2011; Coole and Frost 2010; Fox and Alldred 2015a, 2015b; Holbraad and Pedersen 2017). Fieldwork in literate societies especially in formal organizations is likely to encompass the production and use of documents of various kinds. Movement among groups within a single society can produce the same effects; generally, though not always, in a milder form. Shweder, R.A. (2003) The idea of moral progress: Bush versus Posner versus Berlin, Philosophy of Education Society Yearbook, Champaign, IL: Philosophy of Education Society Publications, available at http: //www.ed.uiuc.edu/EPS/PES-yearbook/2003/2003toc.htm (accessed 1 February 2007). Where interviews are used alone, it is wise to give over some interview space to casual conversation about current events in the interviewees life. Equally, we should note the range of different types of theory with which ethnographers may be concerned. 4 And, indeed, there are those who would not only resist such differential treatment but also seek to extend childrens rights in research much further: see Grave and Walsh (1998). 222 Everhart, R.B. (1988) Local knowledge: the analysis of transcribed audio materials for organizational ethnography, in R.G. This happened through a shift in attention from what was said or done to how it was said or done. And, sometimes, this is the goal in ethnographic research too, though what is usually involved is sampling within rather than across cases (see Chapter 2). Here, at its simplest, a particular factor is varied across situations that are identical in all respects considered relevant. (1966) In the Presence of Strangers: A Study of Behaviour in Public Settings, Working Paper 19, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, Center for Research on Social Organization. The question of how theoretical ideas are generated belongs to the former and is outside the realm of scientific method. Dumits ethnography of brain-imaging is but one recent example: the striking images of brain scans he reproduces do not just illustrate the text. It is, after all, their professional business to solve problems, not merely to grapple with them. We need, therefore, to examine talk for its speech-act functions. But it is important not to cling 92 Field relations to them. Moreover, while anthropologists took its value for granted, or perhaps because of this, on the whole they paid singularly little attention to the documentation or discussion of research methods. Fine, G.A. As has long been recognized by ethnographers, he or she is the research instrument par excellence. See Kellys (1985) discussion of this aspect of the Girls into Science and Technology project. Schutzs (1964) account of the experience of the stranger matches most obviously the work of anthropologists, who typically study societies very different from their own. Lee-Treweek, G. and Linkogle, S. (eds) (2000) Danger in the Field: Risk and Ethics in Social Research, London: Routledge. Like other accounts, they should be read with regard to the context of their production, their intended or implied audiences, and the authors interests. 86 Field relations Generally, though, in open research the ethnographer has some choice over whether or not to take on one of the existing roles in the field. Potter, J. Now in its fourth edition, this leading introduction to ethnography has been thoroughly updated and substantially rewritten. Patricks (1973) research on a Glasgow gang reveals what passing in this way can involve: Clothes were another major difficulty. Sometimes this information will be of a kind that is not available from other sources. Yes, I do, he replied, I have names and telephone numbers. One should not have to puzzle over Is that what they themselves said? The observers own descriptive glosses should be kept clearly distinct. (Anderson 2006: 40) So, individuals and groups whom one might want to study may be available in public settings, but they are not always welcoming to researchers, or indeed to outsiders of any kind. (1972) Problems of access and risk in observing drug scenes, in J.D. Shaffir and R.A. Stebbins (eds) Experiencing Fieldwork: An Inside View of Qualitative Research, Newbury Park, CA: Sage. Records construct a documentary reality that, by virtue of its very documentation, is often granted a sort of privilege. . Denzins intellectual trajectory has brought him from a classic interactionist stance in his earliest methodological work (Denzin 1970), indeed one significantly influenced by positivism, towards a postmodern, performative mode of ethnography (e.g. Its, uh, resenting authority I suppose. Similar considerations, but a rather different outfit, were involved in Henslins (1990) research on homeless people. Lacey, C. (1970) Hightown Grammar, Manchester: Manchester University Press. Such research does not necessarily study naturally occurring communities that exist in cyberspace, although in the course of setting up noticeboards and chat rooms researchers can create temporary, research-situated groupings that approximate to online focus groups. For example, we have a college-boy member of the Italian Community Club saying: These racketeers give our district a bad name. Zorbaugh, H. (1929) The Gold Coast and the Slum, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Sampson, H. and Thomas, M. (2003) Lone researchers at sea: gender, risk, and responsibility, Qualitative Research, 3, 2: 16589. However, this dimension is surrounded by what Styles (1979) refers to as outsider and insider myths: In essence, outsider myths assert that only outsiders can conduct valid research on a given group; only outsiders, it is held, possess the needed objectivity and emotional distance. I could never view lessons in company with that group again without experiencing that boredom myself. When I assented, he said: Have you ever thought of . Whyte: Thats a good example. Cicourel, A. Even where full transcription is to be carried out, as already indicated a decision must be made about how detailed this should be. Hence the authorial voice is an autobiographical one. Ball, M.S. Some representations of analysis notably vulgar accounts of grounded theorizing strategies seem to imply that there is a standard set of steps that the ethnographer should go through in order to make sense of their data. Appendix Current social science research ethics codes include the following: Association of Social Anthropologists (ASA) Ethical Guidelines http://www.theasa.org/ ethics.htm British Sociological Association (BSA) Statement of Ethical Practice http://www. The ethnographic author thus reproduces the authority of the observer as a dominating form of surveillance and reportage (see Denzin 1997). Burgess, R.G. We also code them in multiple categories, under anything that might be felt to be cogent. . In fact, its so routine that Im surprised that I even made a note to remember it. ), its colour schemes, its furnishings and the like. In formal organizations, for example, initial access negotiations may be focused on official permission that can legitimately be granted or withheld by key personnel. Paradoxically, complete observation shares many of the advantages and disadvantages of complete participation. Early on, despite being funded by the Trust, Punch was refused access to the schools files by the joint headteachers, even though these were his only means of tracing former students. . . (Whyte 1981: 309) Whytes comments here emphasize the importance of anticipating how the data might be used. In the case of his research on Hasidic Jews, Shaffir comments: My suspicion that I was not fully welcomed resulted from a basic misinterpretation: I mistook an indifferent reaction for a negative one. (1998) Life Online: Researching Real Experience in Virtual Space, Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira. They were unversed in the conventions of academic sociological criticism and they were perhaps only marginally interested in the content of the reports. The Seasoned Urbanite . A good illustration of this is provided by Homans research on the prayer behaviour of oldtime pentecostalists. At a more mundane level, perhaps, the carefully made fieldwork journal will enable the conscientious ethnographer painstakingly to retrace 152 Recording and organizing data and explicate the development of the research design, the emergence of analytic themes, and the systematic collection of data. Atkinson, P. (1997) Clinical Experience: The Construction and Reconstruction of Medical Reality, Aldershot, UK: Ashgate. On the other hand, things are not necessarily so straightforward. Furthermore, I was generally perceived as harmless by the males, and afforded access bordering on trespass. The uses of video or film, still photography, and audio-recording offer various options for data collection and storage. Share to Reddit. (Wolf 1991: 220) While Wolf escaped retaliation, the Calgary Rebel and his associates made clear that they were against the publication of a book on the basis of his thesis: No way that youre going to publish that book! Wolf comments: it was an interesting ethical complication: it was a dangerous personal complication. For instance, should the members of an extreme right-wing political organization which engages in racial harassment be accorded the same ethical consideration as members of a democratically elected government? ? using information not available to the researcher and in ways which turn out to be productive. It assumes that social phenomena are governed by deterministic, albeit conditional, laws; such that if conditions X, Y and Z occur, then event A will be produced in all circumstances. . David Snows first attempts at disengagement from a group of Nichiren Shosnu Buddhists were met with a flurry of reconversion activity: No sooner had I finished (telling my group leader about my growing disillusionment) than he congratulated me, indicating that (such feelings) were good signs. As Richardson (1990a) argues, the narrative mode is to be valued as a basic tool in the ethnographers craft: If we wish to understand the deepest and most universal of human experiences, if we wish our work to be faithful to the lived experiences of people, if we wish for a union between poetics and science, or if we wish to use our privileges and skills to empower the people we study, then we should value the narrative. Study more efficiently using our study tools. This is integral to the kind of toleration that, is probably essential to ethnographic work (Hammersley 2005a). I volunteered to help . Which rules are allegedly broken in imputations of deviance? At the same time, ethnographers often experience some feelings of personal disquiet, wondering whether they are unduly exploitative in offering friendship in return for data. . Assuming we understand how the presence of the researcher may have shaped the data, we can interpret the latter accordingly and it can provide important insights, allowing us to pursue the emerging analysis. But the gatekeeper was taken aback by his informal appearance, and started to get cold feet about the research altogether. This has led to recognition of the fact that the language used by ethnographers in their writing is not a transparent medium allowing us to see reality through it, but rather a construction that draws on many of the rhetorical strategies used by journalists, travel writers, novelists, and others. Do you accept at all that they know better about things? Tyler, S.A. (1986) Post-modern ethnography: from document of the occult to occult document, in J. Clifford and G. Marcus (eds) Writing Culture: The Poetics and Politics of Ethnography, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. and Cook, J.A. (2001b) Home Possessions, Oxford: Berg. Qualitative researchers have developed specialist literatures devoted to quite specific techniques photographic and other visual methods (Pink 2006), narrative-analytic methods (Riessman 1993), interviewing of many sorts (Gubrium and Holstein 2002), the qualitative analysis of documentary sources (Prior 2003), and the exploration of virtual social realities (Hine 2000). 1, New York: Harper & Row. and Silverman, D. (1997) Kunderas Immortality: the interview society and the invention of the self , Qualitative Inquiry, 3: 30425. Hypertext can also be used to create narrative texts that depart from the conventional linear structure of most novels, biographies or histories. As Robinson (1969) pointed out, he drew too sharp a distinction between analytic induction and statistical method; and in fact the capacity of his version of analytic induction to produce universal statements derives from being concerned only with necessary, and not with sufficient, conditions. Stress on the importance of studying social life as a process arose, to a large extent, from opposition to attempts to understand it in terms of fixed, determinate relationships among variables, in the way that many quantitative researchers do. For instance, it is quite common for educational researchers to ask children about their friendships, but it is more rare to investigate friendship patterns among adults; and, in part, this probably stems from the assumption that childrens private lives are legitimately open to scrutiny in a way that those of adults are not, especially professional, middle-class adults. On his account, all knowledge of the world is mediated by paradigmatic presuppositions. Rule, J.B. (1978) Insight and Social Betterment: A Preface to Applied Social Science, New York: Oxford University Press. Ones hypermedia environment can, therefore, retain the interview materials, the video recordings, the sound recordings, the photographs, and the documentary sources completely. . The ethnographer of a great city like London or Chicago will find many literary themes and images to explore, as will the student of small towns and rural communities. 1656, 214 Beoku-Betts, J. . Erzberger, C. and Kelle, U. References 243 1EEE 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 1 2 EEE3 4 5 6 7 8 9 20 1 2 3 4 5EEE 6 7 8 9 30 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 40 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 41EEE Corsino, L. (1984) Underinvolvement and dynamics of personality: notes on bias in field research situations, unpublished manuscript. the respondent could, if he or she is well-connected, make things difficult for us with just a phone call. It was the method itself, participant observation, that became the key for making this research affordable. The original influences of anthropology have been challenged and supplemented, and there has been major change within that discipline as well. Nonetheless, metaphorical insight can be facilitated. However, there is a growing body of informal evidence about the difficulties that it is posing for ethnographic work, for example leading researchers to drop some parts of an intended research plan, notably those involving participant observation, that are judged likely to be an obstacle to approval, or at least to cause substantial delay in obtaining it. Maybe the police has made me this way, but do you not see that if youre going to come in here asking me questions about my family, if youre going to want to know all these things, Ive got to be able to trust you? (ed.) . Later, I checked his story on the length of time, coming back to confront him again and again if necessary. is a non-style . You hem and haw before making a leap into the situation. Websites have to be maintained. It is the responsibility of the ethnographer to try to act in ways that are ethically appropriate, taking due account of his or her goals and values, the situation in which the research is being carried out, and the values and interests of the people involved. Barrett, R.A. (1974) Benabarre: The Modernization of a Spanish Village, New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston. In that sense, therefore, ethnographic texts implicitly conform to a style of theory-testing as well as theory-generation. For this reason and others, in non-directive interviewing the interviewer must be an active listener; he or she must listen to what is being said in order to assess how it relates to the research focus and how it may reflect the circumstances of the interview. (2004) Comparing telephone and face-to-face qualitative interviewing: a research note, Qualitative Research, 4, 1: 10718. It serves as a model of one kind of organizational form against which actual organizations can be compared. Rather than attempt to reconstruct an essentially unknowable past, anthropologists were inclined to concentrate on the construction of working versions of the present. It is true that it can be a threat to the validity of inferences. (ed.) During the course of the fieldwork a number of issues were identified with more precision, and new categories were developed. . . In a literate culture, it is possible to draw on all sorts of documents, both those generated independently of the research as well as ones specifically elicited by the researcher. Angela: Theyre so quiet and then all of sudden one of themll speak and you think Whats come over them? I suppose theyve got their opinion in their head and they hear everyone else talking so they think they will. This kind of consideration must underlie the selection of informants and the interpretation of the data they provide, as well as the treatment of data from other sources. (1971) Analyzing Social Settings: A Guide to Qualitative Observation and Analysis, Belmont, CA: Wadsworth. With the exception of those who are doing research in a setting within which they normally live or work, ending the fieldwork generally means leaving the field though sometimes the setting itself disintegrates, as Gallmeier (1991) found in his research on a professional hockey team: Compared to some other field researchers I had a less difficult time disengaging from the setting and the participants. On the following Friday morning we saw him collect the childrens work diaries where each child had recorded in detail the work he had completed during the week. Goffman, E. (1961) Asylums: Essays on the Social Situation of Mental Patients and Other Inmates, New York: Doubleday. Thus, the women I interviewed often ended up thanking me for doing the study, telling me how important it was for a like-minded person to convey their perspective. Webb, S. and Webb, B. (Glaser and Strauss 1967: 32) In ethnographic research there is usually a constant interplay between the topical and the generic, or the substantive and the formal. While the latter are interesting exercises in their own right, we do not believe that they substitute for the hard and serious work of social science. This naturally aroused my suspicion, and I shortly recalled having seen him in a staff members uniform when I had taken the Communication Course at the Scientology headquarters. Burgess (ed.) CAREERS I N As Troustine and Christensen (1982) indicate, from their study of community elites, care is required: Respondents may be reluctant at first to offer candid views of their peers. Indeed, the distinction between sponsors and gatekeepers is by no means clear-cut. (Cannon 1992: 180) Leaving the field With all research there comes a time when the fieldwork needs to be terminated (Delamont 2004a). (ed.) Glaser, B. and Strauss, A. This has led to important debates about naturalism, its validity and implications (Speer 2002). Sexual behaviour is one obvious example. Darbyshire, P., MacDougall, C. and Schiller, W. (2005) Multiple methods in qualitative research with children: more insight or just more?, Qualitative Research, 5, 4: 41736. Of course, these questions do not constitute a research design as such. The ethnographer draws on and elicits narratives as data and recasts them in the sociological or anthropological narratives of scholarly writing. For instance, Karp (1993) develops a typology of responses by patients to the prescription of antidepressant drugs. There is no need for anyone to aspire to emulate Goffmans style in order to recognize and learn from his genius for using such resources in the construction of texts at once readerly and scholarly. Unpublished documents include: official correspondence, reports in mimeographed and other forms, railroad operating bulletins and circulars, train orders, operating messages, and sundry other items.
Hazardous Waste Disposal Warrensburg Mo,
Articles E