1. Tips for doing ethnographic research. Invited talk for Prof. Irina Shklovski’s seminar IT University of Copenhagen | Copenhagen, Denmark September 29, 2010 Tricia Wang | tw@triciawang.com www.triciawang.com | www.culturalbytes.com

2. Be reflexive about your ties to the community you are researching. What is your responsibility to the community you are researching? This is important to ask yourself

3. Be open to other disciplines, approaches, and ideas as points of inspiration…

4. Constantly externalize your ideas and observations ….. draw, map, visualize, SAVE IT!

5. Think early on about how you will operationalize what you’re trying to observe ….

6. sometimes you don’t immediately realize the significance of your fieldwork….until later

7. Be open to findings and observations outside of your research question “You don’t get to chose what you observe.”Barry Brown

8. Allow your research question to change and grow A lot!

9. All observations count “I was not prepared for the elementary fact that an anthropologist is at work from the moment he opens [her] his eyes in the morning until [s]he closes them at night.”James Scot

10. Keep it real WHY AM I DOING THIS? WHAT ARE MY MOTIVATIONS? AM I BEING CLEAR ABOUT THEM?

11. Keep is relevant SO WHAT? WHY DOES THIS MATTER?

12. Keep the passion It’s not worth it if you aren’t having fun and if you don’t love it.

13. today’s talk (plus slides) and my ongoing observations from the field can be found onwww.culturalbytes.com Tricia Wang | tw@triciawang.com www.triciawang.com | www.culturalbytes.com