior and activities are acceptable within a target group. Besides, your key respondents can provide you access, interpret the results, or even help you cope with stress.  However, it’s extremely important that you keep in mind 2 things:

  • Your findings can be influenced by an informant’s subjective opinion.
  • Some responses may be provided to please an ethnographer.

For this reason, you might want to find several respondents. This way, you will gain representative information about the entire population. 

3. Create Field Notes for Your Ethnographic Study

Field notes are detailed records that sum up what a researcher observed, heard or experienced during an ethnographic study. Taking notes of every single event or person can be quite tiresome. That’s why an ethnographer should first identify the main objectives of the study. With clear and good research questions , you will be able to determine what situations are significant and write down notes only when necessary.  Still, sometimes people may interact in the way you don’t expect. It’s a qualitative study so you should be prepared for changes. Don’t get stressed, though. Adjust to the situation and be flexible.

4. Writing an Ethnography

Once you are done, the last step will be writing an ethnographic research report. Ethnographies come in different ‘sizes and shapes’ – you can write an article or even a whole book.  There is no general structure you should follow when creating an ethnography. Some scientific reports just describe background information and briefly summarize the research. Meanwhile, other ethnographies are structured like other types of research. These reports contain an abstract, an introduction, methods, outcomes, discussion and conclusion.  As for the content, ethnographies usually take the form of a narrative. Since you will be sharing your own experiences, opt for a more personal style of writing. And above all, remember that your representation of the group should be convincing. So, you should support your reasoning with evidence.

Ethnographic Research Examples

Here are several ethnography examples that can get you inspired:

  • Observing a sports team during the training and actual game.
  • Examining how employees work remotely and on site.
  • Exploring the behavior of residents in a local park.

Feel free to use these examples to come up with a narrow topic for your study. And here’s an ethnography sample that you use as a guide during research or the writing process.

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Final Thoughts on Ethnographies

Let’s wrap this up: ethnography research is a qualitative study where a sociologist observes some group of people in their natural context. Depending on the nature of research, you should plan your strategy and choose a proper approach. If you want to dig deeper into details, make sure you check links scattered through this article. This should give you some valuable insights into the tricks of research and paper writing.

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Simplify! Entrust your ethnography to our research paper and thesis writing service and get your work done in no time. Our writers have solid experience and all necessary skills to seriously level-up your academic writing.

Ethnographic Study: Frequently Asked Questions

1. what are the main focuses of ethnographic research.

The main focuses of ethnographic research are observation, understanding, interpretation and representation. You should be a careful observer and pay attention to practices within the group. In addition, you must be able to understand why people act in a certain way and interpret your findings to introduce this community.

2. What is ethnographic research strategy?

An ethnographic research strategy is a study that allows ethnographers to get a realistic picture about any social or cultural group. Typically, researchers use direct observation or personal interviews as methods to study a community.

3. Who uses ethnography?

Ethnography is often used by anthropologists, ethnographers and sociologists. Moreover, ethnographic studies quite often come in handy for marketers, business analysts and geographers.

4. What are the characteristics of ethnography?

The main characteristics of ethnography are: 

  • Naturalism: focusing on society in a natural setting.
  • Context: access to public or private space.
  • Various sources of information: key informants and participants.

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40 Most Interesting Ethnographic Research Topics

Ethnographic Research Topics

Finding A-grade examples of ethnographic research topics may not be a walk in the park for college students.

The way of writing an effective ethnographic paper depends on the points discussed below.

So, here is a ready solution.

What is an Ethnographic Research Paper?

Ethnography is a social science method of research that counts on personal experiences within a subject group or a culture. Different instructors may recommend several writing guidelines for such a paper, but it generally follows a standard format. Such an arrangement incorporates a proper analysis and evaluation of the problem. Before we embark on learning how to write an ethnography, let us have a look at an ethnographic essay outline.

Structure of an Ethnographic Essay

The paper should follow the outline below: Introduction It is where you introduce your thesis statement, which is the main idea of the whole project. A proper ethnographic research topic would form a strong foundation for this part. The reader should be able to see an overview of what to expect in the essay. Methodology In this part, you explain how you did your research. Mention all the tools used and why you settled on them. It should be detailed and even a couple of in such a way that the reader can verify the information you used. Presentation and Analysis of Collected Data The findings should be placed on the table first. They should be in a logical manner, beginning with the essential facts. After that, analyze and precisely interpret the data. Let your readers know your criteria for interpretation before you start. Conclusion Different ethnographic research paper topics have different endings. However, the standard procedure is that you reiterate the most important points. Ensure that they are presented in an original way to make your conclusion not to look like a reversed introduction. That is the first part; however, finding quality examples of ethnographic research topics is another battle. Yet, don’t panic, we’ve got a legion of professional soldiers to cover your back on this.

We are going to explore a list of ethnography topics in clusters of ten each to prompt you for more. Get that notebook as we embark on this exciting experience. The items strive to meet your high school and college ethnography topics requirements.

Let’s get right into it, gang.

We will start with the easiest ones as we slowly advance to the technical topics. There is something for everybody!

Easy Ethnography Topics for High School

  • A study of the incisor tooth
  • The best careers that people can settle on in 2023
  • A survey of the lifestyle of a teacher
  • A study of the health benefits of taking water daily
  • A look at the importance of the sun to children
  • How greetings are in Africa
  • A study of the eating habits of dogs and cats
  • A comparison of the red meat and white meat
  • How wealthy children compare to needy children in academic performance
  • A look at how children behave at home versus in school

Interesting Ethnography Topics for College

  • An ethnographic study of the Chinese diets
  • The inner perspective of the culture of skateboarders
  • Critical issues on the social, cultural experience of the dancing
  • How nurses make sense of their caring abilities on the job
  • A study of how second-hand merchants impact the bookselling industry
  • Evaluating the satisfaction of a patient with the quality of care in a hospital
  • What myths and misconceptions surround the global connection
  • A study on the effect of uniforms in schools
  • How language impacts culture
  • A survey of qualitative sampling in data collection

Great Mini Ethnography Topics

  • How have malls changed the shopping sector?
  • Racism and its effects on campus
  • Values promoted by media productions
  • How cultural productions interpret the history
  • A study of the communities in New York
  • Teamwork and its impact on football
  • Reasons for differences in families
  • How service staff view people
  • Lives and cultures of the hotel industry
  • How immigrants express their identity
  • The view of people on gays
  • Adjustments made by women to fit in societies
  • Homeschooling and low grades
  • Hunting as a rite of passage
  • Wrestling and men
  • Concerts and teens
  • Cultural differences between different ethnic groups
  • How political clubs are changing
  • A study of street children in Africa
  • Politics and the U.S

How to write an effective ethnographic paper depends on the points discussed above. There are several ethnography paper examples online to give you more ideas on what you can write. Do not limit yourself to the topics above; create more unique ones on your own.

If you still need more professional writing help on any other essay, we would be more than glad to help. Hit that sends message button today.

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Research Method

Home » Digital Ethnography – Types, Methods and Examples

Digital Ethnography – Types, Methods and Examples

Table of Contents

Digital Ethnography

Digital Ethnography

Digital ethnography, also known as cyber-ethnography, online ethnography or virtual ethnography, is a branch of ethnography that focuses on the study of cultures and communities in the digital world. This research method involves examining online interactions, experiences, and cultural practices within digital platforms such as social media networks, online forums, virtual worlds, websites, digital archives, and software applications.

Types of Digital Ethnography

Digital ethnography is a versatile field that can be approached from various angles, depending on the focus of the study. Different types of digital ethnography include:

Auto-ethnography

This approach involves researchers reflecting on their own experiences within the digital space, providing an insider’s perspective.

Micro-ethnography

This focuses on studying a specific digital community or cultural aspect, such as a particular online ritual or practice.

Macro-ethnography

This involves studying broader social structures and patterns within digital cultures, such as how digital communities are organized or how cultural norms are developed and maintained online.

Cross-cultural ethnography

This entails studying how different cultures interact within digital spaces, which may involve looking at international interactions on social media platforms or within multiplayer online games.

App-centered ethnography

This involves studying the usage and cultural practices within a specific software application, such as a social media platform or digital game.

Visual ethnography

This is focused on studying visual media within digital cultures, such as how images or videos are used and interpreted within online communities.

Ethnomethodological ethnography

This is a technique where the researcher studies the rules and methods used by individuals within digital spaces to understand their world and communicate with others.

Netnography

This is a specific method that is used to study online communities as an evolution of ethnography. Robert Kozinets coined the term and it involves observing online conversations and interactions in a naturalistic way.

Digital Ethnography Methods

igital ethnography uses various methods to study online interactions, communities, and cultures. Some of the key methods include:

  • Participatory Observation : This is one of the fundamental methods in digital ethnography. Researchers immerse themselves in the online community or platform they’re studying, participating in interactions and observing the behaviors, norms, and practices of that community.
  • Online Interviews : Researchers can conduct one-on-one interviews with participants over video calls, chat platforms, or email. This allows researchers to gather in-depth information about individuals’ experiences and perspectives.
  • Surveys : Online surveys can be used to collect data from a larger group of participants. They can be used to gather both quantitative and qualitative data.
  • Content Analysis : This method involves analyzing digital content such as social media posts, blog entries, forum threads, or other types of user-generated content. The aim is to identify patterns, themes, or characteristics.
  • Social Network Analysis : This method is used to analyze the relationships and interactions among users in a digital community. It can help reveal the structure of the community, identify key influencers, or understand patterns of communication.
  • Big Data Analysis : Given the enormous amount of data generated in digital spaces, researchers can use computational tools and algorithms to analyze large datasets. This can involve, for example, using machine learning algorithms to identify patterns in the data.
  • Visual Ethnography : This involves studying visual media like images, videos, emojis, GIFs, and memes to understand how they are used and interpreted in digital cultures.
  • Digital Artifact Analysis : Studying the cultural significance of digital objects or artifacts, such as profile pictures, digital gifts, or in-game items.

Examples of Digital Ethnography

Here are a few examples of digital ethnography:

  • Studying Memes and Online Culture : Researchers might study the culture of meme creation and sharing to understand the norms, behaviors, and language of online communities. For example, a study might analyze the memes generated around a specific event or trend to understand how online communities interpret and respond to that event.
  • Understanding Social Movements : Digital ethnography can be used to study the formation and operation of online social movements. For example, researchers have used digital ethnographic methods to study the Black Lives Matter movement, analyzing how activists use social media to organize protests, share information, and shape public discourse.
  • Studying Online Gaming Communities : Online games, especially massively multiplayer online games (MMOs), often have complex communities and cultures. Digital ethnography can be used to study these communities, observing how players interact with each other, form groups or guilds, and create shared meanings and practices.
  • Understanding Consumer Behavior : Many companies use digital ethnography to better understand their customers’ behavior and experiences. For example, a company might study how customers use their website or app, examining things like how they navigate the platform, how they use different features, and what problems they encounter.
  • Healthcare Research : Digital ethnography can be used to understand patient experiences and healthcare delivery in online settings. For example, a study might investigate how patients use online forums to share experiences, seek advice, and provide support to each other.
  • Online Learning Practices : Researchers might use digital ethnography to study online learning communities, observing how students and teachers interact, share knowledge, and navigate the challenges of online learning.

When to use Digital Ethnography

Here are several specific situations where you might use digital ethnography:

  • Exploring Online Communities : If you’re looking to study an online community—such as a social media group, a forum, or an online gaming community—digital ethnography can provide a deep understanding of the behaviors, norms, and values within that community.
  • Understanding User Experience : Companies often use digital ethnography to understand how users interact with their digital products or platforms. This can help identify usability issues, understand user needs, or explore how users navigate and make sense of the digital environment.
  • Studying Social Phenomena : If you’re researching a social phenomenon that primarily occurs online—such as an online social movement or a viral trend—digital ethnography can provide insights into how the phenomenon emerges, develops, and impacts participants.
  • Understanding Digital Learning : For researchers interested in online learning, digital ethnography can provide valuable insights into how students and teachers interact, how learning communities form, and how digital tools are used in the learning process.
  • Exploring Cultural Trends : Digital ethnography can be used to study cultural trends and phenomena in digital spaces, such as the use and meaning of memes, the development of internet slang, or the cultural practices around posting and sharing content.

Applications of Digital Ethnography

Digital ethnography can be applied in many different contexts. Here are a few examples:

  • Market Research : Companies often use digital ethnography to better understand consumer behaviors, needs, and experiences. For instance, studying how consumers use a particular product or service, how they interact with online marketing content, or how they discuss the brand on social media.
  • User Experience (UX) Design : Digital ethnography can provide valuable insights into how users interact with digital products, platforms, or services. This can help UX designers to create more intuitive, user-friendly designs.
  • Healthcare : Digital ethnography can be used to study patient behaviors and experiences in online settings. For example, researchers might study how patients use health-related apps, how they seek and share health information online, or how they interact in online patient support groups.
  • Education : In the field of education, digital ethnography can be used to study online learning practices and environments. This could include studying student-teacher interactions in an online classroom, exploring how students use digital tools for learning, or understanding the challenges and opportunities of online education.
  • Social Sciences : In social science research, digital ethnography can be used to study a wide range of online social phenomena. This might include studying online communities, social movements, cultural trends, or social interactions in digital spaces.
  • Cybersecurity : Digital ethnography can also be applied in the field of cybersecurity. By understanding the behaviors, values, and social structures of online communities, researchers can better understand things like the culture of hacker communities, the social aspects of cybercrime, or the human factors in cybersecurity.
  • Policy Making : Policymakers can use digital ethnography to understand the impact of digital technologies on society and to inform policy decisions. For instance, studying how different communities use and are affected by digital technology, or exploring the social implications of new digital trends or innovations.

Advantages of Digital Ethnography

Digital ethnography offers several distinct advantages, especially in the context of studying digital or online spaces. Here are a few of the key benefits:

  • Access to diverse and dispersed populations : Digital ethnography allows researchers to study individuals and communities that might be geographically dispersed or otherwise difficult to access. For instance, it enables the study of global online communities or specific subcultures that exist primarily on the internet.
  • Real-time data collection : Digital ethnography enables researchers to collect data in real-time, observing interactions and behaviors as they happen. This can provide more immediate and accurate insights than relying on participants’ recall of events.
  • Volume of data : Digital platforms often generate large amounts of data, providing a rich source of information for researchers. For example, a researcher can analyze thousands of social media posts or comments to identify patterns or trends.
  • Naturalistic setting : Unlike laboratory settings, digital ethnography allows researchers to study behaviors and interactions in the environments where they naturally occur. This can lead to more valid and authentic findings.
  • In-depth insights : Like traditional ethnography, digital ethnography can provide deep, nuanced insights into behaviors, experiences, and cultural practices. It allows researchers to go beyond surface-level observations to understand the underlying meanings and contexts.
  • Longitudinal analysis : Digital ethnography also allows for longitudinal studies, where researchers can track changes and developments in online communities or behaviors over time. This can be especially valuable in studying fast-changing digital cultures.
  • Understanding of digital phenomena : Digital ethnography can provide insights into digital phenomena that cannot be adequately studied through other methods. This includes things like online identities, digital communities, or online social movements.

Disadvantages of Digital Ethnography

While digital ethnography provides many advantages, it’s also important to be aware of its limitations and challenges. Here are some potential disadvantages:

  • Privacy and Ethical Concerns : Privacy is a major concern in digital ethnography, especially when researching social media platforms and other public digital spaces. Gaining informed consent can be challenging, and researchers must ensure that their methods respect the privacy and autonomy of the participants.
  • Data Overload : Digital platforms often generate large amounts of data. While this can provide a rich source of information, it can also lead to data overload, making it difficult for researchers to manage and interpret the data.
  • Lack of Non-Verbal Cues : In digital spaces, researchers often lack access to the non-verbal cues that can provide important context in face-to-face interactions. This can make it more challenging to interpret the meaning of interactions or behaviors.
  • Sampling Bias : The digital divide means that certain populations may be overrepresented or underrepresented in digital spaces. This could lead to sampling bias if the findings from a digital ethnography study are generalized to the broader population.
  • Rapid Change of Digital Spaces : Digital cultures and technologies can change quickly. This rapid pace of change can make it challenging to conduct longitudinal studies or to keep findings relevant and up-to-date.
  • Technical Skills Required : Conducting digital ethnography research often requires a degree of technical skills and familiarity with digital platforms. This might include skills in data mining, social network analysis, or using digital research tools.
  • Deceptive Online Behavior : Participants in online spaces might present themselves in a way that doesn’t truly reflect their offline identities, which can pose challenges in terms of authenticity and reliability of the data.

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The Autoethnography: Ten Examples

Instructions, choosing a topic.

For our final project for the class, you will be asked to select a subculture that you have currently chosen to be a part of or one that you will choose to connect yourself to and to investigate this subculture in a larger research paper called an autoethnography.

For this immediate assignment, I would like you to identify two subcultures that you are currently a part of and that you would find interesting to research. For each of the subcultures you identify, I would like you to give a brief description (three to four lines or more if necessary) that gives an overview of what the subculture is and your position in the subculture (how long you’ve been a part of it and how you feel about it).

From these two options, you will be choosing a topic for your final research paper. We will be sharing these ideas with the entire class. Please be as specific as possible. Your topics must fulfill the following criteria:

You must be able to do background and preliminary research on your topics. In other words, written and visual material must be readily available for analysis.

Topics must be local and accessible.

There must be a place, field site, or event space for the topic that you will be able to visit at least twice during the semester.

There must be at least two people you can interview who have different roles relevant to the topic.

Topics must be new and cannot overlap with research topics in any other course work.

Interviewing

The purpose of the interview is to help you gain insight into the perspective of another member of your subculture. This can be valuable on a number of levels and for a number of reasons. It can help you understand the subculture more as an outsider, offer additional information you can use to examine your own positionality, and provide interesting narrative content for the final project.

As you plan for your interview, consider what information you would like to get out of the interview, and write out your questions accordingly.

For this assignment, write up a minimum of ten questions you plan to ask your interviewee. Make sure the questions are in an order that is logical. This will allow you to know what you intend to get out of an interview and enable you to adapt when an interviewee inadvertently answers more than one question at a time or shares information you would like to ask about in greater depth.

Make sure you ask leading questions rather than questions that can be answered with one-word responses. It is helpful to incorporate phrases such as these into your interview questions: “Tell me a story about the time…”; “Can you explain in detail when…”; “Describe your favorite memory about . . “; “At length, describe….”

This kind of questioning will help your interviewee to feel comfortable and willing to share more information about which you can then ask follow-up questions.

Interviews can be conducted in various ways: through online chats, via telephone or in person. Each method has its own plusses and minuses, so be aware that they will yield different products.

In-person interviews are usually the most productive in that they allow you to take notes on the interviewee’s manner, dress and composure in addition to getting your verbal answers. The benefit on online interviews conducted in writing is that they are already written up for you, and the task of writing up in-person interviews is time-consuming. You will miss out on observation details, however, in any form that is not face-to-face.

Please bring to class at least one set of questions with a brief description of whom you will be interviewing, what you already know about that person and what you would like to learn from her or him. Ultimately, you will be picking two people to interview and writing questions for each interview.

Observations

When we engage in autoethnographic writing, it is important to try to re-create the spaces we are visiting—in other words, to explore the field sites where we are spending our time.

As part of our larger assignment, you need to identify a field site that will be relevant for your subculture. This can be a location where it meets, a place where history, event or memory is held.

For this assignment, I want you to walk into a space or event related to your subculture and spend at least twenty minutes there. You will be engaging in a stream-of-consciousness freewrite, making notes on everything you experience with your five senses. As in earlier assignments, I will then ask you to create a narrative from the details you have noted.

Rely on all five of your senses to convey not just what the space looks like but what it feels like. Sight, smell, touch, sight, sound are all important to consider as we try to re-create an environment we are experiencing for an outsider. Do not edit! Just write for the entire twenty minutes in the space without picking up your pen or pencil or relinquishing your keyboard, and see what you come up with!

As you did with earlier assignments, you should write the narrative version of your notes as close to the time of observation as possible.

Putting It All Together

When trying to incorporate your research into a final paper, it is important to realize that you will not be using all of it. As in our essays earlier in the semester, you will be drawing on important pieces of it to make your larger arguments (parts of the observation, pieces of the interview, etc.). You should not try to use all of the information you gathered in the final paper. Any kind of personal and qualitative writing is about making choices and creating narratives and subtext while maintaining your own voice as a participant-observer.

The most important thing to do is to find common threads in your research, identify your main themes and use the information you have gathered, combined with your own narrative understanding or experience, to create your final piece.

Your final paper will end up being roughly six to ten pages long, given the amount of data you have collected. It is important to ask questions as you go through this final drafting process, so please feel free to contact me at any point about concerns and ideas.

When transcribing interviews, please include only your questions and the full responses that will appear as quotes or paraphrases in your final paper. Since transcribing is time-consuming, this will be the most efficient use of your time. I ask you to attach these documents as well as the observations you completed to the final paper.

You will be asked to present your findings and read a brief piece of your project on the last day of class.

Student Samples

These essays went through multiple drafts at each point. Observations, interviews, and the final draft were all peer and instructor reviewed.

Adriana explores Anarchism in New York.

Tyana explores the group Student Activists Ending Dating Abuse (SAEDA).

Hannah explores the world of computer programmers.

Heather explores the world of Bronies.

Jillian explores modern artistic taxidermy.

Emma explores a religious institution for the first time.

William explores the world of Manhattan Drag.

Joomi explores National Novel Writing Month.

Justine explores the world of Manhattan-based metal band Steel Paradise.

Neziah Doe explores science culture on YouTube.

Teaching Autoethnography: Personal Writing in the Classroom Copyright © by Melissa Tombro is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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  • Autoethnography

Alia R.Tyner-Mullings

While it is an ethnographic method on its own, an autoethnography can also be a good place to begin an ethnographic investigation. Through it, you can begin to situate yourself within the larger structural and social system. It allows you to explore your own positionality before you begin to examine the lives of others as an autothenography is a way to turn ethnography on yourself and to learn about your life in the same way you might learn about someone else’s. The process of creating an autoethnography allows you to be reflective on what makes you who you are and how you came to be. Through this process, an authoethnography can also help you to look at the larger context in which you live. [1]

Autoethnography is an approach to research and writing that seeks to describe and systematically analyze (graphy) personal experience (auto) in order to understand cultural experience (ethno) (Ellis, 2004; Holman Jones, 2005). This approach challenges canonical ways of doing research and representing others (Spry, 2001) and treats research as a political, socially-just and socially-conscious act (Adams & Holman Jones, 2008). A researcher uses tenets of autobiography and ethnography to do and write autoethnography. Thus, as a method, autoethnography is both process and product. [2]

History of Autoethnography

So how did autoethnography come to be?  In the 1980s, scholars introduced new and abundant opportunities to reform social science and reconceive the objectives and forms of social science inquiry. Scholars became increasingly troubled by social science’s ontological, epistemological, and axiological limitations (Ellis & Bochner, 2000). Furthermore, there was an increasing need to resist colonialist, sterile research impulses of authoritatively entering a culture, exploiting cultural members, and then recklessly leaving to write about the culture for monetary and/or professional gain, while disregarding relational ties to cultural members (Conquergood, 1991; Ellis, 2007; Riedmann, 1993).

Gradually, scholars across a wide spectrum of disciplines began to consider what social sciences would become if they were closer to literature than to physics, if they proffered stories rather than theories, and if they were self-consciously value-centered rather than pretending to be value free (Bochner, 1994). Many of these scholars turned to autoethnography because they were seeking a positive response to critiques of canonical ideas about what research is and how research should be done. In particular, they wanted to concentrate on ways of producing meaningful, accessible, and evocative research grounded in personal experience, research that would sensitize readers to issues of identity politics, to experiences shrouded in silence, and to forms of representation that deepen our capacity to empathize with people who are different from us (Ellis & Bochner, 2000). Autoethnographers recognize the innumerable ways personal experience influences the research process. For instance, a researcher decides who, what, when, where, and how to research, decisions necessarily tied to institutional requirements (e.g., Institutional Review Boards), resources (e.g., funding), and personal circumstance (e.g., a researcher studying cancer because of personal experience with cancer). A researcher may also change names and places for protection (Fine, 1993), compress years of research into a single text, and construct a study in a pre-determined way (e.g., using an introduction, literature review, methods section, findings, and conclusion; Tullis Owen, McRae, Adams & Vitale, 2009). Even though some researchers still assume that research can be done from a neutral, impersonal, and objective stance (Atkinson, 1997; Buzard, 2003; Delamont, 2009), most now recognize that such an assumption is not tenable (Bochner, 2002; Denzin & Lincoln, 2000; Rorty, 1982). Consequently, autoethnography is one of the approaches that acknowledges and accommodates subjectivity, emotionality, and the researcher’s influence on research, rather than hiding from these matters or assuming they don’t exist.

Furthermore, scholars began recognizing that different kinds of people possess different assumptions about the world—a multitude of ways of speaking, writing, valuing and believing—and that conventional ways of doing and thinking about research were narrow, limiting, and parochial. These differences can stem from race (Anzaldúa, 1987; Boylorn, 2006; Davis, 2009), gender (Blair, Brown & Baxter, 1994; Keller, 1995), sexuality (Foster, 2008; Glave, 2005), age (Dossa, 1999; Paulson & Willig, 2008), ability (Couser, 1997; Gerber, 1996), class (Hooks, 2000; Dykins Callahan, 2008), education (Delpit, 1996; Valenzuela, 1999), or religion (Droogsma, 2007; Minkowitz, 1995). Often, those who advocate and insist on canonical forms of doing and writing research are advocating a White, masculine, heterosexual, middle/upper-classed, Christian, cis-gendered and able-bodied perspective. Following these conventions, a researcher not only disregards other ways of knowing but also implies that other ways are unsatisfactory and invalid. Autoethnography, on the other hand, expands and opens up a wider lens on the world, eschewing rigid definitions of what constitutes meaningful and useful research; this approach also helps us understand how the kinds of people we claim, or are perceived, to be influence interpretations of what we study, how we study it, and what we say about our topic (Adams, 2005; Wood, 2009).

The Structure of Autoethnographies

As described above, autoethnography combines characteristics of autobiography and ethnography and in writing an autobiography, an author retroactively and selectively writes about past experiences. Usually, the author does not live through these experiences solely to make them part of a published document; rather, these experiences are assembled using hindsight (Bruner, 1993; Denzin, 1989, Freeman, 2004). In writing, the author also may interview others as well as consult with texts like photographs, journals, and recordings to help with recall (Delany, 2004; Didion, 2005; Goodall, 2006; Herrmann, 2005).

Most often, autobiographers write about “epiphanies” —remembered moments perceived to have significantly impacted the trajectory of a person’s life (Bochner & Ellis, 1992; Couser, 1997; Denzin, 1989), times of existential crises that forced a person to attend to and analyze lived experience (Zaner, 2004), and events after which life does not seem quite the same. While epiphanies are self-claimed phenomena in which one person may consider an experience transformative while another may not, these epiphanies reveal ways a person could negotiate “intense situations” and “effects that linger—recollections, memories, images, feelings—long after a crucial incident is supposedly finished” (Bochner, 1984, p.595). This is one justification for focusing the autoethnography on a student’s path to college and how they arrived at our school like we do at Guttman Community College. When researchers do autoethnography, they retrospectively and selectively write about epiphanies that stem from, or are made possible by, being part of a culture and/or by possessing a particular cultural identity. However, in addition to telling their audiences about experiences, autoethnographers often are required by social science publishing conventions to analyze these experiences. As Mitch Allen says, an autoethnographer must

“look at experience analytically. Otherwise [you’re] telling [your] story—and that’s nice—but people do that on Oprah [a U.S.-based television program] every day. Why is your story more valid than anyone else’s? What makes your story more valid is that you are a researcher. You have a set of theoretical and methodological tools and a research literature to use. That’s your advantage. If you can’t frame it around these tools and literature and just frame it as ‘my story,’ then why or how should I privilege your story over anyone else’s I see 25 times a day on TV?” (personal interview, May 4, 2006) [3]

Autoethnographers must not only use their methodological tools and research literature to analyze experience, but also must consider ways others may experience similar epiphanies; they must use personal experience to illustrate facets of cultural experience, and, in so doing, make characteristics of a culture familiar for insiders and outsiders. To accomplish this might require comparing and contrasting personal experience against existing research (RONAI, 1995, 1996), interviewing cultural members (Foster, 2006; Marvasti, 2006; Tillmann-Healy, 2001), and/or examining relevant cultural artifacts (Boylorn, 2008; Denzin, 2006).

In her piece “Evaluating Ethnography,” Laurel Richardson examines the divide that has persisted between literary and scientific writing (253). This is similar to the division that has existed between academic and personal writing. She notes the “oxymoronic” naming of genres that have tried to bridge this gap, thus blurring distinctions among categories such as “creative nonfiction; faction; ethnographic fiction; the nonfiction novel; and true fiction” (253). And she seeks to lay out the criteria she uses to judge ethnography’s success. [4]

In attempting to create new standards that allow writers to move more freely in their ethnographic work, Richardson establishes the following as important evaluative criteria. She believes the work should: make a substantive contribution, have aesthetic merit, have reflexivity, make an impact, and express a reality (254). In this way, Richardson intends to show the related nature of scientific research and creative expression.

Arthur Bochner responds to Richardson in “Criteria Against Ourselves” and sets up his own evaluation criteria for what he terms “alternative ethnography,” another name often assigned to ethnography that deviates from traditional social science norms. He sees alternative ethnographies as “narratives of the self” that “extract meaning from experience rather than depict experience exactly as it was lived” (270). When looking at this personal writing, he wants abundant concrete detail, structurally complex narratives, emotional credibility, a tale of two selves, and ethical self-consciousness (270-71).

In “Evocative Autoethnography: Writing Emotionally About Our Lives,” Carolyn Ellis describes her gradual departure from traditional sociological methods into an approach that is more personally meaningful. She achieves this balance in her writing by using multiple voices, starting and restarting to establish her point of view through both analysis and storytelling. “I made myself begin again in an autoethnographic voice that concentrates on telling a personal, evocative story to provoke others’ stories and adds blood and tissue to the abstract bones of the theoretical discourse” (117). Throughout the piece, she clearly establishes a point of view, which she emphasizes in many of her works about autoethnography, “I think that sociology can be emotional, personal, therapeutic, interesting, engaging, evocative, reflexive, helpful, concrete, and connected to the world of everyday experience” (120). She aims to be true to her feelings, move away from time ordered structures and convey her emotions (128).

Ellis draws on interviews, notes, conversations, and diaries to construct her writing and seeks to find herself in the context of a larger world. “The inner workings of the self must be investigated in reciprocal relationship with the other: concrete action, dialogue, emotion, and thinking are featured, but they are represented within relationships and institutions, very much impacted by history, social structure, and culture, which themselves are dialectically revealed through action, thought, and language” (133).

She seeks to find value in autoethnography through the impact it has on her audience. “A story’s ‘validity’ can be judged by whether it evokes in readers a feeling that the experience described is authentic and lifelike, believable and possible; the story’s generalizability can be judged by whether it speaks to readers about their experience” (133). She believes that by sharing stories this way, we open up a world that allows others to share their stories (134).

To accomplish this, your first attempt at autoethngraphy might begin with Allen’s simple retelling of a “story”. This story connects with something powerful in your life and may lead you to a particular conclusion about how your individual world works and how that is affected by larger social institutions. If you are able to do multiple drafts, the opportunity for reflection grows and the connection to larger social institutions is more easily made. [5]

Preparing for the Autoethnograhy

In writing an autoethnography, you will be asked to analyze your epiphany, position in the subculture or the educational path you are currently on as well as the positioning of others and how it might affect your perspective. Autoethnographic analysis in this case might include interviewing other members of the subculture, conducting field observation, analyzing textual materials, investigating histories, and engaging in self-reflection. Previous involvement in or attachment to a subculture provides a vested interest in the project, a sense of authority, and a position from which to analyze. [6]

When conducting autoethnographic research, as opposed to traditional ethnographic research, you start out with a certain amount of knowledge about the subculture or epiphany you are investigating because you have some expertise about it. At the same time, because it is necessary to explain the subculture to those who are unfamiliar with it, you must also learn how to translate that knowledge to an outside audience. In addition, when considering any observations you might make, you need to look at the subculture afresh and describe elements you may have taken for granted. You must account for rituals, language and subtleties that make it operate as something unique and situated. You might consider interviewing members of the subculture who inhabit a different position than you do, and you can also gather new perspectives from insiders that will help you to further articulate your own ideas and question your own authority in communicating exactly what the subculture is. Interviewing and conducting observations can both empower you and decenter you from your own experience, forcing you to question and revise your representation of your experience to an intended audience (your instructor and classmates, who may see this writing at multiple stages). [7]

When you draw on visceral experiences as well as textual evidence, it can also create a richer understanding of the subculture and an ethical responsibility to convey its multiple facets and to avoid being reductive. This can increase your understanding and involvement in the subculture and produce a new appreciation for an activity that perhaps had been an unexamined part of your life outside the classroom. In this way, the writing carries an impact that extends beyond the scope of the assignment and its evaluation against classroom standards.

One of the first steps you want to take in preparing for your autoethnograpy is to determine its structure. An autoethnography assignment will generally provide you with an overall question, a particular subculture or epiphany or a series of smaller questions related to an overall theme. You should pay close attention to what is being asked of you including what you will need to submit, the research required to complete it and what the differences are between any subsequent drafts.  At Guttman, we generally begin with an exercise that helps you to think about your path to college. This might be a brainstorm, a list of questions or an exploration of your own notes, posts, assignments or journal entries. [8]

Collecting data for your autoethnography

If you have not been provided a list of questions, you may need to develop your own. In this case, you will need to review whichever aspect of your world your professor has asked you to examine and any experiences, people and artifacts that are related. [9]

The structure of your autoethnography should be similar to how you might write up an ethnography. This will generally include one or more narrative stories that describe the particular aspects of your subculture or epiphany that are referred to in your assignment. You might include pictures or images that capture your experiences. As part of this assignment, you may find it useful to speak to family or friends who might also have insight into those parts of your life, examining journals, photos and pictures to collect information can also provide information.

As you think about your autoethnography, you must also understand that memory is fallible. As a rule, people remember only a very small amount of what they experience. If this were not true, we would not be able to function on a daily basis. Consider whether you have a memory of something that others dispute—maybe something that happened in childhood or an experience with a friend on which you disagree about what actually occurred.

It is important to establish that just because memories differ does not mean they are invalid. There is a fine line between remembering something to the best of our ability and willfully misremembering something. Talking to others who were involved in memories, if possible, can be helpful in fleshing out details. . Since memory is fallible, interviewing others who were present at important events, speaking to multiple people directly involved in the memories or reading journals or other first-hand accounts can be an important part of the writing. It may come as a surprise that writing about your own life can require research. [10]

Once you have your data, you want to begin to organize it. There are two general ways to organize your autoethnography—chronologically and by theme. If you are describing your path to or through something, you will likely want to write this chronologically. You should begin with the earliest event, person or activity and share a story or multiple stories through to the current time. [11]

If you are not writing your essay as building up to something or this is later draft that includes some analysis or examination of social institutions, you might want to organize your paper by theme. In this case, you might collect particular examples that share a particular pattern or connect to a theme.

Ethnographic Narratives

The forms of autoethnography also differ in how much emphasis is placed on the study of others, the researcher’s self and interaction with others, traditional analysis, and the interview context, as well as on power relationships. [12] Many assignments in a class are likely to focus more on the self but others might ask you to pull on data outside of your own experiences. These are built off of different structures of ethnographic research and the ways in which narratives are composed. [13]

Indigenous/native ethnographies, for example, develop from colonized or economically subordinated people, and are used to address and disrupt power in research, particularly a (outside) researcher’s right and authority to study (exotic) others. Once at the service of the (White, masculine, heterosexual, middle/upper-classed, Christian, cis-gendered, able-bodied) ethnographer, indigenous/native ethnographers now work to construct their own personal and cultural stories; they no longer find (forced) subjugation excusable (see Denzin, Lincoln & Smith, 2008). [14]

Narrative ethnographies refer to texts presented in the form of stories that incorporate the ethnographer’s experiences into the ethnographic descriptions and analysis of others. Here the emphasis is on the ethnographic study of others, which is accomplished partly by attending to encounters between the narrator and members of the groups being studied (Tedlock, 1991), and the narrative often intersects with analyses of patterns and processes.

Reflexive, dyadic interviews focus on the interactively produced meanings and emotional dynamics of the interview itself. Though the focus is on the participant and her or his story, the words, thoughts, and feelings of the researcher also are considered, e.g., personal motivation for doing a project, knowledge of the topics discussed, emotional responses to an interview, and ways in which the interviewer may have been changed by the process of interviewing. Even though the researcher’s experience isn’t the main focus, personal reflection adds context and layers to the story being told about participants (Ellis, 2004).

Reflexive ethnographies document ways a researcher changes as a result of doing fieldwork. Reflexive/narrative ethnographies exist on a continuum ranging from starting research from the ethnographer’s biography, to the ethnographer studying her or his life alongside cultural members’ lives, to ethnographic memoirs (Ellis, 2004, p.50) or “confessional tales” (Van Maanen, 1988) where the ethnographer’s backstage research endeavors become the focus of investigation (Ellis, 2004).

Layered accounts often focus on the author’s experience alongside data, abstract analysis, and relevant literature. This form emphasizes the procedural nature of research. Similar to grounded theory, layered accounts illustrate how “data collection and analysis proceed simultaneously” (Charmaz, 1983, p.110) and frame existing research as a “source of questions and comparisons” rather than a “measure of truth” (p.117). But unlike grounded theory, layered accounts use vignettes, reflexivity, multiple voices, and introspection (Ellis, 1991) to “invoke” readers to enter into the “emergent experience” of doing and writing research (Ronai, 1992, p.123), conceive of identity as an “emergent process” (Rambo, 2005, p.583), and consider evocative, concrete texts to be as important as abstract analyses (Ronai, 1995, 1996).

Interactive interviews provide an “in-depth and intimate understanding of people’s experiences with emotionally charged and sensitive topics” (Ellis, Kiesinger & Tillmann-Healy, 1997, p.121). Interactive interviews are collaborative endeavors between researchers and participants, research activities in which researchers and participants—one and the same—probe together about issues that transpire, in conversation, about particular topics (e.g., eating disorders). Interactive interviews usually consist of multiple interview sessions, and, unlike traditional one-on-one interviews with strangers, are situated within the context of emerging and well-established relationships among participants and interviewers (Adams, 2008). The emphasis in these research contexts is on what can be learned from interaction within the interview setting as well as on the stories that each person brings to the research encounter (Mey & Mruck, 2010).

Similar to interactive interviews, community autoethnographies use the personal experience of researchers-in-collaboration to illustrate how a community manifests particular social/cultural issues (e.g., whiteness; Toyosaki, Pensoneau-Conway, Wendt & Leathers, 2009). Community autoethnographies thus not only facilitate “community-building” research practices but also make opportunities for “cultural and social intervention” possible (p.59; see Kardorff & Schönberger, 2010).

Co-constructed narratives illustrate the meanings of relational experiences, particularly how people collaboratively cope with the ambiguities, uncertainties, and contradictions of being friends, family, and/or intimate partners. Co-constructed narratives view relationships as jointly-authored, incomplete, and historically situated affairs. Joint activity structures co-constructed research projects. Often told about or around an epiphany, each person first writes her or his experience, and then shares and reacts to the story the other wrote at the same time (see Bochner & Ellis, 1995; Toyosaki & Pensoneau, 2005; Vande berg & Trujillo, 2008).

Generally, the autoethnographies you will write for classes will be personal narratives–stories about authors who view themselves as the phenomenon and write evocative narratives specifically focused on their academic, research, and personal lives (e.g., Berry, 2007; Goodall, 2006; Poulos, 2008; Tillmann, 2009). These often are the most controversial forms of autoethnography for traditional social scientists, especially if they are not accompanied by more traditional analysis and/or connections to scholarly literature. Personal narratives propose to understand a self or some aspect of a life as it intersects with a cultural context, connect to other participants as co-researchers, and invite readers to enter the author’s world and to use what they learn there to reflect on, understand, and cope with their own lives (Ellis, 2004, p.46)

Even if it is not assigned, an autoethnography can be a good exercise before embarking on ethnographic research. It allows you to begin to think like an ethnographer with familiar data. It can also provide space for you to began to think about your perspectives on a particular research subject, as well as your biases and blindspots. In addition, the reflective purposes it serves can be invaluable in moving your own research forward. [15]

Chapter Summary

  • Autoethnography is a reflective practice that allows the researcher to use their own experience in understanding social phenomena
  • The researcher may need to consult sources outside of themselves
  • A researcher can do an autoethnography on their own experiences but can also ask research subjects to do them on themselves
  • Value-centered
  • How has autoethnography been used over time?
  • If you had to develop three themes that illustrated your life so far, what would they be and what epiphanies led to them or are a result of them?
  • How should autoethnographies be organized?

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Plummer, Ken (2001). The call of life stories in ethnographic research. In Paul Atkinson, Amanda Coffey, Sara Delamont, John Lofland & Lyn Lofland (Eds.),  Handbook of ethnography  (pp.395-406). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Poulos, Christopher N. (2008).  Accidental ethnography: An inquiry into family secrecy . Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press.

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Rambo, Carol (2005). Impressions of grandmother: An autoethnographic portrait.  Journal of Contemporary Ethnography , 34 (5), 560-585.

Richardson, Laurel (2000). Writing: A method of inquiry. In Norman K. Denzin & Yvonna S. Lincoln (Eds.),  Handbook of qualitative research  (pp.923-948). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Riedmann, Agnes (1993).  Science that colonizes: A critique of fertility studies in Africa . Philadelphia: Temple University Press.

Rogers, Kim Lacy (2004). Lynching stories: Family and community memory in the Mississippi Delta. In Kim L. Rogers, Selma Leydesdorff & Graham Dawson (Eds.),  Trauma: Life stories of survivors  (pp.113-130). New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Press.

Ronai, Carol R. (1992). The reflexive self through narrative: A night in the life of an erotic dancer/researcher. In Carolyn Ellis & Michael G. Flaherty (Eds.),  Investigating subjectivity: Research on lived experience  (pp.102-124). Newbury Park, CA: Sage.

Ronai, Carol R. (1995). Multiple reflections of child sex abuse.  Journal of Contemporary Ethnography ,  23 (4), 395-426.

Ronai, Carol R. (1996). My mother is mentally retarded. In Carolyn Ellis & Arthur P. Bochner (Eds.),  Composing ethnography: Alternative forms of qualitative writing  (pp.109-131). Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira.

Rorty, Richard (1982).  Consequences of pragmatism (essays 1972-1980) . Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Spry, Tami (2001). Performing autoethnography: An embodied methodological praxis.  Qualitative Inquiry ,  7 (6), 706-732.

Tedlock, Barbara. (1991). From participant observation to the observation of participation: The mergence of narrative ethnography.  Journal of Anthropological Research ,  47 (1), 69-94.

The Autoethnography Project by Melissa Tombro is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

Thomas, Stefan (2010). Ethnografie. In Günter Mey & Katja Mruck (Eds.),  Handbuch Qualitative Forschung in der Psychologie  (pp.462-475). Wiesbaden: VS Verlag/Springer.

Tillmann, Lisa M. (2009). Body and bulimia revisited: Reflections on “A Secret Life.”  Journal of Applied Communication Research ,  37 (1), 98-112.

Tillmann-Healy, Lisa M. (2001).  Between gay and straight: Understanding friendship across sexual orientation . Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira.

Tillmann-Healy, Lisa M. (2003). Friendship as method.  Qualitative Inquiry ,  9 (5), 729-749.

Tololyan, Khachig (1987). Cultural narrative and the motivation of the terrorist.  The Journal of Strategic Studies ,  10 (4), 217-233.

Toyosaki, Satoshi & Pensoneau, Sandra (2005). Yaezakura—Interpersonal culture analysis.  International Journal of Communication ,  15 (1-2), 51-88.

Toyosaki, Satoshi; Pensoneau-Conway, Sandra L.; Wendt, Nathan A. & Leathers, Kyle (2009). Community autoethnography: Compiling the personal and resituating whiteness.  Cultural Studies ↔ Critical Methodologies ,  9 (1), 56-83.

Trahar, Sheila (2009). Beyond the story itself: Narrative inquiry and autoethnography in intercultural research in higher education.  Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung / Forum: Qualitative Social Research ,  10 (1), Art. 30,  http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs0901308 .

Tullis Owen, Jillian A.; McRae, Chris; Adams, Tony E. & Vitale, Alisha (2009). truth troubles.  Qualitative Inquiry ,  15 (1), 178-200.

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Wyatt, Jonathan (2008). No longer loss: Autoethnographic stammering.  Qualitative Inquiry ,  14 (6), 955-967.

Zaner, Richard M. (2004).  Conversations on the edge: Narratives of ethics and illness . Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.

[1] In order to make this book  as relevant to our students as possible, the author added this paragraph

[2] Ellis, Carolyn; Adams, Tony E. & Bochner, Arthur P. (2010). Autoethnography: An Overview [40 paragraphs]. Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung / Forum: Qualitative Social Research , 12 (1), Art. 10, http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs1101108

[3] Ellis, Carolyn; Adams, Tony E. & Bochner, Arthur P. (2010). Autoethnography: An Overview [40 paragraphs]. Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung / Forum: Qualitative Social Research , 12 (1), Art. 10, http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs1101108

[4] The Autoethnography Project by Melissa Tombro is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

[5] In order to make this book  as relevant to our students as possible, the author added this paragraph

[6] In order to make this book  as relevant to our students as possible, the author added this paragraph

[7]  The Autoethnography Project by Melissa Tombro is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted

[8] In order to make this book  as relevant to our students as possible, the author added this paragraph

[9] In order to make this book  as relevant to our students as possible, the author added this paragraph

[10]  The Autoethnography Project by Melissa Tombro is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted

[11] In order to make this book  as relevant to our students as possible, the author added this paragraph

[12]  The Autoethnography Project by Melissa Tombro is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted

[13] In order to make this book  as relevant to our students as possible, the author added this paragraph

[14] Ellis, Carolyn; Adams, Tony E. & Bochner, Arthur P. (2010). Autoethnography: An Overview [40 paragraphs]. Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung / Forum: Qualitative Social Research , 12 (1), Art. 10, http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs1101108

[15] In order to make this book  as relevant to our students as possible, the author added this paragraph

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Ethnographic field research Involves the study of cultures, organizations, and society, by observing groups and people as they go about their everyday lives. ” Ethnographers do this by going out and “getting close” to the participants for prolonged periods of time in their natural setting. Emerson teal. Writing Ethnographic Fieldstone, p. L Ethnography moves from the specific to the general.

Inductive) Practice of providing ethnographic reports through a thick description— notes that exhibit depth and complexity. As Neumann noted, an event could take 3 minutes, but require many pages of descriptive narrative. Usually, you do go in with intention, a research question, and a focus. However, dependent upon your paradigm, you may or may not share your research with your subjects and you may never use your work for anything other than academic pursuits.

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It can be quantitative or qualitative, regardless, typical steps Involve: first becoming informed about your topic (you may or may not be familiar with the setting or people in a first hand way), gaining entry into the group of people you ant to study (issues of authenticity and authority in conducting ethnographic research take field notes in regular and systematic ways to accumulate a written record of the observations and/or experiences (see reverse side of this handout for an example). These notes should emphasize concrete, detailed, and textured descriptions that “show’ rather than “tell” through opinion. Aka connections and abstractions about what you observe through mooing, generate theoretical ideas through indexing, Interpret and report findings In an ethnography. Potential problem: Rubbing shoulders with study participants/participant observation”=Danger: “Going native”– Comes from anthropology and sociology. Immersion vs.. Merging. Balance of “reflexivity’ when understanding that the worlds being studied are meaning systems of relationships. Ethnography Is appropriate for providing deep background Information for the formation of long term strategic policy (ex. Reproductive rights for mentally disabled persons).

Not necessarily appropriate for immediate action. It can be great for developing or evaluating systems or services due emphasis on the user. Its trip. We tell the “stories of travelers. ” Ethnography allows us to document the story in a way that hopefully prevents the “fish story’ from growing. The ethnographic report, however, is not Just a pile of fieldstone. It is a cleaned manuscript based upon detailed fieldstone, memos, and index cards of themes. What gets lost in translation? Whose story is really told- the experience of the researcher or the experience of the participant?

It depends…….. Best ethnographic research I ever experienced was not told with written word, but with snapshots at a potluck. Researcher came back from Bali- focused on women’s roles in particular tribal societies in Bali. “Ethnography’ can appear in the form of movies, paintings, music, and the internet. Google Images Ethnographic Field Notes (observation, interviewing, etc) Impressions/ Intuitions (your impressions here – no where else) Non verbal notes (other behavioral cues) Notes and Direct Quotes (directly related to what is going on in interaction; what people are saying)

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Workplace Ethnography

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Paula holmeseber's daughters of tunis women, family and networks in a muslim city, the socio-cultural norms influencing hand decontamination, the university women center in the life molding of females, ethnographic comparisons, ethnographic study of a group of people, the use of twitter in the organisation of users everyday lives, barbara myerhoff's contribution to methodological and epistemological trends, how technology has become inevitable in todays activities.

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  1. 15 Great Ethnography Examples (2024)

    Below are some examples of ethnography - both abstract (with the hope that it helps students think about some ways they can do ethnography) and real-life (with the hope that you will read some inspiring ethnographic studies). Contents show Ethnography Examples To start, here are some ways you could potentially do ethnography:

  2. Assignments

    Ethnographic Assignment 1: Diagram a Set of Social Relations (Kin-Based or Not) Ethnographic Assignment 2: Describe a Transaction Ethnographic Assignment 3: Define Personhood Reading Response Essays Four short reading response essays (1-2 pages, one essay per section) constitute 20% of your grade.

  3. What Is Ethnography?

    For example, ethnographic research (sometimes called participant observation) has been used to investigate football fans, call center workers, and police officers. Advantages of ethnography The main advantage of ethnography is that it gives the researcher direct access to the culture and practices of a group.

  4. 6 Examples of Ethnographic Research

    1. Open vs. closed settings The setting of your ethnographic research refers to the environment in which you observe and conduct your research, and this setting may be open or closed. When a research group is open, the setting is public and does not block the ethnographer from fully viewing the community and its activities.

  5. Anthropology

    Sample assignment: Assess the cultural evolutionary ideas of late 19th century anthropologist Lewis Henry Morgan in terms of recent anthropological writings on globalization (select one recent author to compare with Morgan). What kinds of anthropological concerns or questions did Morgan have?

  6. PDF SUGGESTIONS FOR ETHNOGRAPHIES

    Example: Contact an assistance organization. Find out about their lives and cultures. See if any other of the categories on this page fits your situation. Ask around on campus or check the newspaper.

  7. An Introduction to Fieldwork and Ethnography

    Ethnographic Fieldwork. Ethnographic fieldwork is how anthropologists gather data. Fieldwork is the process of immersing oneself in as many aspects of the daily cultural lives of people as possible in order to study their behaviors and interactions. Nearly any setting or location can become "the field": a village along the Amazon river, a ...

  8. PDF Exploring Difference through Ethnographic Research & Writing

    Example Assignment: Remind students to pay close attention to verbal and body language used within the subculture they observe. What words are new or unfamiliar to an observer? What kind of knowledge is an insider of this subculture expected to possess and how do they gain that knowledge? Scaffolding and Modeling From the Assignment Sheet:

  9. Ethnographic Assignment 2: Describe a Transaction

    For this ethnographic project, observe (or, following Peebles, deduce) a transaction. Then, in 3-4 pages, explain its "roots and fruits": explain the conditions of possibility upon which it draws, and the values that it creates. ... assignment_turned_in Written Assignments with Examples. Download Course. Over 2,500 courses & materials ...

  10. Ethnographic Assignment 3: Define Personhood

    Ethnographic Assignment 3: Define Personhood. This assignment asks you to write a short ethnographic study of personhood, a seemingly obvious category that actually takes very specific, historically contingent forms. Consider this anecdote: "He would stride hurriedly down the sidewalks, almost running, but always, be it winter or summer ...

  11. Ethnographic Experiments for Undergraduates: Reflections from The

    See this sample ethnographic assignment with a grading rubric and a general grade breakdown of the course. Provide a list of proposed themes/topics: Brainstorm and create a list of 10-12 broad topics or themes that students can pick from for their assignments. This list is not meant to limit student creativity, but to help ground their ...

  12. Ethnographic Insights Across Cultures

    Samples: Classroom Guide Instructions for navigating eHRAF included? Yes Assignments for students to complete in groups? Yes Assignments for students to complete on their own? Yes Instructions for Microfiche version? No Francine Barone, Human Relations Area Files, Yale University View Online: Interactive Slideshow

  13. Guide to Write an Ethnography

    Assignments in anthropology, sociology, religious studies, and human and organisational growth, among other fields, frequently include ethnographies and research papers.

  14. Ethnography: Design, Methods, Research and Examples

    Participation in ethnography - overt or covert - plays an essential role in choosing a setting and methods. Overt ethnography is a research where participants are aware they are being examined. An overt method is considered ethical since the group's members know the research is taking place and give their consent.

  15. PDF Essentials of Autoethnography

    According to Adams et al. (2015), autoethnography is a qualitative research method that: 1) uses a researcher's personal experience to describe and critique cultural beliefs, practices, and experiences; 2) acknowledges and values a researcher's relationships with others; 3) uses deep and careful self-reflection—typically referred to as ...

  16. Ethnographic Research Topics: Writing Tips And Best Examples

    So, here is a ready solution. What is an Ethnographic Research Paper? Ethnography is a social science method of research that counts on personal experiences within a subject group or a culture. Different instructors may recommend several writing guidelines for such a paper, but it generally follows a standard format.

  17. Digital Ethnography

    January 5, 2024 by Muhammad Hassan Table of Contents Digital Ethnography Digital ethnography, also known as cyber-ethnography, online ethnography or virtual ethnography, is a branch of ethnography that focuses on the study of cultures and communities in the digital world.

  18. PDF Mini Ethnography Assignment Sheet

    Part 1: Your plan for observing this group. When and where you will observe them and how. Part 2: A formal version of what you worked on last class. This should include why you are interested in this group, what you know about them already (before observing), and what your expectations are.

  19. The Autoethnography: Ten Examples

    Observations. When we engage in autoethnographic writing, it is important to try to re-create the spaces we are visiting—in other words, to explore the field sites where we are spending our time. As part of our larger assignment, you need to identify a field site that will be relevant for your subculture. This can be a location where it meets ...

  20. Reflection ON THE Ethnographic Interview

    ETHNOGRAPHIC INTERVIEW: ANALYSIS AND REFLECTION ASSIGNMENT. Hailee Lewis Liberty University Prof. Meesala GLST 290 August 2, 2023. Ethnographic Interview: Analysis and Reflection Assignment The present paper is an analysis and a reflection of the ethnographic interview conducted with Jane, a strong believer and valued member of the Islamic community.

  21. Autoethnography

    Autoethnography is an approach to research and writing that seeks to describe and systematically analyze (graphy) personal experience (auto) in order to understand cultural experience (ethno) (Ellis, 2004; Holman Jones, 2005). This approach challenges canonical ways of doing research and representing others (Spry, 2001) and treats research as a ...

  22. Ethnography Assignment free sample

    Choose cite format: Ethnography Assignment. (2019, Jun 05). Retrieved January 20, 2024, from https://anyassignment.com/anthropology/ethnography-assignment-39225/ Ethnography Assignment - Free assignment samples, guides, articles.

  23. Workplace Ethnography

    Author: faheykacey Extract of sample "Workplace Ethnography" ?Workplace Ethnography Introduction The organization under examination is a public accounting firm. The specific population area within this organization being analyzed is the accounting firm's computer department.