Abstract
Ethnography is a research approach that deals with the study and representation of culture. Although it has its roots in anthropology and sociology, it has attracted the attention not only of scholars from different disciplines, but also of practitioners. Several research textbooks discuss the principles and the strategies for carrying out an ethnography. Instead of focusing on the principles of the research approach, the chapter explains its application by focusing on personal experiences for an ethnography carried out in a sensitive research context – the squatter neighborhood and the dwellings of poor urban migrants. The chapter explains the problems encountered before and upon entry into the field and presents the strategies employed to overcome these challenges. Eventually, it aims to help researchers and practitioners that are interested in the adoption and the use of this research approach.
TopBackground
The roots of ethnography lie in cultural anthropology with the outstanding seminal work of Malinowski (1922), who immersed in the daily lives of the natives living in the Trobriand Islands in the South Pacific during the First World War. Ethnography has now been advocated as an effective research tool to be used in marketing and in other social sciences, even though it has yet to achieve mainstream status within the discipline (Pettigrew, 2000).
The word “ethnography” literally means the writing of culture (Atkinson, 1992) and consequently, as a research approach, is concerned with the understanding of culture (Van Maanen, 2006). Moving beyond what people say, ethnography deals with the understanding of shared system of meanings – that is a full or partial description of a group and the social interactions within it as a means of identifying common experiences, meanings and practices (Arnould & Wallendorf, 1994; Goulding, 2005). Once researchers reach understanding through immersing in natives’ everyday life, they can write the culture (Clifford and Marcus, 1986).
Key Terms in this Chapter
Natives: The informants whose lived culture is explored using ethnography.
Qualitative Research Methods: Research methods that focus on the exploration of meanings, practices, and context rather than solely on behavior. For ethnography the principal qualitative research methods are observations, in-depth interviews, projective techniques, and visual data.
Sensitive Research: A research that has a potential direct or indirect social consequence to informants or researchers.
Key Informants: Individuals, who trust researchers and help them to get entry into the field; often defined as gatekeepers.
Netnography: An ethnography carried out in a computer mediated social environment.
Reflexivity: Researchers’ inner dialog about all the information that they have about the research topic; turn back on itself.
Ethnography: A research approach that deals with the study and representation of culture.
Fieldwork: Ethnographers’ extensive work in the research context using qualitative research methods.