How to do ethnography

Ethnography is a method which allows you to observe what others are doing within their context.  It consists of a variety of ways to gather information.  Ethnography is a time consuming process where you will spend much time observing, writing field notes, talking with key informants, gathering documents and may be collecting artefacts.  A reflexive approach is taken, reading through vast amounts of data to gain an understanding of what has been the focus of the study.  As an example, I will draw on my experiences of conducting my PhD research when exploring people with intellectual disabilities from Chinese backgrounds while in the services they used in England. 

Qualitative research can be accomplished through a variety of methodologies such as grounded theory, conversation analysis or ethnography (May, 2001, Bryman, 2001, Grix, 2004, Silverman, 2011).  In order to address the aim of my PhD research that focuses on how services (Chinese and mainstream welfare organisations in the UK) work with people with learning difficulties, an ethnographic approach was adopted.  Ethnography is historically bound with social and cultural anthropology and sociology, and has been defined and used in many different ways (O'Reilly, 2009).  For example, ethnography can focus on gaining cultural knowledge,  searching for social patterns, describing a particular setting or organisation and it can also be a way in which to tell the story of what happened in a given context (Whyte, 1943, Hammersley and Atkinson, 1983, Robson, 2005). 

This approach was important because I wanted to gain an in-depth understanding of what it meant to be part of these services, not only by asking people, but by being part of the experience in the service settings.  Hammersley and Atkinson sum this up by stating:

The centrality of meaning… has the consequence that people’s behaviour can only be understood in context.  For this reason ‘natural’ settings must be investigated: we cannot understand the social world by studying artificial simulations of it in experiments or interviews.  To restrict the investigation of social behaviour to such settings is to discover only how people behave in experimental and interview situations (Hammersley and Atkinson, 1983, p.9).   

Previous research on minority and underrepresented communities has benefited from using ethnography (Sham, 1996, McColgan, 2001, Robson, 2005, Clement and Bigby, 2010).  This is because it has enabled a long-term and intensive exploration through investigating first-hand the experiences of participants within specific contexts thus forming in-depth data on participants (Whyte, 1943, Goodley, 1999, Mir, 2008).  For example, Mir (2008), in her study of long-term illness in a Pakistani community in England, describes the value of ethnography as providing detailed descriptions of real experiences of life in order to better understand beliefs and social rules. 

In order to gain understanding of culturally specific and mainstream services, the current research was based upon the descriptive process of ethnography (Fetterman, 1998, Hammersley and Atkinson, 1983) and tells the story of what people did, what they thought and who they associated with, through analysing emergent data (Spradley, 1980).  The ethnographic process in this study uses a collection of methods of participant observations, informal discussions, semi-structured interviews, reflexive notes and documentary data.  Being among people in their context, spending extended periods of time with them, talking with them and taking part in what they did is what gave this approach its ‘validity and vitality’ (Fetterman, 1998, p.36).

I based the description on a primary data source of participant observation of the ways in which participants went about their daily lives in the services they used or provided.  Participant observation provided me with an opportunity to identify issues and generate questions as they arose from my experiences in the services.  During the process of being the participant observer, the issues and questions which arose from the observations I made were explored through further focusing my observations on the services and exploring questions based on the observations in informal and formal interviews (see below).  

As a secondary data source, interviews were an important part of this ethnographic study, as they gave a deeper understanding of the experiences of participants and further teased out meanings of what I had witnessed and experienced during the participant observations (Fetterman, 1998).  Informal interviews were used to clarify or discuss observed events/issues in the fieldwork setting.  These were in a situational context with key informants.  More formally, I chose semi-structured interviews because this allowed the participant control over how much they wanted to say and supported them to talk for as long as they felt comfortable (Atkinson, 1998).  Although this was the case for many participants, some people with learning difficulties who consented to a family member being present in the interviews seemed to be less engaged in the interview process despite being encouraged to do so by myself. 

Given the nature of being the participant observer and talking with participants in context, I was aware of how my personal and professional experiences and responses may have shaped this study.  Assuming that the researcher can enter into the research process free of any preconceived theories and cultural experiences is naive.  We are all part of the social world in which we are studying and researchers who go into the field can only try and be as open minded and willing to explore different values as possible (Hammersley and Atkinson, 1983). 

There is no way in which we can escape the social world in order to study it; nor, fortunately, is that necessary. We cannot avoid relying on ‘common-sense’ knowledge nor, often, can we avoid having an effect on the social phenomena we study (Hammersley and Atkinson, 1983, p.15). 

For this reason, my experiences and responses to the research settings form part of the research material (Etherington, 2004).  This reflexive approach was particularly useful as I observed and talked with people from different cultures to mine.  Making reflexive notes about my thoughts and feelings helped me challenge my assumptions and widened my understanding of the issues when crossing boundaries. 

Alongside participant observations, interviews and reflexive notes I also collected and analysed other research materials such as documents.  These consisted of formal documents such as service procedures, leaflets, timetables, menus, newsletters and minutes of meetings, and informal documents such as staff memos and drawings.  Both kinds of documents added to the richness of the research data (May, 2001, Grix, 2004) and provided background and context for the study.  These materials provided information about the ways services presented themselves on paper, which were sometimes contradictory to their observed practices.

Extract from my PhD thesis.

Partridge, M (2013) Including People with Learning Difficulties from Chinese Backgrounds: An Ethnography of Three Services. PhD Thesis, Bristol: University of Bristol