Ethnography

Ethnography is the sustained, close study of people in their social settings and the written account produced from that study. It combines observation, participation, and interpretation of everyday life.

Participant Observation: A research method in which investigators take part in everyday activities while observing them. Ethnographers use participation and observation together to understand social life from within.
Bronisław Malinowski: A Polish-British anthropologist who established influential practices of long-term fieldwork in the Trobriand Islands. His fieldwork helped make sustained participant observation a disciplinary model.
Culture: Shared practices, meanings, values, and ways of life learned and transmitted within human groups. Ethnography investigates how culture is enacted and understood in particular settings.
Survey Research: A method that gathers standardized responses from a sample to describe or compare populations. Surveys can reach broader samples, while ethnography prioritizes contextual depth.
Field Notes: Written records of observations, conversations, and reflections made during research in the field. They preserve details that later inform ethnographic analysis and writing.
Franz Boas: A German-American anthropologist who advanced cultural relativism and intensive empirical study of particular societies. His approach challenged broad evolutionary schemes that had shaped earlier accounts of culture.
Social Structure: The patterned relationships and institutions that organize social life. Ethnographic accounts connect everyday interactions to enduring arrangements of power and roles.
Experimental Research: A research approach that manipulates conditions to test their effects on outcomes. Ethnography studies social settings as they unfold rather than isolating variables through intervention.
Reflexivity: The examination of how a researcher's position and assumptions shape knowledge and interpretation. Ethnographers assess how their presence and perspective affect fieldwork.
Salvage Ethnography: The documentation of cultures believed to be disappearing, often under colonial pressure. Its legacy shows how early ethnographic projects could preserve knowledge while serving colonial assumptions.

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