All about Etnnography. A DETAILED OVERVIEW.

2.  MEMBERS :
SHAN MAHMOOD 57
AHSAN ANWAR 36
MUHAMMAD UMAR 49
AYESHA ILAYS 11
NAMRA MUNIR 22
RIDA IJAZ 26

5.  Ethnography is a social science research method. It relies
heavily on up-close, personal experience and possible
participation, not just observation, by researchers trained
in the art of ethnography. It involves a commitment to get
close to the subject being observed in its natural setting,
to be factual and descriptive in reporting what is
observed, and to find out the points of view of
participants in the domain observed.

7.  CHARACTERISTIC OF ETHNOGRAPHIC
RESEARCH:
 CONTEXTUAL
 The research is carried out in the context in which
the subjects normally live and work.
 UNOBTRUSIVE
 The research avoids manipulating the phenomena
under investigation.
• LONGITUDINAL
 The research is relatively long.

8.  CHARACTERISTICS OF ETHNOGRAPHIC
RESEARCH:
 COLLABORATIVE
 The research involves the participation of
stakeholders other than the researcher.
 INTERPRETATIVE
 The researcher carries out interpretative analyses
of the data.
 ORGANIC
 There is interaction between questions/
hypotheses and data collection/ interpretation.

10.  (a) People's behavior is studied in everyday contexts, rather than under
experimental conditions created by the researcher.
 (b) Data are gathered from a range of sources, but observation and/or
relatively informal conversations are usually the main ones.
 (c) The approach to data collection is "unstructured in the sense that it
does not involve following through a detailed plan set up at the
beginning; nor are the categories used for interpreting what people
say and do pre-given or fixed. This does not mean that the research is
unsystematic; simply that initially the data are collected in as raw a
form, and on as wide a front, as feasible.

11.  (d) The focus is usually a single setting or group, of
relatively small scale. In life history research the focus may
even be a single individual.
 (e) The analysis of the data involves interpretation of the
meanings and functions of human actions and mainly
takes the form of verbal descriptions and explanations,
with quantification and statistical analysis playing a
subordinate role at most.

13. NATURALISM
This is the view that the aim of social research is to
capture the character of naturally occurring human
behavior, and that this can only be achieved by first-hand
contact with it, not by inferences from what people do in
artificial settings like experiments or from what they say in
interviews about what they do elsewhere.

14. UNDERSTANDING
From this point of view, if we are to be able to explain
human actions effectively we must gain an understanding
of the cultural perspectives on which they are based. That
this is necessary is obvious when we are studying a
society that is alien to us, since we shall find much of
what we see and hear puzzling.

16. DISCOVERY
Another feature of ethnographic thinking is a conception
of the research process as inductive or discovery-based;
rather than as being limited to the testing of explicit
hypotheses.

17.  The design of an ethnographic research is deceptively
simple. It appears to require only one “act naturally.” Then
again, looking beyond, conducting an ethnographic
research is a process of discovery. It is something that
cannot be programmed. It is not a matter of following
methodological rules but a practical activity requiring the
exercise of one’s judgment.

19.  Typical ethnographic research employs three kinds of data
collection: interviews, observation, and documents. This in turn
produces three kinds of data: quotations, descriptions, and excerpts
of documents, resulting in one product: narrative description.
 watching what happens
 listening to what is said
 asking questions through informal and formal interviews
 collecting documents and artifacts

20.  The data collected include, in addition to the rich
descriptive accounts, photographs, maps, figures, tables,
texts, audio and video records, and transcriptions. The
most common types of method used in data collection are
interviews [both formal and informal], documents [also
both formal and informal/ official], and through
observation.

21.  In conducting an ethnographic research, there are also
certain ethical concerns that are being raised every now
and then. Over-all, they can be summarized as:
 informed consent
 privacy
 harm
 exploitation