Ethnography (from the Greek ἔθνος ethnos = nation and γράφειν graphein = writing) refers to the genre of writing that presents qualitative description of human social phenomena, based on fieldwork. Ethnography presents the results of a holistic research method founded on the idea that a system's properties cannot necessarily be accurately understood independently of each other. The genre has both formal and historical connections to travel writing and colonial office reports. Several academic traditions, in particular the constructivist and relativist paradigms, claim ethnographic research as a valid research method. The term qualitative research has different meanings in different fields, with the social science usage the most well-known. ... Fieldwork refers to scientific activity conducted in the field, outside the laboratory, of subject matter in an as-found state, by anthropologists, geologists, botanists, archaeologists or others who study the natural or human world. ... Holism (from holos, a Greek word meaning all, entire, total) is the idea that all the properties of a given system (biological, chemical, social, economic, mental, linguistic, etc. ... Constructivism may refer to: constructivism (mathematics), a view on mathematical proofs constructivism (art), an artistic movement in Russia from 1914 onward constructivism (learning theory) constructivism, an approach to language acquisition in linguistics Constructivism in international relations constructivist epistemology, the philosophical view This is a disambiguation page: a list of articles... Relativism expresses the view that the meaning and value of human beliefs and behaviors have no absolute reference. ...

Cultural and Social anthropology

Cultural anthropology and social anthropology were developed around ethnographic research and their canonical texts are mostly ethnographies: e.g. Argonauts of the Western Pacific by Bronislaw Malinowski, The Nuer by E. E. Evans-Pritchard, Coming of Age in Samoa by Margaret Mead, or Naven by Gregory Bateson. Cultural and social anthropologists today place such a high value on actually doing ethnographic research that ethnology—the comparative synthesis of ethnographic information—is rarely the foundation for a career. Within cultural anthropology, there are several sub-genres of ethnography. Beginning in the late 1950s and early 1960s, anthropologists began writing "confessional" ethnographies that intentionally exposed the nature of ethnographic research. Famous examples include Tristes Tropiques by Claude Lévi-Strauss, The High Valley by Kenneth Read, and The Savage and the Innocent by David Maybury-Lewis, as well as the mildly fictionalized Return to Laughter by Elenore Smith Bowen (Laura Bohannan). Later "reflexive" ethnographies refined the technique to translate cultural differences by representing their effects on the ethnographer. Famous examples include Reflections on Fieldwork in Morocco by Paul Rabinow, The Headman and I by Jean-Paul Dumont, and Tuhami by Vincent Crapanzano. In the 1980s, the rhetoric of ethnography was subjected to intense scrutiny within the discipline, under the general influence of literary theory and post-colonial/post-structuralist thought. "Experimental" ethnographies that reveal the ferment of the discipline include Shamanism, Colonialism, and the Wild Man by Michael Taussig, Debating Muslims by Michael F. J. Fischer and Mehdi Abedi, A Space on the Side of the Road by Kathleen Stewart, and Advocacy after Bhopal by Kim Fortun. Cultural anthropology, also called social anthropology or socio-cultural anthropology, forms one of four commonly-recognized fields of anthropology, the holistic study of humanity. ... For the Olympic champion athlete see Bronislaw Malinowski (athlete). ... Edward Evan (E. E.) Evans-Pritchard (September 21, 1902 - September 11, 1973) was a British anthropologist instrumental in the development of social anthropology in that country. ... Margaret Mead Margaret Mead (December 16, 1901 – November 15, 1978) was an American cultural anthropologist. ... Gregory Bateson (9 May 1904–4 July 1980) was a British anthropologist, social scientist, linguist and cyberneticist whose work intersected that of many other fields. ... Ethnology (greek ethnos: (non-greek, barbarian) people) is a genre of anthropological study, involving the systematic comparison of the folklore, beliefs and practices of different societies. ... Claude Lévi Strauss Claude Lévi-Strauss (IPA pronunciation ) born November 28, 1908, is a French anthropologist who became one of the twentieth centurys greatest intellectuals by developing structuralism as a method of understanding human society and culture. ... David Henry Peter Maybury-Lewis (born in Hyderabad, Pakistan 1929-) is a distinguished anthropologist, prominent ethnologist of lowland South America, indefatigable activist for indigenous peoples human rights and professor emeritus of Harvard University. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... Postcolonial theory is a literary theory or critical approach that deals with literature produced in countries that were once, or are now, colonies of other countries. ... Post-structuralism is a body of work that followed in the wake of structuralism, and sought to understand the Western world as a network of structures, as in structuralism, but in which such structures are ordered primarily by local, shifting differences (as in deconstruction) rather than grand binary oppositions and... Please wikify (format) this article or section as suggested in the Guide to layout and the Manual of Style. ...

Cultural anthropologists, such as Clifford Geertz, study and interpret cultural diversity through ethnography based on field work. It provides an account of a particular culture, society, or community. The fieldwork usually involves spending a year or more in another society, living with the local people and learning about their ways of life. Ethnographers are participant observers. They take part in events they study because it helps with understanding local behavior and thought. Clifford James Geertz (born August 23, 1926 in San Francisco) is an American anthropologist serving as professor emeritus at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, New Jersey. ...

Other related fields

Sociology and cultural studies also produce ethnography. Urban sociology and the Chicago School in particular are associated with ethnographic research, although some of the most well-known examples (including Street Corner Society by William Foote Whyte and Black Metropolis by Clair Drake) were influenced by an anthropologist, Lloyd Warner, who happened to be in the sociology department at Chicago. Symbolic interactionism developed from the same tradition and yielded several excellent sociological ethnographies, including Shared Fantasy by Gary Alan Fine, which documents the early history of fantasy role-playing games. But even though many sub-fields and theoretical perspectives within sociology use ethnographic methods, ethnography is not the sine qua non of the discipline, as it is in cultural anthropology. Social interactions of people and their consequences are the subject of sociology studies. ... Cultural studies combines sociology, social theory, literary theory, media theory, film/video studies, cultural anthropology and art history/criticism to study cultural phenomena in industrial societies. ... Urban sociology is the sociological study of the various statistics among the population in cities. ... In sociology and, later, criminology, the Chicago School (sometimes described as the Ecological School) refers to the first major body of works emerging during the 1920s and 1930s specialising in urban sociology, and the research into the urban environment by combining theory and ethnographic fieldwork in Chicago, now applied elsewhere. ... Street Corner Society is a famous descriptive case study written by William Foote Whyte and published in 1943. ... William Foote Whyte (June 27, 1914 - July 16, 2000) was a prominent sociologist chiefly known for his ethnological study in urban sociology, Street Corner Society. ... Symbolic interactionism is a sociological perspective which examines how individuals and groups interact, focusing on the creation of personal identity through interaction with others. ... Gary Alan Fine Gary Alan Fine (born May 11, 1950 in New York City) is an American sociologist and author. ... This article is about traditional role-playing games. ... Sine qua non or conditio sine qua non was originally a Latin legal term for without which it could not be (but for). It refers to an indispensable and essential action, condition, or ingredient. ...

Education, Ethnomusicology, Performance Studies, Folklore, and [Linguistics] are others fields which have made extensive use of ethnography. The American anthropologist George Spindler (Stanford University) was a pioneer in applying ethnographic methodology to the classroom. James Spradley is another well-known ethnographer, especially for his book, The Ethnographic Interview, published in 1979. Ethnomusicology (from the Greek ethnos = nation and mousike = music), formerly comparative musicology, is the study of music in its cultural context, cultural musicology. ... Folklore is the body of verbal expressive culture, including tales, legends, oral history, proverbs, jokes, popular beliefs current among a particular population, comprising the oral tradition of that culture, subculture, or group. ... This article needs to be cleaned up to conform to a higher standard of quality. ...

Ethnographic methods have been used to study business settings. Groups of workers, managers and so on are different social categories participating in common social systems. Each group shows different characteristic attitudes, behavior patterns and values.

Increasingly, universities (such as the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) are using ethnographic methods as a technique to encourage undergraduate research in the humanities. For example, the Ethnography of the University (EOTU) program sponsors undergraduate research on UIUC and archives it in web-accessible form for the UIUC community. EOTU also functions as a learning group for students, staff, and faculty interested in what it means to conduct research on universities as institutions. The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, also known as UIUC and the U of I (the officially preferred abbreviation), is the flagship campus in the University of Illinois system. ...

Anthropologists like Daniel Miller and Mary Douglas have used ethnographic data to answer academic questions about consumers and consumption. Businesses, too, have found ethnographers helpful for understanding how people use products and services, as indicated in the increasing use of ethnographic methods to understand consumers and consumption, or for new product development (sometimes called 'design ethnography'). The recent Ethnographic Praxis in Industry (EPIC) conference, co-sponsored by Intel and Microsoft, is evidence of this. Ethnographers' systematic and holistic approach to real-life experience is valued by product developers, who use the method to understand unstated desires or cultural practices that surround products. Where focus groups fail to inform marketers about what people really do, ethnography links what people say to what they actually do—avoiding the pitfalls that come from relying only on self-reported, focus-group data. Daniel Miller is a researcher and lecturer at the University College London (UCL) department of anthropology. ... Mary Douglas (nee Tew) (born 1921) is a British anthropologist, known for her writings on human culture and symbolism. ...

Techniques

1. Direct, first-hand observation of daily behavior. This can include participant observation.
2. Conversation with different levels of formality. This can involve small talk to long interviews.
3. The genealogical method. This is a set of procedures by which ethnographers discover and record connections of kinship, descent and marriage using diagrams and symbols.
4. Detailed work with key consultants about particular areas of community life.
5. In-depth interviewing.
6. Discovery of local beliefs and perceptions.
7. Problem-oriented research.
8. Longitudinal research. This is continuous long-term study of an area or site.
9. Team research.
10. Case studies

Not all of these techniques are used by ethnographers, but interviews and participant observation are the most widely used. Case studies involve a particular method of research. ...

See also

• Virtual Ethnography: a form of ethnography that involves conducting ethnographic studies on the Internet.

Virtual ethnography is a new development in the field of Ethnography. ...

References

• Agar, Michael (1996) The Professional Stranger: An Informal Introduction to Ethnography. Academic Press.
• Douglas, Mary (1996) The World of Goods: Toward and Anthropology of Consumption. Routledge, London.
• Erickson, Ken C. and Donald D. Stull (1997) Doing Team Ethnography : Warnings and Advice. Sage, Beverly Hills.
• Miller, Daniel (1987) Material Culture and Mass Consumption. Blackwell, London.
• Kottak, Conrad Phillip (2005) Window on Humanity : A Concise Introduction to General Anthropology, (pages 34-44). McGraw Hill, New York.
• Kottak, Conrad Phillip (2005) Window on Humanity : A Concise Introduction to General Anthropology, (pages 2-3, 16-17, 34-44). McGraw Hill, New York.

External links

• Genzuk, Michael (2003) A Synthesis of Ethnographic Research
• Division of Anthropology, American Museum of Natural History - Over 160,000 objects from Pacific, North American, African, Asian ethnographic collections with images and detailed description, linked to the original catalogue pages, field notebooks, and photographs are available online.