ETHNOGRAPHY &

PARTICIPANT OBSERVATION Katie Freund

LECTURE OUTLINE

Introduction and history

Types of methods

Digital ethnography

Role of subjectivity and objectivity

The researcher and the participants

Ethical concerns

AN ETHNOGRAPHY OF VIDDING

WHAT IS ETHNOGRAPHY?

Ethnos – “people, folk”; graphein – “writing”

Staple method of anthropology

Also used in sociology, media studies, cultural studies

Analysing cultures, societies, communities using

a variety of methods

Namely, participant observation

HISTORY

Ancient accounts of other cultures

Herodotus, Marco Polo

Colonial period and “armchair anthropologists”

Edward Tylor, James Frazer

Participant observation (late 19th/early 20th)

Bronislaw Malinowski, Franz Boas

“Crisis of anthropology” (Writing Culture, 1986)

George Marcus, James Clifford

Postmodern anthropology and new issues

Feminism, globalisation, post-colonialism, LGBT

PARTICIPANT OBSERVATION

Inherent oxymoron

Learn by doing

Critical observation of

everyday practices

Describing cultures in

their own terms

How people talk about

their experiences and

practices

OR IN MY CASE…

SH

OT

S F

RO

M “

TH

E F

IEL

D”

An impromptu

group interview in

Toronto, Canada

at an anime

convention

ETHNOGRAPHIC METHODS

Mostly qualitative

Participant observation

Observing and making notes on events, speech, clothing,

behaviour

Participating in events and recording personal reactions

and thoughts

Supplemented by interviews, focus groups,

conversation/discourse analysis, spatial analysis

(passive observation)

Some quantitative

Questionnaires, surveys, demographic information,

frequency

ETHNOGRAPHIC METHODS

Full immersion in a foreign culture for several

years in the style of traditional anthropology

e.g.: Maggi, “Our Women are Free” (2001)

Studying part-time urban or contemporary

communities or subcultures, where the

participants are involved only at specific times

e.g.: Hodkinson, “Goth” (2002)

Use of some ethnographic methods (media &

cultural studies)

e.g.: Ang, “Watching Dallas” (1982)

DIGITAL ETHNOGRAPHY

Key questions:

How do the users of the Internet understand it?

How does it work as a form of communication?

How does the Internet affect social relationships in

time and space?

How is it different to “real life” (RL)?

What are the implications for authority and

authenticity?

What are the implications for identity?

Is the ‘virtual’ experienced as different from the real?

What are the boundaries between online and offline?

From Hine, “Virtual Ethnography.” (2000, p. 8)

THE ONLINE FIELDSITE

Vidding community homepage, 18/04/10

THE RESEARCHER

AM I A VIDDER TOO?

SUBJECTIVITY, OBJECTIVITY

“Only by establishing long-term relationships based on trust can one begin to ask provocative personal questions, and expect thoughtful, serious answers. Ethnographers usually live in the communities they study, and they establish long-term, organic relationships with the people they write about. In other words, in order to collect ‘accurate data’, ethnographers violate the canons of positivist research; we become intimately involved with the people we study.”

– Phillipe Bourgois, 2003, 13

CREATING RELATIONSHIPS

“When I first saw on LJ that a researcher was going to be attending, I was really quite nervous. Once I met you in person and realized you were one of us, I was so relieved. I was glad that you would ‘get it’ because you were already a fan, but just a fan who happened to be doing research as well.” Research participant: UK

SUBJECTIVITY, OBJECTIVITY

“Ethnographers are more and more like the Cree hunter who (the story goes) came to Montreal to testify in court concerning the fate of his hunting lands... He would describe his way of life. But when administered the oath he hesitated: I’m not sure I can tell the truth...I can only tell what I know.”

- James Clifford, 1986, 8

THE ROLE OF THE RESEARCHER

Reflexivity Age/gender/race of researcher in relation to

participants

Auto-ethnography

Cultural relativism

The concept that cultures are never “good” or “bad”, but have their own internal logic and should not be judged by personal standards

Ethnocentrism

The belief that one’s own culture is superior

Commonly naturalized, difficult to avoid

ETHICAL CONCERNS

KEY PROBLEMS WITH ONLINE RESEARCH

Ethics committees not up-to-date with online

methods

Prevalence of anonymity

Authenticity of participants

Collecting consent online

Differing standards of public versus private

Maintaining confidentiality of the participants

CONSENT

Collecting informed consent online

Consent without consideration:

MUD study with unforeseen negative effects from

consent (Reid 1996)

Consent from site owner, but not individuals

Ability to “lurk” (passive observation)

Different from requesting interviews or

questionnaires

PUBLIC PRIVATE AS A CONTINUUM

Public Open to all

E.g.: Comments on an

online news article

Semi-Public Requires registration

but then is available to all

E.g.: Online discussion

forum for a band

Semi-Private Requires registration

AND membership in organization,

E.g.: Company intranet

Private Private environment,

only access for owner and invited guests

E.g.: Closed mailing list for Arts postgrads

Public Private

CONFIDENTIALITY

Researcher has duty to protect participants from

any potential harm

Searchability of internet allows quotes with

author’s name removed to be discovered

Must be sensitive to workings of the community

FIE

LD

WO

RK

RE

ST

RIC

TIO

NS

Vividcon

Chicago, IL

BLOG QUESTION:

How useful or valuable is it to

apply traditional anthropology

methods like participant

observation to online

communities?

SUGGESTED READING

General Reading:

Baym, Nancy K., and Annette N. Markham, eds. Internet Inquiry: Conversations About Method. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2009. 001.4/55

Hine, Christine. Virtual Ethnography. London: Sage Publications, 2000.

Hine, Christine, ed. Virtual Methods: Issues in Social Science Research on the Internet. Oxford & New York: Berg, 2005.

Coffey, Amanda. The Ethnographic Self: Fieldwork and the Representation of Identity. London: Sage, 1999.

Some cool case studies / digital ethnographies:

Boellstorff, Tom. Coming of Age in Second Life: An Anthropologist Explores the Virtually Human. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2008.

Kendall, Lori. Hanging out in the Virtual Pub: Masculinities and Relationships Online. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2002.

Taylor, T. L. Play Between Worlds: Exploring Online Game Culture. Cambridge & London: MIT Press, 2006.

Bury, Rhiannon. Cyberspaces of Their Own: Female Fandoms Online. Digital Formations. Ed. Steve Jones. New York: Peter Lang Publishing, 2005.

REFERENCE LIST

Ang, Ien. Watching Dallas: Soap Opera and the Melodramatic Imagination.

London: Routledge, 1982.

Bourgois, Phillipe. In Search of Respect: Selling Crack in El Barrio.

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003

Clifford, James, and George E. Marcus, eds. Writing Culture: The Poetics and Politics of Ethnography. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986.

Hine, Christine. Virtual Ethnography. London: Sage, 2000.

Hodkinson, Paul. Goth: Identity, Style and Subculture. Oxford: Berg, 2002.

Kondo, Dorinne. Crafting Selves: Power, Gender and Discourses of Identity

in a Japanese Workplace. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990.

Maggi, Wynne. Our Women are Free: Gender and Ethnicity in the

Hindukush. University of Michigan Press, 2001.

Reid, Elizabeth. "Informed Consent in the Study of on-Line Communities: A

Reflection on the Effects of Computer-Mediated Social Research." The

Information Society 12.2 (1996): 169-74.

Sveningsson Elm, Malin. “How do various notions of privacy influence

decisions in qualitative internet research?” in Markham and Baym, eds.

Internet Inquiry: Conversations about Method. Thousand Oaks: Sage, 2009,

p. 69-87.