Ethnography

• Used to describe and characterise the behaviour and identity

of a group or culture.
• Ethnography is used to understand the intricacies of culture
as it is defined and described by members of that culture
(Privitera, 2015).
• Ethnographies focus on developing a complex, complete
description of the culture of a group (Creswell & Poth, 2016).
• The researcher looks for patterns of social organization (e.g.,
social networks) and ideational systems (e.g., worldview,
ideas; Wolcott, 2008)
• Ethnography is used to study macro-level and micro-level
groups and cultures.
• Macro-level cultures or groups are those with large
membership, such as all members of a country, government,
or continent.
• Micro-level cultures or groups are those with small
membership e.g a sports team
• Researchers utilise primarily participant observation in order
to study groups or culture (Privitera, 2015).
• In order to gain entry into a group or culture researchers can:
1. Researchers can covertly or secretly enter a group.
• This strategy can work for larger groups
2.
2. Researchers can announce or request entry into a group.
• The researcher can try to get the group to habituate to his or
her presence or accept him or her as a member of the group.
• Ethnography must answer 2 questions:
1. “What do people in this setting have to know and do to
make this system work?”
2. “How do those being inducted into the group find their
‘way in’ so that an adequate level of sharing is achieved?”
(Wolcott, 2010)
Psychoethnography
• The approach was pioneered by Aptekar (1988) .
• Psychoethnography combines methods rooted in both psychology
and anthropology
• Involves entry into the participants’ setting for a sustained period
to
collect psychological data in the contexts within which the
participants live.