The document discusses key concepts in ethnography and culture. It defines culture as the acquired knowledge people use to interpret experiences and generate behavior. Ethnography is defined as the process of discovering and describing a particular culture from the insider's point of view in order to understand their perspective. The goal of ethnography is to understand the world from the point of view of the culture being studied and to understand the meanings and experiences of their actions based on their own language and concepts rather than those of outsiders. The document also discusses different types of cultural descriptions that vary in their use of insider versus outsider language.

1. Ethnography and Culture
Md. Tahmid Hasan
M.S.S
Department of Anthropology
University of Rajshahi

2. Key Concepts
 “Culture is the acquired knowledge people use to interpret experience and
generate behavior.” (Spradley, 2012, p. 09)
 “Explicit Culture is the cultural knowledge that people can talk about.” (Spradley,
2012, p. 03)
 “Tacit culture is the cultural knowledge that people lack word for.” (p.03)
 “Ethnography is the process of discovering and describing a particular culture”.
(Spradley, 2012, p. 06)
 “Native realism is the belief that people elsewhere see the world in the same
way”. (Spradley, 2012, p. 04)
 Cultural behavior is what people “do” (Spradley, 2012, p. 08)
 Cultural knowledge is what people “know” (Spradley, 2012, p. 08)
 Cultural artifacts is what people “make and use” (Spradley, 2012, p. 08)

3. What is Culture?
• Grasseni conducted fieldwork in a
valley of Italian Alps between 1997 to
1999. Here she learnt to look at a cattle
like the cattle breeders.
• The ability to look at a cow and
recognize its quality is very important
and highly respected trait among them
(Grasseni, 2010).
• The children of the breeders play with
the toy cows which resemble the
qualities of champion spaciman and
learn to recognize cows from that
(Grasseni, 2011).

4. Ethnography?

5. Ethnography
Gerhard Friedrich Müller
• Gerhard Friedrich Müller developed the concept of ethnography during the Second
Kamchatka Expedition (1733–43)
• “I want to understand the world from your point of view. I want to know what
you know in the way you know it. I want to understand the meaning of your
experience, to walk in your shoes, to feel things as you feel them, to explain
things as you explain them. Will you become my teacher and help me
understand?”
― James P. Spradley
• “Ethnography literally means ‘a portrait of a people.’ An ethnography is a
written description of a particular culture-the customs, belieds, and behavior-
based on information collected through fieldwork.”
― Marvin Harries and Orna Johnson, 2000

6. Aim of Ethnography
 “To get at culture, ethnographers must learn the meanings of action and
experience from the insider’s or informant’s point of view.” (Spradley, 2012,
p. 06)
 “The goal of ethnography is “to grasp the native’s point of view, his relation
to life, to realize his vision of his world.” (Malinowsky, 1922, p.22 cited in
Spradley, 2012, p. 07)
 Ethnography means learning from people not studying them (Spradley, )
 Researcher must become student and the people teacher.
 Learn to see the world from their perspective.
 Should be concerned with the meanings of actions and events instead of the
very things.
 Should put aside native realism and ethnocentrism.

7. Ethnography and Culture

8. Ethnography and Language
Ethnocentric Description
Social science descriptions
Standard Ethnographies
Monolingual
Ethnographies
Life histories
Ethnographic Novels
Outsiders’ Language (in percent)
Insiders’ Language (in percent)
The extent to which the description is based on
concepts and meanings in the language of outsiders
100
100
75
50
25
25 50 75
The extent to which the description is based on
concepts and meanings in the language of informants
There are six types of descriptions
(Spradley, 1979, p. 22). These are-
• Ethnocentric Description
• Social Science description
• Standard Ethnographies
• Monolingual Ethnographies
• Life histories
• Ethnographic Novels

9. • Spradley, J. P., 2012. Ethnography and Culture. In: J. Spradley & D. W. McCurdy, eds.
Conformity and Conflict: Readings in Cultural Anthropology. Fourteenth ed. New Jersey:
Pearson Education Inc., pp. 6-12.
• Spradley, J. P., 1979. The Ethnographic Interview. Florida: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich
College Publishers.
• Grasseni, C., 2010. Introduction: Skilled Visions: Between Apprenticeship and Standards.
In: G. Cristina, ed. Skilled Visions: Between Apprenticeship and Standards. New York:
Berghahn Books, pp. 1-20.
• Grasseni, C., 2011. Skilled Visions: Toward an Ecology of Visual Inscriptions. In: M. Banks &
J. Ruby, eds. Made to Be Seen: Perspectives on the History of Visual Anthropology. London:
The University of Chicago Press, pp. 19-44.
Reference