Doing Ethnography: Some Preliminary Steps

Doing ethnography is important in terms of acquiring an anthropological perspective and a deeper understanding of the cultural experience within which we will live and work. The primary purpose of this experience abroad is to gain an anthropological perspective on Irish culture. A key outcome of this experience in a foreign country is to enable the student to participate in a cultural experience by doing some general ethnographic fieldwork.

The Ethnographic Essay
When doing an ethnographic essay or ethnography, two definitions are important.
1.    Ethnography is the task of discovering and describing a society’s culture.
2.    Culture consists of the beliefs and behaviors that people learn and demonstrate as members of their own society.

An ethnography is not merely an objective description of people and their behavior from the observer’s viewpoint.
It is a systematic and careful attempt to discover what kinds of knowledge a group of people have learned and how they are using that knowledge to organize their behavior.
Instead of asking, “What do I see these people doing?” it is essential that we ask, “What do these people see themselves doing?”

There are at four (4) steps or learning tasks that are involved with our project.
1.    Acquiring conceptual tools
The student should become more familiar with the concept of culture and learn some preliminary fieldwork methods.
2.    Entering the field
The student will select a cultural scene and make contact with informants.
3.    Doing Fieldwork
The student will gather and record cultural data
4.    Describing the Culture
The student will analyze the collected data (through the organizational process of assembling a photographic essay, a postcard essay, or a cultural description.

The beginning fieldworker can develop basic skills and learn a great deal about their own society by looking a various aspects of culture close to home with subjects similar to their own age and background.

The Process of Doing Ethnography Involves the Following:
Choosing a cultural scene
Once you have chosen a cultural scene, the best approach is to use it to participate in it, observe it, and interview members about it.
Finding an informant
Probably the best way to find an informant is to find a “middleman” (middleperson) who can provide a human link between you and your informant.  S/he can help you create a bond of trust and rapport between you and your informant.
Interviewing informants is very important in understanding and gaining insights into the cultural scene.
A good informant is one who:
1.    knows the culture well
2.    is willing to talk
3.    can communicate about her or his culture in a non-analytic manner. In other words, s/he accepts it as the way things are, and is hardly conscious that other people might see things differently. The informant wants to translate her information into concepts s/he thinks are more familiar to the investigator does not make for the best informant.
Be sure to explain to your informant what you are doing in terms comprehensible to the informant. Be honest in your approach by making a simple statement that you are from a college and you are in an excellent position to learn from an informant.  Most people are flattered to think that someone would ask them to give a college student information about the “real world” and thus assist in the process of college education. A statement such as “I am doing fieldwork and would like to do an ethnographic study of your culture” will probably turn off a possible informant.
Asking Careful Questions
As you talk to your informant and take careful notes (using a tape recorder if appropriate) be sure you are careful in asking questions.  There are several approaches to questioning. One of the best ways is to think about categories between two, three, or even more things or people or whatever it is we want to learn about.