Ethnographies are first hand accounts of the daily life of a community or society. They may cover a particular people, geographical area, or social group. Ethnographies are published in books, essays in edited collections, journal articles and thesis or dissertations. Some anthropologists use other media such as pictures or films to create ethnographies. Show
Criteria for ethnographies in anthropologyMost ethnographies are written by anthropologists. Some may be written by teachers, missionaries, explorers, travelers, geologists, or others who live temporarily with that culture, but these may not always satisfy anthropological criteria for ethnographic studies. Check with your professor or teaching assistant to be sure. Typical criteria for ethnographies:
Library searchOMNI: the Carleton University Library search portal. Please see Help With Using Omni Subject headingsLibrary of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH) use controlled vocabulary to access and express the subject content of documents. Ethnology and Ethnography have largely been divided into the following subjects or research areas. This is a searchable index. Click on a link below to discover the Library's holdings in this area: Anthropologists, ethnographers, and other social scientists may engage in something called ethnography. Ethnography, simply stated, is the study of people in their own environment through the use of methods such as participant observation and face-to-face interviewing. As anthropologist H. Sidky suggests, ethnography documents cultural similarities and differences through fieldwork and can help with scientific generalizations about human behavior and the operation of social and cultural systems (2004:9). Because anthropology as a discipline is holistic (meaning it looks at the past, present and future of a community across time and space), ethnography as a first hand, detailed account of a given community or society attempts to get a comprehensive understanding of the circumstances of the people being studied. Ethnographers, then, look at and record a people’s way of life as seen by both the people and the anthropologist; they take an emic (folk or inside) and etic (analytic or outside) approach to describing communities and cultures. Classic ethnographic research involves a detailed description of the whole of a culture outside of the country of origin of the researcher. Traditionally those engaging in ethnographic research spend years in the place of study, also known as the “field.” As a result of the time spent living among communities, ethnographers have been able to produce thick written cultural descriptions known as ethnographies that communicate the information found in the field. Contemporary ethnographic research has the added dimension of not only looking at people outside of the county of origin of the researcher, but also seeks to better understand those who reside within the county of origin. Contemporary ethnographic research looks at what may be considered ordinary or mundane to those living within a community, for example shopping malls, corporations, towns, cities, cyberspace, garbage, libraries, parks, etc. Contemporary ethnographic research also differs from classic ethnographic research in that researchers may have limited amounts of time in which to conduct research. This, however, does not detract from the quality of work produced. Ethnographic accounts, classic and contemporary, are both descriptive and interpretive; descriptive, because detail is so crucial, and interpretive because the ethnographer must determine the significance of what he or she observes without gathering broad, statistical information. Clifford Geertz is famous for coining the term “thick description” in discussing the methodology of the ethnographer. In essence, ethnography is done to get the story of a people from those people and has been referred to as “culture writing.” A researcher who has been trained in ethnographic field methods and theoretical perspectives, then, carries out ethnographic research. Before going to the actual place of study, those engaging in ethnographic studies conduct library and other archival research to learn some of what is already known about the place and people they are interested in so as not to enter the “field” unprepared. The researcher then spends time with the group of people under study to get a sense of how they live, their beliefs and rituals, and their interactions with each other and those around them. Traditional ethnographic research usually requires at least a year in the field to get a clear understanding of the group; however, rapid ethnographic assessments, like many of the ethnographic studies carried out by the National Park Service, are also conducted. Try It YourselfWhy do people see things differently? |