Talk:Ethnography

The Definition of ethnography is, a branch of anthropology dealing with the scientific description of individual cultures...it has nothing to do with writing ^[1]

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

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

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

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

descriptions of human societies, which as a methodology does not prescribe any particular method (e.g. interview, questionnaire), but instead prescribes the nature of the study (i.e. to describe people through writing).^[1] If someone can figure out what parts of these are being cited (and why) and work them back in that would be good, otherwise, let's stick to really well known methodologists - like Naroll - or ethnographers - like Evans-Pritchard or Maybury-Lewis and similar, especially in the lead.--Levalley (talk) 21:10, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Note also that the words science has a slightly different meaning in different parts of the world where the term is used. In English, many times it refers to "natural sciences" like chemistry and physics, whereas in many European countries (like the above Germany) all academic things (history, sociology etc.) are considered sciences. I guess in English one could say: "ethnography is a social scientific research strategy". This, of course, would still be problematic because I don't think that it is really proper to call ethnography a "strategy". Rather a social scientist uses many social scientific methods to compile an ethnography.88.114.154.216 (talk) 17:26, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

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

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

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

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

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

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

There are numerous ethnographies that have made claims that have later been shown to be untrue or fabrications. Should there maybe be a section on this? 88.114.154.216 (talk) 17:29, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

I think there should be a treatment on verifiability. E.g. is the use of secret documents okay? I understand that there are sometimes good reasons to use anonyzed data. But how far should this go? Should this be minimized? Should the real persons, location never be revealed to anyone, not even to trusted fellow scientists in confidence who want to verify research? See the case of Mart Bax. Andries (talk) 05:46, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

I think a list of fraudulent or significantly untrue ethnographies would be fine. Andries (talk) 05:53, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

This is an interesting feature that is very particular to ethnography (if you compare academic and scientific research in general). Ethnographies are inherently unverifiable, and the data from which they are compiled is usually only accessible to one person.--2001:708:110:201:216:CBFF:FEBD:2D9C (talk) 10:29, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

Then there is also the case of Castaneda and Kilton Stewart 2001:708:110:202:EDAB:612D:660A:6032 (talk) 08:56, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

Also, see: 2001:708:110:202:55B7:D71D:B296:F229 (talk) 10:14, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

And a whole list of "hoaxes" in anthropology (not all related to ethnography, though) at 2001:708:110:202:55B7:D71D:B296:F229 (talk) 10:24, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

There have been major edits done to the lead over the last month, and recently, contest about it that have resulted only pressures to revert. (1) Some very good prose by a registered user that, unfortunately, deleted some other good prose that had a better structural and rhythmic compatibility. (2) Another revert by an IP that complicated the original assertion by the first revert. So it's time to discuss just how ethnography is properly depicted in a WP:LEAD. — CpiralCpiral 22:28, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

Discussion is OK. I'd start by discussing why you seem to feel that a reference to “an eight-page code of ethics” is waranted in the lead, given that:

• the code mentioned is the one of the American Anthropological Association, not a worldwide one;
• it was published in 2009, whereas ethnographers have been plying their trade since the 19th century;
• no such references to codes of ethics are present in the leads for comparable professions, e.g., psychologist, sociologist, or even physician and lawyer.

Besides, I'd object to describing all ethnographers as ‘participant observers’. There are many other ways to do ethnographic research. In fact, participant observation states that it “emerged as the principal approach to ethnographic research”; “principal”, mind you, not “sole”. 161.73.82.133 (talk) 08:45, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

Near the end of the intro it says: "avoid casual explanations." Should that be "casual" or "causal"? --Philip Sutton (talk) 00:50, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

Whole article is a bit of a jumble and needs restructuring.Leutha (talk) 10:55, 15 June 2013 (UTC)

The lead section needs to distinguish this term from ethnology (and the conceptually closely related cultural anthropology) clearly, noting where the terms overlap and where they diverge.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  16:26, 28 August 2015 (UTC)

verlmeulen's 2008 work currently has two separate listings (footnotes 9 & 10). They should be consolidated (the one with Ys uses the correct spelling). I am having trouble working on the text page, so I'm ask that some-body else do this clean up, please. kdammers (I can't get tildes to work.)

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Should these two sections be reviewed and combined?Or if not combined, these two sections might serve better if the history and meaning section follows the origins section to provide a more clear timeline. --Aswieter (talk) 16:32, 18 September 2018 (UTC)

The introduction to this article says that ethnography describes the object of study from that object's own point of view. That sounds like it's describing specifically emic ethnography. Is there not such a thing as etic ethnography? If there is, as I expect, then perhaps the introduction needs to be changed? --Pfhorrest (talk) 23:51, 19 September 2018 (UTC)

A large majority of this page is taken from Creswell, John W, and Cheryl N Poth. Qualitative Inquiry & Research Design: Choosing among Five Approaches, 2018.

Just by way of example, the "Forms" Section is plagarized nearly entirely (section 249.3/1178 of the epub).

Here's the original source:

> Types of Ethnographies

> There are many forms of ethnography, such as a confessional ethnography, life history, autoethnography, feminist ethnography, ethnographic novels as well as the visual ethnography found in photography, video, and electronic media (Denzin, 1989; Fetterman, 2010; LeCompte, Millroy, & Preissle, 1992; Pink, 2001; Van Maanen, 1988). Two popular forms of ethnography will be emphasized here: the realist ethnography and the critical ethnography.

> The realist ethnography is a traditional approach used by cultural anthropologists. Characterized by Van Maanen (1988, 2011), it reflects a particular stance taken by the researcher toward the individuals being studied. Realist ethnography is an objective account of the situation, typically written in the third-person point of view and reporting objectively on the information learned from participants at a site. In this ethnographic approach, the realist ethnographer narrates the study in a third-person dispassionate voice and reports on what is observed or heard from participants. The ethnographer remains in the background as an omniscient reporter of the “facts.” The realist also reports objective data in a measured style uncontaminated by personal bias, political goals, and judgment. The researcher may provide mundane details of everyday life among the people studied. The ethnographer also uses standard categories for cultural description (e.g., family life, communication networks, work life, social networks, status systems). The ethnographer produces the participants’ views through closely edited quotations and has the final word on how the culture is to be interpreted and presented.

> Alternatively, for many researchers, ethnography today employs a “critical” approach (Carspecken & Apple, 1992; Madison, 2011; Thomas, 1993) by including in the research an advocacy perspective. This approach is in response to current society, in which the systems of power, prestige, privilege, and authority serve to marginalize individuals who are from different classes, races, and genders. The critical ethnography is a type of ethnographic research in which the authors advocate for the emancipation of groups marginalized in society (Thomas, 1993). Critical researchers typically are politically minded individuals who seek, through their research, to speak out against inequality and domination (Carspecken & Apple, 1992). For example, critical ethnographers might study schools that provide privileges to certain types of students, or counseling practices that serve to overlook the needs of underrepresented groups. The major components of a critical ethnography include a value-laden orientation, empowering people by giving them more authority, challenging the status quo, and addressing concerns about power and control. A critical ethnographer will study issues of power, empowerment, inequality, inequity, dominance, repression, hegemony, and victimization.

Brimwats (talk) 12:55, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

@Brimwats: Thanks for point out the likely copyright issues. I've posted a listing at Wikipedia:Copyright problems (listing). If you can help remove the offending material (or otherwise fix, via proper citations for paraphrased small portions) then please do so.

The content appears to have been added in this edit from December 2014 by Akritika91. — MarkH₂₁^talk 13:11, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

@Brimwats and MarkH21: Hi all, thank you for bringing this to WP:CP. I don't have access to that book, so I'm not able to check the article against it. Instead, to be safe, I removed all material that was added in the 2014 edit highlighted above that was still in the article. I'll take a closer look this evening and revdel back to that edit if appropriate. For posterity, I'll note that even though the book is published in 2018 (and the edit in 2014) the previous version of the book was published in 2012. So I'm assuming (though it's just an assumption) that the offending text was also present in the book's previous edition. Let me know if I missed anything. Thanks again! Sorry for the wait. Ajpolino (talk) 18:08, 30 December 2020 (UTC)

Alright I don't see any other obviously infringing text, so I've gone ahead and hidden all versions with the likely copyright violation. My apologies for hiding six years of revisions. If anyone needs to see any of the now-hidden material, let me know and I'm happy to temporarily un-delete it any time. All the best, Ajpolino (talk) 20:08, 30 December 2020 (UTC)

@Ajpolino: Thanks for taking the time to review and act on this! — MarkH₂₁^talk 22:40, 30 December 2020 (UTC)

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The long-standing stub Genealogical method might work better as a small subsection here, perhaps in the Data collection methods section; so, merge for short text and context. Klbrain (talk) 21:29, 11 August 2023 (UTC)

"Genalogical method" AND "Rivers" gets results on Google Scholar. What would this entail? is https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=%22genealogical+method%22+AND+%22Rivers%22&btnG= FatalSubjectivities (talk) 14:30, 5 October 2023 (UTC)

I accept that there are references that support the ongoing existence of the genealogical method, but this doesn't detract from the arguments I've given for a merge: short text and context. Klbrain (talk) 12:56, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

In the abscence of other objections, somewhat boldly,   Y Merge completed Klbrain (talk) 10:32, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

""The kindly ethnographer" – Most ethnographers present themselves as being more sympathetic than they are, which aids in the research process, but is also deceptive. The identity that we present to subjects is different from whom we are in other circumstances." - This is not sourced -- at least not directly. Kdammers (talk) 05:18, 10 January 2024 (UTC)

Ethnographer 102.213.132.123 (talk) 14:44, 29 January 2025 (UTC)