1. Chapter 14
Types of Ethnographic
Data

2. Review: Designing Research,
Knowing The Data You Need
• Developing a research question;
• From this question deriving one or more
hypotheses you can test in the field;
• Specifying the kind of data you need in
order to test the hypotheses;
• Elucidating a methodology for
obtaining/producing these data;
© 2013 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.

3. Review: Designing Research,
Knowing The Data You Need
• Creating “instruments” for
recording/producing said data
– (In reference to a plan for analyzing the data);
• Collecting the data;
• Analyzing and reporting on the results of
your analysis
© 2013 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.

4. Types Of Data
• Behavior/Action
– Observing When Nothing Is Happening
• A capacity for orderliness and organization exists
among the observed addicts in the study
– What are people doing? How are they doing
it? When are they doing it? Where?
• And when/where/how are they not doing it?
© 2013 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.

5. Types Of Data
– Max Weber
– Normative uniformities
• Words
– The data you produce & results you present
depend more heavily on words than numbers
– Insider Talk
© 2013 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.

6. Types Of Data
• Slang represents an opportunity to learn about a
group’s behavior
• Language matters
• Nonbehavioral Data
– People’s actions and words will comprise the
bulk of the data you produce in:
• Your ethnographic research.
© 2013 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.

7. Types Of Data
– Environment
– Culture emanates from humans’
interconnected attempts to adapt to:
• Circumstances and conditions largely beyond their
control
• Objects and Styles
© 2013 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.

8. Types Of Data
– Clothing, hair styles, cosmetics, automobiles,
and the like
• Events and Rituals
– Clifford Geertz’s “Deep Play: Notes on the
Balinese Cockfight”
• The Intangibles: Norms, Values,
Standards, and Beliefs
© 2013 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.

9. Types Of Data
– Gathering data on norms, values, beliefs, and
standards can be challenging
– Written standards concerning individual,
group, and/or organizational activity
• People and Personas
– People constitute the heart of your
ethnography
© 2013 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.

10. Types Of Data
– Gathering data on norms, values, beliefs, and
standards can be challenging
– Written standards concerning individual,
group, and/or organizational activity
• People and Personas
– People constitute the heart of your
ethnography
© 2013 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.