Ethnography is perhaps one of the most engaging research methods used in the social sciences. Also referred to as ethnographic research, it is a qualitative method that allows for the study of a wide variety of people and places. A key feature of this method is fieldwork; research takes place in naturally occurring social environments out in the real world, where the researcher can study firsthand the day-to-day lives of the people there. If a sociologist wants to study marching bands, for example, they will attend rehearsals, hang out in the band room, and travel with the band to football games or competitions so they can observe band members in the social settings they participate in. This tactic is known as participant observation, and the terms are often used interchangeably. With this method the researcher must become a participant in the group or setting being studied as well as an observer of it. This method often entails deep immersion into a field site, sometimes lasting over a period of months or even years, so that the researcher can develop a member’s-eye view and come to know the social world from the inside out. Ethnography, which literally means “writing [from the Greek graphos] culture [ethnos],” is also the term used for the product of participant observation research; it is a written report of the results of the study, often presented in book form.
The first order of business in participant observation research is to gain entry or access to the chosen field site or setting. Certain groups may be more or less difficult to approach, as you can imagine, and there may be some places where no outsider is allowed to go. Still, sociologists have been able to study an astounding number of different and varied social worlds. Once access has been negotiated, it is also important for researchers to establish good rapport with their subjects. Researchers may differ in their levels of involvement with a group or in their closeness to certain members. But it is often the case that trust and acceptance are necessary before research can begin in earnest.
Data are collected primarily through writing detailed field notes every day to document what happened. Some researchers may also take photos or videos in the course of their fieldwork, but honing their own observational skills is most critical. Field notes describe the scene or setting, as well as the activities and interactions of the researcher and the group members, in as much detail as possible; they become the basis of the data analysis the researcher does later on.
Some researchers do a form of participant observation called autoethnography, in which they produce richly detailed accounts of their own thoughts, feelings, and experiences in the field as a focal point of their study (Ellis 1997). Autoethnographers theorize a link between personal and cultural experiences, and their writings are meant to evoke responses in the readers. Both personal and analytical, autoethnography is one of the newer qualitative methods employed by sociologists (Ellis, Adams, and Bochner 2010). In 2020 a new scholarly journal dedicated to autoethnography published its first issue, with articles on topics as diverse as family photos, genocide, tinnitus, and pet loss.
Researchers sometimes take brief, sketchy notes in the field, writing key words or short quotations in small notebooks, on cocktail napkins, or in text messages. These jottings can help jog their memories when they sit down to write at the end of the day and elaborate on the details. Sometimes, however, it is not possible to write while in the field and researchers must rely on “head notes,” that is, on memory alone.
Anthropologist Clifford Geertz (1973), well known for his work on Indonesian culture and society, coined the term thick description to convey the qualities of well-written field notes. It takes more than mere photographic detail to make field notes “thick”; sensitivity to the context and to interactional details such as facial expression and tone of voice enriches what might otherwise be just a list of events. Thick description involves exploring all the possible meanings of a phenomenon (for example, a blinking eye) within a particular cultural setting. A good ethnography not only is systematic and holistic, but allows the reader to understand what the world is like from another’s perspective.
One example of participant observation research is Kathryn Edin and Maria Kefalas’s study of poor moms, in their ethnography Promises I Can Keep: Why Poor Women Put Motherhood before Marriage (2005). Edin and Kefalas wanted to examine a group that faces harsh judgments from the mainstream: urban single moms. For years, policy makers and mainstream Americans have focused on single motherhood as the source of a variety of social problems. Edin and Kefalas wanted to see the issue from the perspective of the women being stigmatized in order to uncover the realities of single motherhood. Their goal was to give poor single mothers the ability to personally answer the question that wealthier Americans ask of them: Why don’t they get married? And why have babies if they have to struggle so hard to support them? Edin moved her entire family to East Camden, New Jersey, where they lived for two and a half years while she did her research. In order to become more integrated into the community, she joined the local church, volunteered at after-school and summer programs, ate at local restaurants, shopped at local stores, taught Sunday school, and went to community events. Kefalas volunteered at the local GED tutoring program for teen mothers.
Edin and Kefalas were able to study 162 Black, white, and Puerto Rican mothers with an average age of twenty-five. All the women were single parents who earned less than $16,000 a year. What Edin and Kefalas discovered was that motherhood, from the perspective of many of the women they met, was a stabilizing agent in their lives. Rather than disrupting their path to success, many of the moms viewed their babies as the only positive factor in their lives. Numerous stories detailed the troubled directions in which the women’s lives were heading before they had their children. The conclusions Edin and Kefalas were able to draw from their ethnographic research were contrary to widespread opinion about the consequences of single motherhood for many women in poverty: The (perceived) low cost of early child-rearing and the high value and worth of mothering are enough to combat the difficulties of single motherhood.
Ethnographic researchers must pay attention to how their own social statuses—including gender, age, race, and parenthood—shape the kind of access they can have and, hence, the kind of knowledge they can obtain as part of their research. The fact that Edin and Kefalas were women and mothers themselves played a role in their ability to create rapport and gain access as they lived and worked in East Camden. Participant observers must also consider that their own presence probably affects the interactions and relationships in the group they are observing, an idea known as reflexivity. A researcher’s personal feelings about the members of a group also come into play. Ethnographers may feel respect, contempt, curiosity, boredom, and other emotions during their time in the field, and these feelings may influence their observations. It is true that other kinds of researchers also have to take their feelings into account. But because ethnographers have such close personal ties to the people they study, the issue of reflexivity is especially important to them.
Like Edin and Kefalas, most ethnographers are “overt” about their research roles; that is, they are open about their sociological intentions. Overt research is generally preferred, because it eliminates the potential ethical problems of deception. Sometimes, however, circumstances dictate that researchers take a “covert” role and observe members without letting them know that they are doing research. For example, sociologist David Calvey kept his identity secret for many years while conducting research for a study of masculinity and the physical culture of bouncers in British clubs (2018). In order to be a participant observer in such groups, Calvey worked as a bouncer himself, taking advantage of his large physique, martial arts expertise, and clubbing experiences to present himself as an “ordinary lad” who worked the doors. Often this meant witnessing violence and criminality without intervening. Calvey had to deceive the other bouncers in order to gain their trust; also, living in the neighborhood of the clubs he worked at meant he was always at risk of being revealed as a fraud. However, he felt that the value of the research was worth the risk because it provided insight into an interesting group that would otherwise go unstudied.
Ethnographers look for patterns and themes that are revealed in their field notes. They use an inductive approach, beginning with specific observations and then forming broader, theoretical generalizations from them. Ethnographers start by immersing themselves in their field notes and fitting the data into categories, such as “episodes of conflict” or “common vocabulary shared by members.” Identifying relationships among these categories then allows ethnographers to build theoretical propositions, a form of analysis known as grounded theory (Glaser and Strauss 1967).
Advantages and Disadvantages
ADVANTAGES
Ethnographic research excels at telling richly detailed stories that contribute to our understanding of social life. It offers a means of studying groups whose stories might not otherwise be told (Katz 1997). These include deviant groups such as young gang members who cultivate violent online personae (Stuart 2020), as well as elite groups such as prestigious prep school students trying to preserve their privilege in a diverse world (Khan 2011).
Ethnographic research can challenge our taken-for-granted notions about groups we thought we knew. For instance, from Edin and Kefalas’s work on single mothers, we learn that these women are not the irresponsible, unreliable individuals some may have thought they were. They desire and seek out the best for their children, just like mothers in other groups and communities.
Ethnographic research can not only help reshape the stereotypes we hold about others but also influence social policy. A study like Edin and Kefalas’s can have policy consequences because it sheds light on the motivations and needs of single mothers, as well as giving us a clear picture of the resources (or lack thereof) available to them.
Many of the pioneering methodological innovations of the last half century, especially those involving reflexivity and researcher roles in the field, have come from ethnography.
Covert Research Studying bouncers meant that Calvey sometimes had to witness conflict, criminal behavior, and violence without intervening, for fear of revealing his identity as a researcher.
DISADVANTAGES
A major critique has to do with an ethnographic study’s degree of representativeness—whether a particular study can apply to anything larger. What is the value of studying relatively small groups of people if one cannot then say that these groups represent parts of the society at large? Though Edin and Kefalas’s work focused on East Camden, their conclusions can apply to single mothers in any number of other cities as well.
Ethnographic research is a resource-intensive method: It is costly in terms of the time, effort, and personal commitment required of the researcher. As a result, ethnographic studies are difficult to replicate: Because of the unique combinations of people, timing, setting, and researcher role, no one can ever undertake the same study twice. Repeating a study in order to test the validity, or accuracy, of its results is an important element of the scientific method. Since that option isn’t available to ethnographic researchers in the same way it is to, say, survey researchers, ethnographers attempt to increase the validity of their studies by providing as much information as possible about their methods, their roles, and their relationships with their research subjects. They also share more of their raw data in published work (in the form of field note excerpts) than other researchers usually do. Both of these strategies allow judgments about validity to be made.
DATA WORKSHOP
SHOWHIDE
Analyzing Everyday Life
Watching People Talk
Participant observation research requires a keen eye and ear, and field notes must faithfully capture the details of what is seen and heard. While writing field notes may sound fairly easy (don’t we all know how to describe the things we’ve observed?), it’s actually one of the most grueling forms of data collection in the social sciences. Why? Because thick description is a much more demanding task than the casual description you’re used to providing in everyday conversation. It requires a rigorous consciousness of what is going on around you while it is happening and a strenuous effort to recall those goings-on after leaving the field and returning to your computer to type them up.
This Data Workshop gives you an opportunity to practice doing ethnographic research (make sure you have read and reviewed that section of the chapter). Specifically, it is an exercise in writing field notes using what Clifford Geertz calls thick description. To make things a little easier, you’ll focus on listening first and then on watching. The verbal and the visual are separated so that you can concentrate on one kind of description at a time. In your future ethnographic work, you’ll be writing field notes that describe both verbal and nonverbal behavior at once.
Field Observations: First, for five to ten minutes, listen to (eavesdrop on) a conversation whose participants you can’t see. They might be sitting behind you on a bus or at a nearby table in a restaurant—you’re close enough to hear them but positioned so that you can’t see them. Then, for five to ten minutes, observe a conversation you can’t hear—one taking place, for example, on the other side of the campus quad. Even though you can’t hear what’s being said, you can see the interaction as it takes place.
Written Descriptions: Write an extremely detailed description of each conversation. Describe the participants and the setting, and include your ideas about what you think is going on and what you think you know about the participants. Try to describe everything you heard or saw to support any conclusions you draw. For each of the five- to ten-minute observation periods, you should aim to take two or more double-spaced pages of field notes.
There are two options for completing this Data Workshop:
PREP-PAIR-SHARE
Choose a partner and exchange your field notes. As you read through your partner’s descriptions, mark with an asterisk (*) the passages where you can see and hear clearly the things your partner describes. Circle the passages that contain evaluative words (like “angry” or “sweet”) or summaries of action or conversation rather than detailed description (like “They argued about who would pay the bill”). And place a question mark next to the passages where you are left feeling like you would like to know more. Your partner will do this with your descriptions as well, and you can discuss your responses to each other’s work. Finally, as a class, use your discussions to develop a group consensus about what constitutes good descriptive detail. This is the kind of detail ethnographers strive to produce in their field notes every day.
DO-IT-YOURSELF
Write a two- to three-page essay discussing your fieldwork experience. What was it like to do participant observation research? Did you find listening or watching more or less difficult, and why? How did your data differ with each of the observations? Provide examples of thick description from your field notes, and make sure to attach your field notes to your paper.
a naturalistic method based on studying people in their own environment in order to understand the meanings they attribute to their activities; also, the written work that results from the study
