This document outlines the methodology of ethnographic research. It discusses how ethnography involves participating in and observing a culture to understand meanings from an insider's perspective. The researcher immerses themselves in the community, observes behaviors and rituals, interviews participants, and analyzes findings through themes and existing frameworks. Key aspects include obtaining consent, representing people authentically, triangulating data sources, and reflecting on positionality and reliability issues in cultural interpretation. The goal is an in-depth understanding of a group's social actions and meanings through long-term engagement from an empathetic viewpoint.

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Using Ethnographic
Methodology in
Theological Research
Joshva Raja
OCRPL Stellenbosch Oct 2018
Queens Nov 2018

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What is Qualitative Research?
 Qualitative research can be characterized as the attempt
to obtain an in-depth understanding of the meanings and
'definitions of the situation' presented by informants,
rather than the production of a quantitative
'measurement' of their characteristics or behavior
(Wainwright, 1997)

3. Moatsu Festival
 One of my PhD students in India wanted to do a research on the
dance festival in Nagaland among Ao Tribes. This harvest
festival happens once a year, but similar dances are performed
for other festivals too. Many of the Ao tribal community
members are Christians but go to different churches on Sundays.
Particularly Baptists and Catholics can communicate via loud
speakers on Sundays at times speaking against other churches
and asking their members not to relate and communicate with
other denominations at all. While this dance brings people
together and expect them to share their stories of being united as
community. So he argues that the future of ecumenism is
possible more via cultural than ecclesial means.
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Ethnography defined…
 "When used as a method, ethnography
typically refers to fieldwork (alternatively,
participant-observation) conducted by a single
investigator who 'lives with and lives like'
those who are studied, usually for a year or
more." --John Van Maanen, 1996.
 "Ethnography literally means 'a portrait of a
people.' An ethnography is a written
description of a particular culture - the
customs, beliefs, and behavior - based on
information collected through fieldwork." --
Marvin Harris and Orna Johnson, 2000.

7. Aim
Aim of Ethnography
Unobtrusive
Identifies geographical
and temporal coordinates
Makes visible lives of
those not normally told
(Williams, 2000)
Tries to obtain insider’s
view of how a group
manages and organizes
their time (Viller, 2004)
Understands the point
of view from inside the
group (McCleverty, 1997)

8. Aim To identify behavior
patterns and
anticipate; to make
the reader
understand the
perspective of the
native to the culture
studied (Fetterman,
1998)
Understand context,
complexity, and
politics of social
processes (Warren,
2004)

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Participating and Observing as
an outsider as well

10. The researcher/ethnographer
 Participated in the dance (as insider)
 Observed events and take notes (recorded
audio-visual, smell, feeling, artefacts used,
movements, seen, taste, heard, other aspects)
 Interviewed other participants for oral texts
 Returned to verify, frequency, similarities
 Asked people to Interpret and identify themes
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An iceberg as an analogy of culture

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From Gary Weaver in Culture, Communication and Conflict: Readings in Intercultural Relations

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To discover and describe from
behaviour the accepted common sense
of a community

14. Differences to observe - Some
drink and Some Don’t

15. Some cross boundaries?

16. Using technologyUsing stories and historical
resources to read
To speak
To see
To hear
To taste
To smell
To touch
To feel and to think

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Moving from logic to Method
Participant Observation
 Research Issue
 Universe
 Samples
 Data collection
 Interpretation
Method is inductive and qualitative and people
based

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Using Ethnography as a Theological
methodology
 “Theology is a formal reflection, description and account
of religious experience, while anthropology presents
theoretical interpretations of the life experience of
particular societies in general. As ‘life-studies’ experience
lies at the heart of each; but their fundamental distinction
concerns the existence of God. ….Christian theology
could not function without belief in God while
anthropology operates perfectly naturally without it”
by Douglas Davis, Anthropology and Theology, Oxford:
Berg, 2002, p.1

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But…
 Many Cultural anthropologists take God
experience as experienced and interpreted by
people seriously and study them through their
participant observation method…
 Their common experience and behaviour are
organised around the symbolic meanings and
expectations that are attached to objects that are
socially valued (Symbolic interaction theory).
Bruce Malina NT world Insights from Cultural
Anthropology p.22.

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Assumptions that underlie the
Anthropological Research
Perspective
 First, it is assumed that people are symbol constructing
and spend a great deal of time consciously and
unconsciously interpreting what the symbols &
behaviors created by themselves and others mean
 Anthropologist gain knowledge of how people think
and behave through involvement in their daily social
milieus.
 Finally, it is assumed that people’s perceptions and
behaviors are related to context.

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Symbolic Narratives
 Our task in theology is to examine how the faith
community can construct identity through the use
of a central metaphor or symbolic practices such
as prayer or by creating a symbolic narrative that
tells the story of its ongoing life…
 Such practices or stories provide symbolic power
to enable a faith community to develop an idea of
itself that sustains it through time and enables it to
engage with and express its distinctions from its
culture.. From Elaine Graham et al Theological
Reflection Methods 109.

22. Examples first – From Armchair
theology to people’s theology
 Theology of an individual versus theology of
people – faith as expressed by activists involved
in liberation of Dalits (Diversity and Hegemony)
 Interaction between ministers and youth after
the worship service (observation and
interaction)
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What is the logic behind this
method?
 Ethnographic method is part of Cultural Anthropological
studies. A key concept in Cultural Anthropology is Culture.
Every organization (i.e. society) has a distinctive "Culture";
each has an unique cognitive structure (e.g. thoughts, world
view – purposes -functions), rules of moral conduct (e.g.
norms, ethos) and patterns of social interactions (e.g. social
structure, family).
 An anthropologist researches global cultures by fieldwork
which is accomplished by immersion into a society's socio-
cultural environment. It is a study by "doing" (participating)
and "analyzing" (observation).

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Benefits of Using
Anthropological Methods
 Through anthropological methods, it is possible
to gain an understanding of the meanings people
attribute to their actions as well as delineate the
wider
socio-political and ecological context in which
their behaviors take place

25. Methodological principles
 Natural. 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.
 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.
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26. fieldwork:
 1. Be descriptive in taking field notes.
 2. Gather a variety of information from different perspectives.
 3. Cross-validate and triangulate by gathering different kinds of
data. Example: observations, interviews, program
documentation, recordings, and photographs.
 4. Use quotations; represent program participants in their own
terms. Capture participants' views of their own experiences in
their own words.
 5. Select key informants wisely and use them carefully. Draw on
the wisdom of their informed perspectives, but keep in mind
that their perspectives are limited.
 6. Be aware of and sensitive to the different stages of fieldwork.
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27. ETHICS IN ETHNOGRAPHIC
RESEARCH
 In a nutshell, researchers must make their research
goals clear to the members of the community where
they undertake their research and gain the informed
consent of their consultants to the research beforehand.
It is also important to learn whether the group would
prefer to be named in the written report of the research
or given a pseudonym and to offer the results of the
research if informants would like to read it. Most of all,
researchers must be sure that the research does not
harm or exploit those among whom the research is
done.
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28. You never net a fish without getting
wet – we all start with mistakes in
observations or chaos

29. What do you do with texts?
 ANALYZING, INTERPRETING AND
REPORTING FINDINGS
 QUALITATIVE DESCRIPTION
 BALANCE BETWEEN DESCRIPTION
AND ANALYSIS
 VERIFYING, GROUPING,
THEMATIZING, RELATING TO
EXISTING THEORETICAL
FRAMEWORKS
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Triangulation
 Combination of one or more research methods
has been referred as ‘Triangulation’.
 (Ethnographers should have more than one way
to show how we arrived at the conclusions of
our research; field notes, interviews, and site
documents which work together to support our
claims. This is called triangulation ).

31. QDA (Qualitative Data Analysis)
 Content analysis
 Thematic analysis
 Narrative analysis
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32. So what?
 What did you discover?
 How did you prove?
 What is/are your contribution –something new
to the ongoing discussions in the field that you
had done your research?
 How did you go beyond the existing theoretical
or theological concepts? Relating to literature
reviews
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33. Reflexive questions?
 Representation? Being a small group
 Reliable? Unrepeatable
 Time consuming?
 Influence of presence? Of the researcher
 Risk of the researcher? In some context/s
Advantages
Deeper social interactions
Valid data of people rather than researcher’s
Open to new insights 33