Honesties engage with the story line morally, emotionally, aesthetically, and intellectually (Richardson, 1994). Another criteria for autoethnographies is captured in heightened reflexivity. In this regards it is crucial that “researchers ... systematically identify their subjectivity throughout the course of their research” (Peshkin, 2001, p. 455). This aspect will be produced by weekly and monthly reflections according to DOP. The final leg of trustworthiness in this study will be provided by produced by a 360 leader review at the conclusion of the study. This will resulting in a triangulation of three sources: the ethnographic data, the reflexive field notes and the 360 leader review . In this regard, the suggestions of Denzin and Lincoln (1994) and Fine (2000) will be incorporated, affirming that “triangulation, is not a tool or a strategy of validation, but an alternative to validation ....a strategy that adds rigor, breadth, and depth to any investigation” (p. …show more content…
119). Ethical Considerations An attempt to consolidate ethical considerations in autoethnography is difficult.
Méndez (2014) has somewhat summarized the dilemma in that formal consent does not help researchers deal with the feelings of guilt and the effect of others trust being degraded by disclosure (Miller & Bell, 2002). The tradeoff is such that, by using the third person, a sense of distance from the events and the people being referred to can occur, whereas using the first person is more explicit about the events being analyzed. Wyatt (2006) states that a key ethical principle is found in the writing in how close to position the reader is to the self-disclosure. Ellis (2007) offers a dimension of relational ethics when dealing with intimate issues which is subject to the vague and generic “do no harm.” The researcher will be following Megford’s (2006) proposed ‘ethic of accountability’ in which the writer should write his or her truth as if all the people involved in those events were listening to him or
her. To offer meaningful consent to their representation by someone else, especially someone with whom they are involved in a trust-based relationship (Couser, 2004), is beyond the straightforward official approval from a research ethics committee. Proceeding with an academic project ethically does not resolve the guilt that can come of “borrowing another person’s trust, for a private purpose” (Kraus, 2003). To lose part of one’s soul to gain a degree is not Christian. So the final story will first be told to those referenced and they will have the first say of what is published (Miller & Bell, 2002). Summary In conclusion, a brief review of the chapter is in order. The research design – autoethnography - is described in detail. Philosophy, theory and framing questions are shown to be formed from an informed missiological perspective aimed at investigating an effective means of establishing contextually appropriate Christian educational processes. The framing of additional issues as represented is likely to occur. The research is represented as working from a biblically informed critical realist perspective, embracing a supra-cultural biblical reality In terms of the specifics of autoethnography, the researcher will be a participant engaged in the core identity of the missionary subgroup. This approach will allow readers to access the researcher’s interior life through a process of comparing and contrasting personal experience against existing research using participant observation. Analysis is represented as the recounting and describing of data, an examining of relationships, factors and linkages across the data points, followed by thematic analysis. In its finalized version, the writing will be occurring in a dialogue between the self and the other in a textual genre of the first person, with self-reflection on major interior decisions and the literature, theory and philosophy surrounding those decisions. The criteria for the trustworthiness and discussion of ethical considerations for the participants are both fully addressed.
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).
Madison, D. Soyini. "Chapter 1: Introduction to Critical Ethnography: Theory and Method." Critical Ethnography: Method, Ethics, and Performance. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2005. N. pag. Print.
They argue that therapists should consider their own motivation to self-disclose and set boundaries. The therapists should never put their own needs above the client. They make sure to point out that self discourse alone cannot affect the outcome of treatment. Self-disclosure is effective only if it is used appropriately and only if it is used when it is necessary. The amount of information disclosed and when it is disclosed is also important. Therapists should draw a clear line with the amount of intimacy to include in their therapeutic disclosure to ensure that no inappropriate boundaries are crossed. The authors suggest two rules of thumb to follow when disclosing information which include: (a) “Why do I want to say what I am about to say” and (b) “What will be the likely impact of the client” (p. 567).
Reflexivity is a qualitative method of research that takes an ethnography one step further, displaying the personal thoughts and reflections of the anthropologist on his informants. Ethnographies generally take an outside or foreign perspective of a culture, like reading a text, and reflexivity introduces a new component of inside description. Here, the anthropologist may describe personal interactions and experiences with natives and use this inside information to make additional conclusions about the people being studied. The ethnographer may also reflect on his ethnic connections with his informants, or his acceptance into the society, explaining that it provides valuable, inside knowledge of the culture and ultimately leads to a greater understanding of the native people as a whole.
Schensul, Stephen L.; Schensul, Jean J. & LeCompte, Margaret D. (1999). Essential ethnographic methods: observations, interviews, and questionnaires (Book 2 in Ethnographer's Toolkit). Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press.
According to Robert M. Emerson and colleagues, reflexivity is a method in which the ethnographer is aware that his/her writing choices are shaped to acknowledge the ethnographers presence in the culture being studied. Thus, while writing and analyzing fieldnotes, the ethnographer-as-author grows increasingly aware of his role and responsibility in telling the story of the people being he/[she] studied; for in writing he/[she] re-presents their everyday world[1]. By taking the ethnographers presence in consideration, the ethnography becomes more than a mere piece of text. In the process of writing his/her analyzes of a culture, the ethnographer is constantly reminded that his work is to understand a realm of reality. In the following I will discuss the approach Dorinne K. Kondo and Renato Rosaldo use in writing their reflective ethnography.
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,
One of the integral things that must be addressed when making a film is the ethics involved. Ethics are a constant issue that have to be carefully considered when filmmaking. This difficult decision-making is highly prevalent in that of documentaries, because of the difficulties associated in filming ‘real people’ or “social actors, (Nichols, 2001).” More importantly, the issues faced by a filmmaker differ between each of the documentary modes. Each particular documentary mode poses different formal choices that must be made in order to operate in an ethical fashion. Two films that have been made both display examples of how ethics must be considered when embarking on a documentary are Etre at Avoir [To Be and to Have], (2001) and Capturing the Friedmans (2003). These films have been made in different documentary modes, highlighting that there is not one mode which is easier or has fewer ethical issues associated with it. Additionally, what must be considered is how these style choices in these different modes affect the power relationships between the filmmaker, the subject and its audience, (Nichols, 2001).
The unstructured interview approach, is an excellent way of creating multiple realities by giving the control of the interview over to the participants being interviewed and inviting them to tell their stories peaked by only an open-ended question. This method requires an environment in which the participants readily open up (Hill, 2001). To the credit of the current study, the interviewees did provide detailed accounts when interviewed. Additionally, as the stories are elicited by the participants own volition, they can cover a broad range of topics allows for unplanned comments and topics to come up that may have otherwise been left untouched in a more structured methodology (Kvale, 1983). However, because the responses are so gloriously open ended they are difficult to compare across different cases, and large amounts of irrelevant data must be sifted through in a time consuming manner. The benefit of qualitative phenomenological research is that while most scientific methods focus on what can be physically observed and quantitatively measured, this leaves a gapping hole in our ability to evaluate the human condition as most of what we do is determined by unseen forces in our psyches (Kvale, 1983). Therefore, open-ended phenomenology allows researchers to break the restrictive mold and attempt to discover insights into lived experience that would normally remain invisible to more traditional scientific study (Dale,
Qualitative research is an approach that attempts to situate an activity that locates the observer in the world by providing the study to occur in their natural setting and by attempting to make sense of, or interpret information (Denzin and Lincoln, 2005). A characteristic of qualitative research is to use a variety of empirical materials such as personal experience, interviews, and questionnaires. It is imperative to understand the task at hand and how to fully carry out the study when using a qualitative research approach in order to find out the information needed. One view of qualitative research is it involves examining individual’s experiences and documenting those experiences in detail (Jones, 2011). By documenting these observations the researcher is ensuring validity in his or her data and giving the correct creditability to those who participated in the study.
Using the author’s field research I felt that many of them tried to enter their situation as an outsider looking in as most researchers do. Given time most of them were able to some what be accepted into their social surroundings. No matter what role or relationship the researchers developed along the way they still had to make choices to would affect their data in different ways. They just had to pick the correct approach and apply it. Finally all stories proclaimed different discussions of social science by using different forms of "objectivity" and "subjectivity."
Though it only developed in the 1980’s, it started when social scientists began to question traditional ethnographic research and reporting methods and initiated a reform movement to revise and reconstruct the ways in which inquiry, research, and reporting were conducted (Hogan). Autoethnography was born from the idea of ethnography, which uses data and facts to report on a culture. Autoethnography can be defined as a research and reporting method that utilizes a writer’s personal experiences and history to help analyze, describe, or report on cultural, social, or political phenomena
Today in modern archeology new challenges arise for researchers, particularly in the category of ethics. One of the best ways to conduct research on a particular group is by doing ethnography’s. The term ethnography comes from the Greek language and can be translated to literally mean “ the description of a people and its way of life. ”(Angrosino, 2007, p. 1). By doing ethnographies, and other research, many ethical issues could arise.
In a reflexive ethnography, anthropologists locate their position in another culture and outline their experiences inside and outside of the examined culture. George E. Marcus describes reflexivity as “the practice of positioning” (Marcus 198).