Ethnographic Analysis Essay

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To complete the above fieldwork exercise, the method of qualitative research utilised was Ethnography. Ethnography is a method in which the ethnographer or researcher becomes either an overt or a covert participant in the lives of people (Hammersley & Atkinson, 2105). It involves collecting any data that is available to explore the focus of the research (Hammersley & Atkinson, 2007). One could suggest Ethnography is a method to study society and culture (Berg and Lune, 2017).
The style of ethnography I utilised for this project was participant observation. I attempted to collect data from my local shopping centre covertly, by sitting amongst the people and observing the happenings. This is referred to by Maxfield and Babbie, (2015) as the detached observer. I felt a detached observer participant observation was most useful for this fieldwork, as it would ensure that the data collected would be valid and reliable as it was taken from a natural environment were the participant were unaware their observer was conducting a research project (Maxfield & Babbie, 2015).
I also found being the detached observer very interesting and I was quite surprised at some of the themes I discovered over the three observation sessions. At first, I found watching …show more content…

Informed consent in ethnography however is somewhat different and also depends on the participatory role of the researcher (Parker, 2007). Informed consent in ethnography is somewhat controversial and can create a dilemma for some researcher (Murphy & Dingwall, 2007). In ethnography, particularly covert observations informed consent cannot be gained or the research is no longer covert. Full participatory observation on the other hand could be interpreted as deception (Maxfield & Babbie,

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