Nick agafonoff training day - 2011

Training
Day
–
31st
October,
2011

Ethnography: What and How
Nick Agafonoff – Real Ethnography

A
Presenta*on
from
the
Fes*val
of
NewMR
Training
Day
–
October
31,
2011

Nick Agafonoff, Real Ethnography, Australia
Training Day - Festival of NewMR 2011 - Session 2 Schedule: 7:00am – 7:25am (GMT)
Ethnography 101: Tapping the ‘emic’
Nick Agafonoff
Director of Real Ethnography Pty Ltd
nick@realethnography.com
www.realethnography.com

Why ethnography?
Sunday
night
roast...
on
a
Tuesday
night
because
of

Dad’s
shi5
work
schedule

Ethnography
promises
to

take
us
on
a
journey
into

peoples’
real
worlds...

To
understand
who
they

are,
how
they
live
and

what
they
live
for...

Within
the
context
of

their
everyday
lives,

challenges
and

communiBes.

Why ethnography?
I
need
a
way
to
separate
work
from
life...
so

that
I
don’t
have
to
give
up
either

1.  Connect
as
an
insider

2.  Make
meaningful
the

mundane

3.  Unlock
deeper
codes

of
idenBty

4.  Shi5
paradigms

5.  IdenBfy
contextual

barriers

6.  InBmacy
and

empathy
with
key

markets

REASONS
FOR
DOING
IT:

PURPOSE
OF
TODAY?

1.  Mapping
the
ethnographic
landscape

2.  Deﬁning
ethnography;
‘emic’
&
‘eKc’

3.  Tips
for
good
pracKce

4.  The
rise
of
video
ethnography

Three
groups
of
ethnography...

Highly
InterpreKve/

Academic
imperaKves

Evidence-‐based/

Managerial
imperaKves

•  Involved
research

•  TheoreBcally
driven

•  ParBcipant-‐observaBon

•  Full
parBcipant

•  SubjecBve
frameworks

•  Longitudinal
studies

•  In-‐home
audiBng

•  Survey-‐type
interviews

•  ObservaBon
only

•  Consumer
diaries

•  ObjecBve
facts

•  Mostly
ad
hoc
projects

Big
‘E’
LiUle
‘e’

InterpreKve/

Commercial
implicaKons

•  Immersive
episodes

•  Technique
driven

•  Reﬂexive
interviews

•  Observer-‐as-‐parBcipant

•  Emic-‐informed
insights

•  Rapid
&
syndicated

The
new
‘E’

Cultural

Anthropologists

Documenta4on-‐driven

market
researchers

Market

ethnographers

Goal
is
to
learn

what
it
means
to

belong
as
an

‘insider’
naBve
to
a

community

Goal
is
to
align

products,
services
and

brands
to
‘lived

experiences’,
local

meanings
and
group

idenBty
projects

Goal
is
to
prove
or

disprove
hypotheses

for
best
markeBng

strategies
and
tacBcs

Big ‘E’ ethnography
Malinowski

Anthropologist

Teaches
us
the
importance

of
immersing
ourselves
in

peoples’
worlds
in
order
to

understand
how
cultural
and

social
contexts
impact
how

and
why
‘insiders’
consume

But
doesn’t
usually
produce

speciﬁc,
acBonable

implicaBons
for
markeBng

strategy
or
planning

•  Outsider
to
insider
research

•  Anthropological
and
sociological
studies

Little ‘e’ ethnography
African
safari

metaphor

ObservaBon
is
conducted
from

outsider
‘eBc’
vantage
points
of

what
people
say
and
do,
rather

than
exploring
‘emic’,
subjecBve

and
local
frameworks
of

meaning
and
experience

through
parBcipatory
methods

Its
value
is
that
it
provides

tangible
proof
of
human

behavior
and
a^tudes
in
real

world
contexts

•  U&A
studies

•  Accompanied
shops

•  In-‐home
product
audits

•  Consumer
diaries

The new ‘E’

On
the
one
hand,
draws
on
Big

‘E’
theory,
concepts
and

methods

On
the
other
hand,
has
a
ﬁrm

eye
on
small
‘e’
markeBng

challenges
and
objecBves

Most
criBcally
taps
into
lived

experiences
(‘emic’

frameworks)
through

parBcipatory
methods
to

inform
insights
and

representaBon

A
logging
family
in
Tasmania...
Show
and
tell
their

story
in
the
face
of
‘demonizing’
media

•  Design
and
innovaKon
research

•  Flesh-‐to-‐bone
research
(segmentaKons)

•  Cultural
and
emergent
trends
studies

Ethnography (according to my Mac’s dictionary):
noun
the scientific description of the customs of
individual peoples and cultures.
?
Misleading!

‘Scientific’ = process, not detachment
Trace
Tools
+
Methods

Gold’s
conBnuum:

Complete
observer,

observer-‐as-‐
parBcipant,

parBcipant-‐as-‐
observer,
full

parBcipant

Anthropological/
sociological
thinking:

Cultural
analysis

Emic-‐to-‐eBc
inquiry

Symbolic

interacBonism

+
InterpretaKon

These
are
our
tools
for

documentaBon
of

observaBons
i.e.
trace

evidence/data

How
we
engage
peoples’

subjecBve
worlds
to

extract
‘emic’
insights

and
data

How
we
understand

what
the
‘emic’
data

means
through
reference

to
‘eBc’
frameworks

RICH
DESCRIPTION

Real ethnography taps the ‘emic’
Kenneth Pike (1954) defines the emic perspective as focusing
on the intrinsic cultural distinctions that are meaningful to the
members of a given society; the native members of a culture are
the sole judges of the validity of an emic description.
The etic perspective relies upon the extrinsic concepts and
categories that have meaning for scientific observers.
An ethnographer engages emic perspectives and references
them back to etic frameworks as part of an iterative process of
analysis (Lett 1990).

A guide to real ethnography

NON-‐ETHNOGRAPHIC

RAW
DATA

ETHNOGRAPHIC

RAW
DATA

NON-‐ETHNOGRAPHIC

INSIGHTS

ETHNOGRAPHIC

INSIGHTS

EKc
only

observaKons

&
analysis

Emic
to
EKc

observaKons

&
analysis

Raw
observaKons/trace
evidence

Contextualized
evidence
as
‘rich
descripKon’

•  How can we employ editing and emic-to-
etic analysis to augment the raw trace
evidence/data in order to connect
audiences to what it means to belong?
‘Description’ = insight-rich & evocative
Contextualizing
the
insights

•  What does this representation say about
insiders’ lived experience and how they
interpret/frame the context?
An
ethnographic
‘portrait’

ETHNOGRAPHY IS NOT DOCUMENTATION ONLY
“I video people in natural contexts... and
this makes it ethnography!”

Market Ethnography (according to Real Ethno 2011):
1.  Engages directly with people in their natural habitat
2.  Attempts to gain ‘insider’ perspectives through a level of participation
and induction
3.  Captures how people consume brands, products and services in the
context of their everyday
4.  Explores what these rituals, practices and interactions mean to people
through reflexive techniques of inquiry
5.  Conducts analysis and interpretation of subjective data by employing
anthropological/sociological thinking
6.  Produces an intimate and holistic portrait of what it means to belong –
who people are, how they live and what they live for
7.  Relates key insights and understandings back to the research and
business objectives of the client

Show
&
Tell
Approach

–  Let
respondents
lead

instead
of
a
discussion
guide

structuring
interacBon

–  ‘De-‐focus’
to
explore
the

context
(this
is
where
the

rich
data
lies)

–  Employ
reﬂexive

techniques
to
unpack
‘emic’

meanings
behind
your

observaBons

Emic-‐to-‐EKc
Analysis

–  Be
prepared
to
be
changed

by
the
experience...
good

ethnographers
go
‘naBve’

–  Refer
to
social
and
cultural

theory/literature...
to
help

interpret
your
observaBons

–  Reserve
an
extra
session
of

analysis...
to
establish
what

the
implicaBons
are
for
the

client’s
business

Tips
for
the
new
ethnographer

VIDEO
IS
THE
NEW
BLACK...

•  As
a
medium...
video
is
a
powerful

and
compelling
way
to
document

and
represent
research
data,

(whether
it
is
ethnographic
or
not)

•  To
do
video
ethnography
right
we

need
to
respect
that
two
disciplines

are
required
to
master
the
art
and

the
science

A Good Trace: How we document video trace
evidence limits or extends the possibilities of
representation
ü  Filming with an
ethnographer’s eye
ü  Framing vantage points
ü  Editing to explain and
to evoke
ü  Best representations
are textured layers
Frame
1
Frame
2
Frame
3

Frame
4
Frame
5

Experienced
ﬁlmmaker

Experienced

ethnographer

No
experience

DATA
RICH

DATA
POOR

VTE
does

not
reﬂect

observer’s

eye

VTE
not

informed
by

methods
or

analysis

VTE
=
Video

Trace

Evidence

Rich description depends on expertise in
ethnography and filmmaking

IF
YOU
REALLY
WANT
TO

LEARN!

•  Do
some
training
in
sociological/
cultural
theory
and
pracKce

•  Develop
parKcipatory
and
reﬂexive

techniques
(observer-‐as-‐parBcipant

and
parBcipant-‐as-‐observer)
this
takes

years
of
pracBce!

•  Learn
the
language
of
ﬁlm
to
inform

how
to
document
and
represent

insights
evocaBvely
as
well
as
factually

IF
FILMAKING
IS
REQUIRED...

(and
you
aren’t
confident)

•  Think
about
teaming
up
with
a
video

ethnographer
partner

•  Or
do
your
documentaBon
in

tradiKonal
ways
(i.e.
wriien
notes
and

sBlls
photography)

•  Then
get
a
filmmaker
to
bring-‐to-‐life

your
findings
at
the
culminaBon
of
the

research

Thank you
Nick Agafonoff

Q & A
Pravin Shekar
krea
Nick Agafonoff
Real Ethnography

Thank you
Nick Agafonoff
nick@realethnography.com
www.realethnography.com

Nick agafonoff training day - 2011

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