Is Ethnography a Suitable method for Research on Residential Satisfaction and Community Participation.
Ethnography within its wider field of research is described as the study of people’s behaviour in terms of social contexts, with emphasis on interaction in everyday situations (Lindsay, 1997). It is further defined as research that constitutes the art and science of describing a group or culture (Fetterman, 1989). However, the specific definition that will be used throughout this work, is that of its role within qualitative research, which is summarised by Wainwright (1997) in his paper in The Qualitative Report, stating that ethnography can be distinguished as:
“...the attempt to obtain an in-depth understanding of the meanings and ‘definitions of the situation’ presented by informants, rather than the quantitative ‘measurement’ of their characteristics or behaviour'; pp1.
The technique of ethnography is a holistic approach, in order to achieve a complete and comprehensive picture of a social group (Fetterman, 1989). There are two main techniques within ethnography, that is firstly, interviews, and secondly, observational methods of participant and non-participant forms (Goetz and LeCompte, 1984; Hammersley, 1990; Lindsay, 1997; Wainwright, 1997).
This discussion aims to analyse ethnography as a method of qualitative research and discuss its usefulness in a research question based around residential satisfaction and community participation. This will be achieved by analysing the main advantages and disadvantages of both methods of ethnography; that of interviews and observation techniques, with a holistic approach. Hereafter, assessment of the direct usefulness of the method relating explicitly to the two research variables of residential satisfaction and community participation. An overall critique summary and conclusion will follow this, on ethnography’s context and suitability in such a study.
The first form of ethnographic research is interviews. These are where a respondent is asked a number of questions by the interviewer, and the interviewer records the answers. Interviews can be of the in depth conversational type, which are like guided conversations, where the interviewer converses with the respondent; or the second type, which is a semi-structured interview in a format simi...
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...esolves, it depends on the particular set of circumstances. Ethnography in its very nature is ambiguous and very subjective. It does hold some form of relevance in sociological studies, although still, scientists will always question its relevance due to its qualitative nature (Hammersley, 1992; Wainwright, 1997).
Bibliography
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Lindsay, J.M. (1997) Techniques in Human Geography, Routeledge, London.
Wainwright, D. (1997) Can Sociological Research Be Quantitative, Critical and Valid?, The Quantitative Report, Vol. 3, No.2, July 1997, Nova South Eastern University, School of Social Systematic Studies, on line: http://www.nova.edu/ssss/QR/QR3-2/wai.html.
Hayano (1979) first introduced the term “auto-ethnography” in response to his questions around the issue of how people could create ethnographies of their own cultures, but the extent of its relevance and application only arose in the coming years. This relevance was due to the shift away from canonical forms of research that were “author evacuated texts” (Sparkes, 2000, p. 22) towards a more personalised approach. This was a direct echo of the post-modern movement burgeoning at the time, which questioned the scientific paradigm that qualitative research was subjected to. Rather autoethnographies “are highly personalized accounts that draw upon the experience of the author/researcher for the purposes of extending sociological understanding” (Sparkes, 2000, p. 21).
In his essay, “The New Greatest Generation: Why Millennials Will Save Us All,” American journalist Joel Stein suggests that the same conditions that have caused millennials to be narcissistic and have a sense of entitlement growing up can also empower millennials to be more innovative and create new opportunities.
In Essentials of Cultural Anthropology, the book defines ethnography as “a written account of how a single human population lives” (Bailey & Peoples, 2014, p. 8). It seems to be such a simple definition to the multiple levels needed to make a successful ethnography as shown by Douglas Raybeck in Mad Dogs, Englishmen, and the Errant Anthropologist. These multiple levels of ethnographic methods include problems that often arise, the assimilation into a culture, and the many different ways of perceiving culture. This method of study is particularly unique to the social sciences because of the extensive amount of assimilation one does in order to interpret a society's culture. There is the need for a year-long period--occasionally even longer--
Babbie, E. (2007) The Practice of Social Research. Thomson Higher Education. Belmont. (USA) Eleven Edition.
James P. Spradley (1979) described the insider approach to understanding culture as "a quiet revolution" among the social sciences (p. iii). Cultural anthropologists, however, have long emphasized the importance of the ethnographic method, an approach to understanding a different culture through participation, observation, the use of key informants, and interviews. Cultural anthropologists have employed the ethnographic method in an attempt to surmount several formidable cultural questions: How can one understand another's culture? How can culture be qualitatively and quantitatively assessed? What aspects of a culture make it unique and which connect it to other cultures? If ethnographies can provide answers to these difficult questions, then Spradley has correctly identified this method as revolutionary.
Anthropologists conduct fieldwork by studying people, their behaviours, and their culture. This is done in the field by actively striving to interpret and understand the world from the perspective of those studied (Powdermaker, 1968, Keesing 1981). Anthropological participant-observation includes a “deep immersion into the life of a people” (Keesing, 1981 p.16) with an aim to produce an ethnography that accurately details the experience in a holistic and valuable style (Powdermaker, 1968, Keesing 1981). Generally, full participation in a culture is thought to reduce the interference the researcher has on the behaviour of the informants (Seymour- Smith, 1986). Participant-observation is still widely used by anthropologists as it offers deeply insightful real world accounts which are difficult to achieve using other methods (Seymour-Smith, 1986, Li,
Shaffir, W. (1986). In the Field: An Introduction to Field Research/Ethnographic Research: A Guide to General Conduct (Book). Sociology of Health & Illness, 8 (2).
What company doesn’t encounter failure and not embrace it. Meaning that a company can create mistakes within their business that were unintended for and the option that the business has to solve the problem is by learning from that mistake and figuring out ways to better improve their business. For instance, IDEO has encountered some issues within the business in which they struggled with. One of these issues took place in the innovation processes where the cost and the time it took to prototype a product made it a priority to keep clients involved. This was a problem for the business because designers settled their focus on perfecting a product which could potentially lead to cost and time overrun. One of the ways in which IDEO solved this problem was by having mandatory meetings with their client meetings where all those issues would be discussed and solved. Companies that abide by the concept of “embracing failure” can potentially be lead to successful outcomes as long as they look for appropriate ways to find solutions to when there are signs of failure in their
Participant observation is a method of collecting information and data about a culture and is carried out by the researcher immersing themselves in the culture they observing. The researcher becomes known in the community, getting to know and understand the culture in a more intimate and detailed way than would be possible from any other approach. This is done by observing and participating in the community’s daily activities. The method is so effective because the researcher is able to directly approach the people in the community in a natural context as opposed to taking the participant out of their environment. The aim of participant observation is to gain an understanding the subject’s life from their perspective, with the purpose of collecting more detailed information about a community’s habits, opinions, relationships and issues.
Numerous sociologists have contributed to research society and social interactions. In other words, society has been studied through how humans interact and shape their environment. There are many developed theories and different approaches for these findings, and sociologists have helped us understand the ways society functions. Amongst their many findings is that we construct reality through our interactions with others. This is also known as the social construction of reality, which is defined as different social behaviors, patterns and rules, influencing the human perception of reality. Social behaviors, like ethnocentrism and cultural relativism, plays a role in human behavior. Understanding, significance, and meaning are developed not
Liamputtong, P. & Ezzy, D., 2005, Qualitative research methods, 2nd ed., Oxford University Press, South Melbourne, Victoria, pp. 12-31.
Ethnographic fieldwork defines cultural anthropology to be holism. It stresses that cultural anthropology embraces a holistic perspective for the study of human behaviour. The study of cultural anthropology deals with the entire characteristics of humans. It then focuses on the relationship between the different facets of human
The purpose of their research is to acquire ethnography data. They anthropologist obtaining qualitative data and observing how the people they are researching are living and their day -to-day activities. Some of their methodology includes participant observations in which the anthropologist is involved in the day-to-day activities to observe from first-hand experience of how the people live.
In his May 2013 editorial for Time Magazine, “Millennials: The Me Me Me Generation,” Joel Stein explains his viewpoint on millennials, defined as people born 1980 through 2000. Using an occasionally humorous tone, Stein summarizes the typical bleak view that older people have for the younger generation, before offering what he believes is closer to the truth. In the end, he decides that while millennials are not without their flaws and vices, a lot of the fears that older people are mostly due to the advanced technology that we are now dealing with. By the end of the article, it is my opinion that Stein makes a very fair summarization and is correct in his idea that to write off the entire generation is unfair towards younger people.
“We deliver fact-based, actionable solutions grounded in rigorous analysis” (About, 2016). The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) and Boeing developed a terrorism risk modeling tool in which the RAND organization helped evaluate. “The Risk Management Analysis Tool, or RMAT, simulates terrorist behavior and success in attacking vulnerabilities in the domestic commercial air transportation system, drawing on estimates of terrorist resources, capabilities, preferences, decision processes, intelligence collection, and operational planning” (Aviation, 2012). The RMAT is an important tool in simulating many different attacks and describing just how well the layers of aviation security are likely to perform. It produces particular data allowing analyst to understand the possible damage produced by the different attacks and calculates expected losses and