sample ethnographic research paper

15 Great Ethnography Examples

Chris Drew (PhD)

Dr. Chris Drew is the founder of the Helpful Professor. He holds a PhD in education and has published over 20 articles in scholarly journals. He is the former editor of the Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education. [Image Descriptor: Photo of Chris]

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Ethnography is a research method that involves embedding yourself in the environment of a group or community and recording what you observe. It often involves the researcher living in the community being studied. This leads to a much richer understanding of the people being examined than doing quantitative research.

The thing I love about ethnography is that it paints a thorough picture of people’s lives. It is, in its own way, the most raw, honest, and detailed form of academic research.

In my previous blog posts, I have discussed my admiration for thick description as a way to pierce beyond stereotypes and view the world through the lens of our subjects.

And there’s no doubt that ethnographic research has helped us learn so much more about how people navigate their cultural circumstances.

Below are some examples of ethnography – both abstract (with the hope that it helps students think about some ways they can do ethnography) and real-life (with the hope that you will read some inspiring ethnographic studies).

Ethnography Examples

To start, here are some ways you could potentially do ethnography:

• Ethnography of Indigenous People: There are many examples of ethnographic studies that look at indigenous cultures and how they’re similar or different to Western culture. Beware of the trap of colonialism during this work.
• Mundane Ethnography: Remember, ethnography doesn’t have to happen in a far off land. You can do autoethnography where you study yourself , or a study of somewhere very banal, like your workplace or home.
• Educational Ethnography: There is a rich history of teachers and researchers using ethnographic methods in classrooms to explore how learning happens.
• Ethnography in a Shop: Be the ethnographer within a supermarket by interacting with the people there on a daily basis (maybe as the cashier) and observe how people interact and collide within the space.
• Working-Class and Immigrant Ethnography: Many sociologists use ethnographic methods to take an inside look at how people on the margins of society grapple with global concepts like capitalism, globalization, and race.
• Digital Ethnography: Since the rise of the internet, there have been many researchers interested in the digital lives of people. Some of my favorite studies have revealed how we create our identities online.

My Favorite Ethnographic Research Books

1. learning to labour.

Author: Paul Willis

One of my favorite ethnographic works, Learning to Labour follows working-class ‘lads’ in the British Midlands as they participate in counter-cultural and ‘anti-social’ behaviors.

The most fascinating aspect of this book is the rich elucidation of how these working-class boys reject narratives of upward mobility and revel in rejecting mental work at school. But at the same time, they create their own value hierarchies.

In fact, the boys don’t even leave school when they are legally allowed, despite giving a veneer of being anti-school. Instead, they remain there, because there is their own social and even educational value they can get out of it. They prize the manual labor they do in class and, after leaving school, continue to prize physical labor in the workplace while deriding and dismissing mental labor.

2. Being Maori in the City

Author: Natacha Gagné

When indigenous people live in urban environments, their authenticity as indigenous peoples is often brought into question.

Thus, Gagné’s examination of Maori identity in Auckland presents a valuable insight into how people continue to live out their indigenous identities in a changing, urbanized, and colonized landscape.

Gagné spent two years living with Maori people in Auckland and highlights in the book how their identity continues to be central to how they interact both with one another and with broader society.

3. Ethnography of a Neoliberal School

Author: Garth Stahl

While a wide range of academic research has looked at how neoliberalism can affect education, an ethnographic approach allows Stahl to demonstrate how it turns up as lived experience.

Neoliberalism is an approach to governance that focuses on the corporatization of society. In education, this means that schools should be run like companies.

There is no better example, of course, than charter schools .

In my favorite chapter, Stahl demonstrates within one anonymized charter school how teachers are increasingly subjected to performance quotas, KPIs, and governance that narrow down the purpose of education and give them very little freedom to exercise their expertise and provide individualized support to their students.

4. Coming of Age in Samoa

Author: Margaret Mead

Margaret Mead’s groundbreaking ethnography, Coming of Age in Samoa , had implications for two important reasons:

• It highlighted the importance of feminist perspectives in ethnographic research.
• It challenged a universalizing stage-based conceptualization of human development.

Mead’s work was conducted at a time when the Western world was in a moral panic about adolescents’ stress and emotional behaviors. The prevailing idea – promoted mainly by male psychologists – was that most of those behaviors were a natural part of the developmental cycle.

Mead, however, saw that female Samoan adolescents had much different experiences of adolescence and would not have fitted into the western mold of how a female adolescent would behave or be treated.

The Samoan society’s liberal ideas around intimacy and the lower levels of academic stress placed on the girls meant they lived very different realities with far less stress and social pressure than their Western counterparts.

5. Ghetto at the Center of the World

Author: Gordon Mathews

Mathews’s Ghetto at the Center of the World explores a multiethnic high-density housing complex in Hong Kong.

While seen by many locals as a ghetto (despite its relative safety!), Mathews shows how the motley group of residents, migrants, and tourists in the building live rich lives at what appears to be ground zero of globalization.

For the people in the building, globalization has offered opportunities but hasn’t solved all their problems. Each person that Mathews follows has their own story of how they navigate a globalized world while maintaining hope for a better future.

Additional Influential Ethnographic Studies

• Argonauts of the Western Pacific – This study was notable because it presented a turn toward participant observation in ethnography rather than attempts at fly-on-the-wall objectivity.
• The Remembered Village – A study of caste systems in India, this study is most notable for its methodological influence. Srinivas, the author, lost his field notes, but he continued on with presenting his findings, causing widespread controversy about its methodological merits.
• Space and Society in Central Brazil – This study explores the experiences of the Panará indigenous people of Brazil as they attempt to secure protected space from the colonialization occurring around them. It’s notable for its insights into how the Panará people organize themselves both culturally and spatially.
• White Bound – This book follows two groups, a white anti-racist group and a white nationalist group, and explores how each deals with whiteness. While the groups have fundamentally different goals, even the anti-racist group continue to contribute to white privilege .
• City, Street and Citizen – Suzanne Hall’s study of the mundane city street explores how multiethnicity is played out in globalized cities. It is a fascinating look at how lives take place within shared spaces where social contact occurs.

Ethnography is, in my humble (and of course subjective) opinion, the most exciting form of primary research you can do. It can challenge assumptions, unpick social norms, and make us all more empathetic people.

• Chris Drew (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/chris-drew-phd-2/ 25 Number Games for Kids (Free and Easy)
• Chris Drew (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/chris-drew-phd-2/ 25 Word Games for Kids (Free and Easy)
• Chris Drew (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/chris-drew-phd-2/ 25 Outdoor Games for Kids
• Chris Drew (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/chris-drew-phd-2/ 50 Incentives to Give to Students

3 thoughts on “15 Great Ethnography Examples”

Thanks very much for that. I am an early childhood teacher, already published on the topic of bilingual and multilingual children in our sector. One of my lecturers has suggested an ethnographic study of some of our immigrant children. Not sure where to start with that, but this has put me in the right frame of mind. Thanks again

Dear Chris,

Any suggested topic on ethnographic research i can start with here in the hospital where i am working. I am a nurse for cardiovascular patients undergoing open heart surgeries.

As you’re in a high risk setting, you might be best asking your managers at the workplace about this one. You could also consider an autoethnography where you do a study on yourself within the settings.

Best of luck with the study.

Regards, Chris

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What is Ethnographic Research? Methods and Examples

Ethnographic research , rooted in the discipline of anthropology, is a systematic and immersive approach for the study of individual cultures. Ethnographic research methods involve the examination of cultural phenomena from the perspective of the subjects under investigation. This method of social research places a particular emphasis on participant observation, where researchers engage with the setting or individuals being studied, documenting intricate patterns of social interaction and analyzing the participants’ own interpretations of their behavior within their local contexts.   

While ethnography originated in social and cultural anthropology in the early twentieth century, its application has extended to various disciplines. Widely adopted as a qualitative data collection strategy, ethnographic research design stands out for its reliance on observing life as it naturally unfolds, dispensing with the controlled environment of a laboratory. Ethnographic observation seeks to understand societies and individuals through direct observation and interviews, providing valuable insights into how they interact with their surroundings in their natural environments.  

Here are some ethnographic research examples :  

• An anthropologist observing the people and culture of an Indigenous tribe by living with them for several months.  
• A child psychologist observing the social dynamics of toddlers in a play school (interactions with teachers and with one another).   
• A potential startup looking to create a product and a market for that product by observing how a group of potential customers interact with and discuss similar products in various stores over a specified length of time.

Table of Contents

What is ethnographic research ?  

Ethnographic research systematically studies cultures and behaviors, relying on participant observation and exploring cultural phenomena from the perspective of the subjects. Its versatility and qualitative nature make it a valuable data collection strategy in the social and behavioral research sciences. It has transcended disciplinary boundaries, making its way into various social science disciplines, notably sociology. Some key points to better understand what is ethnographic research ? and what are the advantages of ethnography research ? are as follows:  

• Ethnographic research is an immersive approach that aims to document detailed patterns of social interaction and behavior.   
• Ethnographic observation provides a rich source of qualitative data.  
• Ethnographic research methods acknowledge the unpredictability of real-world situations, offering a more authentic understanding of societal dynamics and individual behaviors.  
• Ethnographic research puts the point of view of the subject of the research first.  

Main aim of ethnographic research  

The main aim of ethnographic research is to deep dive into the perspectives and actions of subjects, capturing the variables that characterize their daily experiences. It offers researchers a comprehensive understanding of how subjects perceive the world and navigate their interactions with the surrounding elements.    

Types of ethnographic research  

Ethnographic observation might be applied in fields of business, medicine, education, psychology, and more. There are various types of ethnographic research , broadly based on the study discipline and the activity under study, with each shedding light on human behavior, experiences, and cultural nuances.  

Below are different types of ethnographic research , which will give you a broad idea about how to conduct ethnographic research in various fields:  

1. Psychology ethnography

To explore human experiences and behaviors within a cultural context, researchers immerse themselves in the natural habitat of individuals, applying ethnographic research methods such as in-depth interviews, focus groups, and field notes. 

2. Life history ethnography

Life history ethnography looks at the tapestry of an individual’s life, offering a nuanced understanding of their experiences, challenges, and cultural influences. Researchers conduct in-depth interviews, collect personal documents, and may even observe the subject in their daily life to capture a comprehensive life narrative. By zooming in on a single life, researchers can uncover patterns, transitions, and unique perspectives that might be overlooked in broader ethnographic studies.  

3. Business ethnography

In business and retail, ethnographic research focuses on consumer habits and target markets to discern market demands and attitudes toward products or services. Fieldwork, interviews, and online surveys are used to identify preferences and meet market demands effectively.   

4. Educational ethnography

Researchers employing educational ethnography observe students’ learning attitudes and motivations using non-participant and direct participant observation.  

5. Medical ethnography

In medicine and healthcare, ethnographic research involves qualitative exploration of patient behavior across various healthcare scenarios to understand patient needs, reactions to prescriptions and treatment procedures, suggestions for improvement, etc.  

6. Digital ethnography

Digital ethnography or desk study is conducted remotely. Researchers rely on second- or third-hand information collected by others to compile knowledge about a particular ethnic group without direct observation. This method leverages the wealth of information available online.   

7. Literary ethnography

Novels and books, often overlooked in traditional ethnographic discussions, offer a unique avenue for cultural exploration. Literary ethnography involves analyzing fictional works, autobiographies, and cultural narratives to extract insights into societal norms, values, and historical contexts. This method recognizes the power of storytelling as a medium through which cultural knowledge is transmitted.   

Methods of ethnographic research    

Various methodologies are employed in ethnography, from direct observation, diary studies, video recordings and photography to the analysis of devices used by individuals. The duration of ethnographic studies varies, with observation periods ranging from a few hours to several months, depending on the specific research objectives. Thus, ethnographic research methods employed will depend on the field, the size of the sample, and the research goal.    

So, what are ethnographic methods employed by researchers to answer questions in diverse disciplines? Let’s take a look:  

1. Triangulation  

A researcher used multiple data collection strategies and data sources to obtain a complete picture of the topic in focus and to cross-check information.  

2. Field notes  

A researcher collects, records, and compiles notes on-site during the study. This can be considered a researcher’s primary tool to collect data.  

3. Naturalism  

This is probably the oldest ethnographic research method . In this ethnographic research design , one spends time in the group’s natural environment to observe and record research variables.   

4. Participant observation  

Similar to the above approach, in participant observation, the ethnographer actively interacts with the research subjects. The difference lies in the ethnographer participating in the group. Participant observation gives ethnographers more data. They better understand the research subjects’ experiences and habits from the participant’s perspective.  

5. Interviews  

For authentic and relevant research results, the ethnographer interacts with the research group, asking questions about the research group, while conducting research-related activities.  

6. Surveys  

Ethnography surveys help the researcher obtain and analyze data to arrive at objective conclusions. Multiple choice questions, Likert scale, open-ended, and close-ended ethnography survey questions are commonly used. This approach saves time and costs.   

7. Archival research  

This qualitative ethnographic research method examines existing literature and records of relevant research rather than by the researcher’s physical presence.   

Examples of ethnographic research  

To better understand ethnographic research meaning , methods, and design, let’s take a look at some ethnographic research examples :  

Observing urban street performers: Over the course of several months, a researcher observes urban street performers’ performances and their interactions with passersby, exploring how these individuals collaborate or compete with one another for attention and recognition.  

Studying patterns of coffee shop regulars: Through a combination of direct observation and casual conversations, a researcher might uncover the habits and interactions of regular patrons and the social dynamics that characterize the daily lives of individuals who frequent the establishment.   

Exploring online gaming communities: In the realm of virtual spaces, a researcher might examine online gaming communities to understand the social structures, communication patterns, and shared norms among players. Through active participation and observation within the gaming environment, the researcher might seek insights into how relationships form, conflicts are resolved, and cultural practices evolve within this digital subculture.  

Observing farmers’ market vendors: At a local farmers’ market, a researcher may closely examine the interactions between vendors, customers, and the broader community. This study aims to uncover the cultural nuances of the market environment, exploring aspects such as negotiation tactics, vendor-customer relationships, and the role of the market in creating a sense of community.  

Advantages of ethnography research  

The advantages of ethnography research are manifold. Ethnographic observation allows first-hand observation of subjects’ interactions in their natural environment. This might help uncover subjects’ unconscious or implicit behaviors. Ethnographic research also enables a researcher to gain longitudinal insights as ethnography often involves extended periods of fieldwork, allowing researchers to observe changes and developments over time. Further, this approach often captures the holistic nature of social phenomena by considering various interconnected elements within a cultural context. This holistic approach is beneficial for understanding complex social structures, rituals, and the interplay of different factors influencing behaviors.  

Finally, ethnographic research involves a variety of data collection methods, and this multi-faceted approach yields rich and diverse data, enhancing the depth and validity of the research findings.  

Disadvantages of ethnography research  

Despite its relevance to certain studies, ethnographic research is not without its limitations. One significant challenge lies in the necessity to establish and sustain intimate face-to-face interactions with participants, a task that can prove difficult depending on the study’s nature and the type of participants involved. Prolonged fieldwork might prove costly in terms of time and resources. Second, culture, being an abstract concept, poses difficulties when used as an interpretive lens. Third, ethnographic research lacks reliability and validity since it cannot be easily replicated, and its findings may not extend to other similar situations    

Frequently asked questions  

Q: What are some examples of ethnographic research?

A: Some ethnographic research examples are as follows:  

• Studying yoga retreat participants: An ethnographer may immerse themselves in the experience of a yoga retreat, observing the behaviors, rituals, and social dynamics among participants. This research involves both active participation in yoga sessions and passive observation of communal activities, providing insights into how individuals connect, form bonds, and integrate spiritual practices into their daily lives.  
• Life history ethnography: An in-depth interview of a stroke survivor to obtain an account of their personal struggle for recovery, followed by a narrative analysis based on the transcription, coding, and analysis of transcripts from hours of interviews.  
• Field study on a remote island: A researcher visits a remote island inhabited by an obscure tribe. The researcher then lives and spends a significant amount of time getting to know their daily life customs and practices.  
• Surveying nurses in a trauma hospital: A researcher conducts in-depth surveys to understand the psychological effects of working late-night shifts and dealing with patients with severe trauma.  

Q: What is the main aim of ethnographic research ?

A: The main aim of ethnography is to remain objective and to collect and report what the researcher observes to add to the body of knowledge about the group. It is not to make judgments about the group’s characteristics or methods of interaction or devise approaches to improve or change the group.

Q: Can ethnography be applied to various fields?  

A: Yes, ethnographic research is versatile and can be applied across various disciplines, including anthropology, sociology, marketing, design, education, healthcare, and more. Its adaptability makes it a valuable method for gaining insights into diverse aspects of human behavior and culture.    

Q: Is ethnography only suitable for studying small or isolated communities?  

A: No, while ethnography is often associated with studying small or isolated communities, it can also be applied to larger populations and urban settings. The focus is on understanding the cultural context and social dynamics, regardless of the size or location of the community.  

Q: Can the findings from ethnographic research be generalized to broader populations?  

A: Ethnographic observation is often more concerned with depth than breadth, so generalizability to larger populations may be limited. However, the insights gained can inform broader theories and provide a foundation for further research in similar contexts.  

Q: How should researchers ensure ethical conduct in ethnographic research?  

A: Ethnographers must prioritize ethical considerations by obtaining informed consent from participants, maintaining confidentiality, and being transparent about the research purpose. They also navigate potential conflicts of interest and consider the impact of their presence on the community being studied.  

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• What Is Ethnography? | Definition, Guide & Examples

What Is Ethnography? | Definition, Guide & Examples

Published on March 13, 2020 by Jack Caulfield . Revised on June 22, 2023.

Ethnography is a type of qualitative research that involves immersing yourself in a particular community or organization to observe their behavior and interactions up close. The word “ethnography” also refers to the written report of the research that the ethnographer produces afterwards.

Ethnography is a flexible research method that allows you to gain a deep understanding of a group’s shared culture, conventions, and social dynamics. However, it also involves some practical and ethical challenges.

Table of contents

What is ethnography used for, different approaches to ethnographic research, gaining access to a community, working with informants, observing the group and taking field notes, writing up an ethnography, other interesting articles.

Ethnographic research originated in the field of anthropology, and it often involved an anthropologist living with an isolated tribal community for an extended period of time in order to understand their culture.

This type of research could sometimes last for years. For example, Colin M. Turnbull lived with the Mbuti people for three years in order to write the classic ethnography The Forest People .

Today, ethnography is a common approach in various social science fields, not just anthropology. It is used not only to study distant or unfamiliar cultures, but also to study specific communities within the researcher’s own society.

For example, ethnographic research (sometimes called participant observation ) has been used to investigate  football fans , call center workers , and police officers .

Advantages of ethnography

The main advantage of ethnography is that it gives the researcher direct access to the culture and practices of a group. It is a useful approach for learning first-hand about the behavior and interactions of people within a particular context.

By becoming immersed in a social environment, you may have access to more authentic information and spontaneously observe dynamics that you could not have found out about simply by asking.

Ethnography is also an open and flexible method. Rather than aiming to verify a general theory or test a hypothesis , it aims to offer a rich narrative account of a specific culture, allowing you to explore many different aspects of the group and setting.

Disadvantages of ethnography

Ethnography is a time-consuming method. In order to embed yourself in the setting and gather enough observations to build up a representative picture, you can expect to spend at least a few weeks, but more likely several months. This long-term immersion can be challenging, and requires careful planning.

Ethnographic research can run the risk of observer bias . Writing an ethnography involves subjective interpretation, and it can be difficult to maintain the necessary distance to analyze a group that you are embedded in.

There are often also ethical considerations to take into account: for example, about how your role is disclosed to members of the group, or about observing and reporting sensitive information.

Should you use ethnography in your research?

If you’re a student who wants to use ethnographic research in your thesis or dissertation , it’s worth asking yourself whether it’s the right approach:

• Could the information you need be collected in another way (e.g. a survey , interviews)?
• How difficult will it be to gain access to the community you want to study?
• How exactly will you conduct your research, and over what timespan?
• What ethical issues might arise?

If you do decide to do ethnography, it’s generally best to choose a relatively small and easily accessible group, to ensure that the research is feasible within a limited timeframe.

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There are a few key distinctions in ethnography which help to inform the researcher’s approach: open vs. closed settings, overt vs. covert ethnography, and active vs. passive observation. Each approach has its own advantages and disadvantages.

Open vs. closed settings

The setting of your ethnography—the environment in which you will observe your chosen community in action—may be open or closed.

An open or public setting is one with no formal barriers to entry. For example, you might consider a community of people living in a certain neighborhood, or the fans of a particular baseball team.

• Gaining initial access to open groups is not too difficult…
• …but it may be harder to become immersed in a less clearly defined group.

A closed or private setting is harder to access. This may be for example a business, a school, or a cult.

• A closed group’s boundaries are clearly defined and the ethnographer can become fully immersed in the setting…
• …but gaining access is tougher; the ethnographer may have to negotiate their way in or acquire some role in the organization.

Overt vs. covert ethnography

Most ethnography is overt . In an overt approach, the ethnographer openly states their intentions and acknowledges their role as a researcher to the members of the group being studied.

• Overt ethnography is typically preferred for ethical reasons, as participants can provide informed consent…
• …but people may behave differently with the awareness that they are being studied.

Sometimes ethnography can be covert . This means that the researcher does not tell participants about their research, and comes up with some other pretense for being there.

• Covert ethnography allows access to environments where the group would not welcome a researcher…
• …but hiding the researcher’s role can be considered deceptive and thus unethical.

Active vs. passive observation

Different levels of immersion in the community may be appropriate in different contexts. The ethnographer may be a more active or passive participant depending on the demands of their research and the nature of the setting.

An active role involves trying to fully integrate, carrying out tasks and participating in activities like any other member of the community.

• Active participation may encourage the group to feel more comfortable with the ethnographer’s presence…
• …but runs the risk of disrupting the regular functioning of the community.

A passive role is one in which the ethnographer stands back from the activities of others, behaving as a more distant observer and not involving themselves in the community’s activities.

• Passive observation allows more space for careful observation and note-taking…
• …but group members may behave unnaturally due to feeling they are being observed by an outsider.

While ethnographers usually have a preference, they also have to be flexible about their level of participation. For example, access to the community might depend upon engaging in certain activities, or there might be certain practices in which outsiders cannot participate.

An important consideration for ethnographers is the question of access. The difficulty of gaining access to the setting of a particular ethnography varies greatly:

• To gain access to the fans of a particular sports team, you might start by simply attending the team’s games and speaking with the fans.
• To access the employees of a particular business, you might contact the management and ask for permission to perform a study there.
• Alternatively, you might perform a covert ethnography of a community or organization you are already personally involved in or employed by.

Flexibility is important here too: where it’s impossible to access the desired setting, the ethnographer must consider alternatives that could provide comparable information.

For example, if you had the idea of observing the staff within a particular finance company but could not get permission, you might look into other companies of the same kind as alternatives. Ethnography is a sensitive research method, and it may take multiple attempts to find a feasible approach.

All ethnographies involve the use of informants . These are people involved in the group in question who function as the researcher’s primary points of contact, facilitating access and assisting their understanding of the group.

This might be someone in a high position at an organization allowing you access to their employees, or a member of a community sponsoring your entry into that community and giving advice on how to fit in.

However,  i f you come to rely too much on a single informant, you may be influenced by their perspective on the community, which might be unrepresentative of the group as a whole.

In addition, an informant may not provide the kind of spontaneous information which is most useful to ethnographers, instead trying to show what they believe you want to see. For this reason, it’s good to have a variety of contacts within the group.

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The core of ethnography is observation of the group from the inside. Field notes are taken to record these observations while immersed in the setting; they form the basis of the final written ethnography. They are usually written by hand, but other solutions such as voice recordings can be useful alternatives.

Field notes record any and all important data: phenomena observed, conversations had, preliminary analysis. For example, if you’re researching how service staff interact with customers, you should write down anything you notice about these interactions—body language, phrases used repeatedly, differences and similarities between staff, customer reactions.

Don’t be afraid to also note down things you notice that fall outside the pre-formulated scope of your research; anything may prove relevant, and it’s better to have extra notes you might discard later than to end up with missing data.

Field notes should be as detailed and clear as possible. It’s important to take time to go over your notes, expand on them with further detail, and keep them organized (including information such as dates and locations).

After observations are concluded, there’s still the task of writing them up into an ethnography. This entails going through the field notes and formulating a convincing account of the behaviors and dynamics observed.

The structure of an ethnography

An ethnography can take many different forms: It may be an article, a thesis, or an entire book, for example.

Ethnographies often do not follow the standard structure of a scientific paper, though like most academic texts, they should have an introduction and conclusion. For example, this paper begins by describing the historical background of the research, then focuses on various themes in turn before concluding.

An ethnography may still use a more traditional structure, however, especially when used in combination with other research methods. For example, this paper follows the standard structure for empirical research: introduction, methods, results, discussion, and conclusion.

The content of an ethnography

The goal of a written ethnography is to provide a rich, authoritative account of the social setting in which you were embedded—to convince the reader that your observations and interpretations are representative of reality.

Ethnography tends to take a less impersonal approach than other research methods. Due to the embedded nature of the work, an ethnography often necessarily involves discussion of your personal experiences and feelings during the research.

Ethnography is not limited to making observations; it also attempts to explain the phenomena observed in a structured, narrative way. For this, you may draw on theory, but also on your direct experience and intuitions, which may well contradict the assumptions that you brought into the research.

If you want to know more about statistics , methodology , or research bias , make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples.

• Normal distribution
• Degrees of freedom
• Null hypothesis
• Discourse analysis
• Control groups
• Mixed methods research
• Non-probability sampling
• Quantitative research
• Ecological validity

Research bias

• Rosenthal effect
• Implicit bias
• Cognitive bias
• Selection bias
• Negativity bias
• Status quo bias

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Home > Sociology and Anthropology > Selected Anthropology 380 Photo Essays

Outstanding Ethnographic Research Projects

Submissions from 2022 2022.

People, Not Symptoms: A Visual Ethnography of Ayurvedic Doctor Ashlesha Raut , Elizabeth Baranski

Submissions from 2019 2019

Laurie Bergner: A Bloomington-Normal Community Educator Shaped by Her Values , Jessica Bugayong

Community Lawyering and the Immigration Project: An Ethnographic Study of Charlotte Alvarez , Kathryn Jefferson

It’s about more than reproduction: a visual ethnography about Jennifer Sedbrook , Sommer Martin

Nine Months in One Day: A Visual Ethnography with Caroline and Elizabeth Fox-Anvick , Kayla Ranta

Submissions from 2018 2018

Colleen Connelly: Taking the First Step towards Improving Food Accessibility , Michelle Rekowski '19

Submissions from 2016 2016

“Don’t Cross Momma!” A Visual Representation of LGBTQI Woman Leader Jan Lancaster , Lucy Bullock '17

Sacred Partnership: A Visual Ethnographic Study of Rabbi Rebecca L. Dubowe , Anna Kerr-Carpenter '17

Women Leaders as Change Agents: Mary Campbell’s Story of Academic and Community Leadership , Raelynn Parmely '17

Submissions from 2013 2013

American by Citizenship or American at Heart? An analysis of becoming an “American” as seen through the eyes of an Indian-American immigrant , Helen Brandt '14

Pierogies to Hamburgers: An immigration story , Madeline Cross '13

The Long Road to Becoming American: One Kenyan’s Immigration Journey Filled with Perseverance, Discrimination, and Student Visa Restrictions , Katelyn Eichinger '14

Bicultural Living: Maria Luisa Mainou’s Experience with Immigration and Cultural Change , Alicia Gummess '13

Russian-Jewish Immigration and the Life Experiences of Dr. Marina Balina: A Photo Essay , Lauren Henry '14

Snapped into Focus: Addressing the Challenges Faced by Undocumented Mexican Immigrants in the United States , Nora Peterson '14

An American who Emigrated from Poland: The Significance of Education and Family Support in the Acculturation Process , Stephanie Pierson '13

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Smile and Style: An Ethnographic Analysis of ISU's Gamma Phi Circus , Sarah Carlson '13

Building Christ-based Relationships, Disciples, and Sharing the Gospel of Jesus Christ at Illinois State University , Cassandra Jordan '12

When Words Fail, Music Speaks , Hannah Williams '12

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Exploring Acupuncture in the American Midwest , Shuting Zhong '11

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Luck Be A Lady: An Exploration of the Bloomington Bingo Community Through Visual Ethnographic Methods , Monica Simonin 11

Getting High: An Inside Look into College Students' Lives with Type 1 Diabetes , Amber Spiewak 11

Twin City Chess Club: a Visual Ethnographic Examination of Chess , Morgan Tarbutton 11

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Ethnographic Research – Complete Guide with Examples

Published by Carmen Troy at August 14th, 2021 , Revised On August 29, 2023

What is Ethnographic Research?

Ethnography is a  type of research where a researcher observes people in their natural environment.

Ethnographers spend time studying people and their day-to-day lives and cultural activities carefully. It takes a long-term commitment and exciting methods of data collection .

It has two unique features

• The researcher carries out ethnographic research in a natural environment.
• A researcher acts as a participant and researcher at the same time.

History of Ethnographic Research

During the period of colonialism, anthropology emerged as a formal and notable discipline. Anthropologists started to study traditional people and their cultures. There are many types of ethnographic studies used for various purposes.

Uses of Ethnographic Research    

Ethnographic research has the following uses;

• Documentation of endangered cultures
• Studying distant or new cultures.
• Studying and observing people’s behaviour in a specific society or community over a more extended period with changing circumstances.

Example: Malinowski’s six years of research on the people of Trobriand islands in Melanesia.

Today ethnographic research is also used in social sciences.

Examples:                                                                                                                                  Investigations done by detectives, police officers to solve any criminal mystery.        Investigations are carried out to learn the history and details of culture, community, religion, or games. The research was performed to understand the social interactions of the people.                Research to understand the roles of families and organisations.

Advantages of Conducting Ethnographic Research

There are various  methods of research  based on the requirements and aim of the investigation. Here is the list of the key features of  ethnographic research

• You can conduct ethnographic research alone.
• It allows you to observe the changes in people’s behaviour and culture over time and record it.
• You can conduct it in any place.
• It allows you to be a part of the community as a participant and take a close look at their lifestyle.
• You can gather a piece of detailed information with abundant experience, which helps you in further research.
• It provides the opportunity and pleasure of adventure as well as research.
• You don’t need to spend anything on the setup and equipment.
• You can learn to use any language of your choice during the research.
• You can find out about historical  changes and events.
• You can use and enhance your skills and knowledge.
• You are solely responsible for experimenting.
• You get the opportunity to get to know the underlying realities and opinions of the people.
• You get the chance to focus on the verbal and non-verbal behavior of the people.

Disadvantages of Ethnographic Research

• It requires a lot of time.
• It is challenging to conclude the results.
• The researcher needs to work alone.
• It requires patience, skills to interact with people, and staying within the community as a community member.
• Personal safety and privacy would be at risk.

Does your Research Methodology Have the Following?

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If not, we can help. Our panel of experts makes sure to keep the 3 pillars of Research Methodology strong.

What to do Before Starting your Ethnographic Research?

You need to identify your  research question(s)  and decide the mode of data collection. It’s better to choose a small group of people and aim to complete your studies within a short period. 

It would help if you asked a few questions to yourself.

• Who will be your target participants?
• Do you have enough time to conduct the research?
• What’s the purpose of your study?
• What kinds of resources do you have?
• Do you have enough funds to conduct your research?
• Do you have access to the community you want to study?

Types of Ethnographic Research

Realistic ethnographic research.

It is unbiased documentation written in the third person. You can use the collected notes for interpretations. 

A  case study is a documented history and detailed analysis of a situation concerning organisations, industries, and markets. It aims at discovering new facts of the condition under observation. 

It includes data collection from multiple sources over time.

Critical Ethnographic Research

It focuses on the marginalised community to study inequality and dominance.

How to Conduct Ethnographic Research?

Step 1: problem formulation.

Before conducting any research, the essential step is selecting the problem  you want to carry out your study.

Step 2: Select a Research Setting

After Selecting a research problem, you need to select the location of your research. It will help if you prefer a familiar place and community in which you can fit comfortably.

Step 3: Get Access to the Community

You need to get access to the community you want to study. How do you reach the community you want to study? 

You need to get official permission to conduct your research on a specific group of people. You can also join the community as a volunteer instead of a researcher.

There are two types of access, such as:

Open access: You don’t need to seek permission to conduct your research and  collect data in this type of access. You can observe the population. You need to get accepted by the group to proceed with your research.

Example: Public in market places, parties, concerts, etc., are regarded as open-access groups.

Closed-access:  In this type of access, you need to get permission from the gatekeeper of the community you want to study. 

Example:  Schools, colleges, corporations, etc.

Step 4: Represent yourself to the Group

It would help if you asked yourself a few questions before introducing yourself to the group members.

• How will you introduce yourself to the community you want to study?
• What would be your role in the group?
• How actively do you want to participate in the group’s day-to-day activities?
• Will the group accept you as a researcher and allow you to conduct your research?

You can either inform the participants about the experiment, and it’s called the overt approach. You can hide the research and oversee people’s behaviour. It’s called a covert approach.

You can also act as a participant of the community performing the activities like the group, called active observation. It allows the community to feel more comfortable with the researcher.

Similarly, you can keep yourself away from the group without performing any activities like them and observe them as a researcher. It is called passive observation.

It would help if you tried various approaches until you find a suitable method to proceed with your research.

Step 5: Collecting and Recording the Information

You can collect the data by the following methods;

Observation: You can participate in the group activities or observe the group’s behavior, either informing them about the experiment or keeping them unaware of the investigation.

Interviewing:  You can carry out direct conversations with all group members or obtain information from a specific member of the group. It’s better not to rely on the informants as they may interpret the data according to their perception rather than delivering in its actual context. 

Archival Research:  You can also use existing information stored in the previous researchers’ records to proceed with your research.

It becomes difficult to gather and record the information at the same time. 

What should you do in this situation?

You can maintain a notepad to record your observation immediately or sometimes wait until you leave the setting to record your observation. It’s better to note down your observations as soon as possible before you forget them and struggle to recall them. You can write down your field notes or record the people’s audios or videos while talking to them.

Your notes should include the following features:

Running/Field Notes:  these are the observations that you note down daily. The idea is to record your observation immediately after observing it. It would help if you observed the individual activities of the group members and perspectives.

How to describe Ethnographic Research?

Ethnographic research involves immersing in a community or culture to understand its nuances. Researchers observe, participate, and interview to grasp social practices, beliefs, and behaviors. It provides rich insights into how people experience and interpret their world.

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• Ethnographic Research: Types, Methods + [Question Examples]

Ethnographic research is a qualitative research approach that involves observing variables in their natural environments or habitats in order to arrive at objective research outcomes. As the name suggests, ethnographic research has its roots in ethnography which is the in-depth study of people, cultures, habits and mutual differences. 

This type of systematic investigation interacts continuously with the variables and depends, almost entirely, on the data gathered from the observation of the research variables. Ethnographic research is sometimes referred to as a thick description because of its in-depth observation and description of the subjects.

In recent times, ethnography has been adopted to the internet in the form of netnography. This means that researchers can now study how online communities interact in order to identify social communication patterns. 

What is Netnography?

Simply put, netnography is online ethnography research, that is, it is the conducting of ethnography research via the internet. Netnography adapts the ethnographic research methodology to the study of online communities in order to discover the natural behavioral patterns of internet users. 

As a modern model of ethnographic investigation, netnography uses the data gathered through digital communications in varying online communities to trace and analyze patterns of social interaction. Just like ethnography research, netnography also requires close observation of interactional patterns in order to arrive at the most objective conclusions. 

Types of Ethnographic Research   

There are several types of ethnographic research, namely; business, educational and medical ethnographic research. All based on different fields of human endeavor and each type is defined by specific characteristics. Ethnographic research is a multi-dimensional research design that can be adapted to different fields including business, medicine, education, and psychology. 

Business Ethnographic Research

Business ethnographic research is a research design that involves observing consumer habits and target markets in order to discover true market needs and the overall disposition to your product or service. It is an extremely beneficial research tool that can help your organization identify its customers’ needs and satisfy market demands. 

This research method combines different techniques including fieldwork, physical interviews and online surveys in order to gather useful data on the consumer habits of target markets. Business ethnographers use these techniques to analyze how clients interact with an organization’s services and come up with useful conclusions that can be used to develop effective market strategies. 

In carrying out a business ethnographic research, it is necessary to work with a customer or client-oriented framework that focuses on target markets rather than the business. The aim of this research design is to discover recurring client behavioral patterns that can serve as key market insights.

In order to gather useful data, the researcher must ask the right questions. Some question samples for business ethnographic research include the following:

• What do you enjoy about this product or service?
• Why do you use this product?
• What specific needs does the product meet for you?
• What specific needs does the product fail to meet?
• Does the pricing of the product equate its value?

Educational Ethnographic Research 

Educational ethnographic research is a research design that involves observing teaching and learning methods and how these affect classroom behaviors. This research model pays attention to pedagogy, its effects on learning outcomes and overall engagements by stakeholders within the classroom environment. 

Typically, educational ethnographic research studies students’ attitudes, academic motivations, and dispositions to learning. To do this, the researcher combines non-participant observation methods with direct participant observation techniques in order to gather the most relevant and objective data. 

Question samples for educational ethnography research include:

• Do you enjoy this teaching method?
• Does the teacher allow for feedback in his or her classes?
• Does the teaching method communicate objectives clearly?
• What is the student’s attitude toward learning?

What is Pedagogy: Definition, Principles & Application

Medical Ethnographic Research 

Medical ethnographic research is a type of ethnographic research used for qualitative investigations in healthcare. This research design helps medical practitioners to understand the dispositions of patients ranging from the simplest to the most complex behavioral patterns. 

Medical ethnographic research enables the healthcare provider to have access to a wealth of information that will prove useful for improving a patient’s overall experience. For example, through ethnographic research, a healthcare product manufacturer is able to understand the needs of the target market and this will, in turn, influence the product’s design. 

In addition, medical ethnographic research exposes healthcare professionals to insights on the complex needs of patients, their reaction to prescriptions and treatment methods plus recommendations for improvement. Here are a few questions that can be used for medical ethnographic research:

• For how long have you used this drug?
• For how long have you been on this treatment?
• What positive changes have you noticed so far?
• Have you noticed any side effects so far?
• Does this medication or treatment meet your needs?

Method of Ethnographic Research 

Typically, there are 5 basic methods of ethnographic research which are naturalism, participant observation, interviews, surveys, and archival research. Carrying out ethnographic research will involve one or more research techniques depending on the field, sample size, and purpose of the research

• Live and work

Also known as naturalism, live and work is an ethnography research technique in which the researcher observes the research variables in their natural environment in order to identify and record behavioral patterns. It may involve living in the natural environment of the group or individuals being researched for a period of time in order to record their activities. 

Naturalism is the oldest method of ethnographic research and it may create some degree of rapport between the ethnographer and the research variables . When using this method, the researcher must ensure that he or she limits interference with the subjects to the barest minimum in order to arrive at the most objective research outcomes. 

Naturalistic observation can be disguised or undisguised. Disguised naturalistic observation involves recording the subjects in such a way that they are unaware of being studied while in undisguised naturalistic observation, the research subjects are aware of the fact that they are being understudied. 

The live and work method allows the researcher to gather the most accurate and most relevant data as a result of observing the research subjects in their natural environment. However, this technique is not favored by modern ethnographers, especially in fields like medicine and education, because it is expensive and it takes a lot of time. 

• Participant Observation

Participant observation is a data collection method in ethnography research where the ethnographer gathers information by participating actively and interacting with the research subjects. This method is quite similar to life and work techniques. 

The major difference between participant observation and live and naturalism is that in the former, the ethnographer becomes an active member of the group being observed. This gives the researcher access to information that can only be made available to members of the group. 

There are 2 types of participant observation which are, disguised participant observation and undisguised participant observation. In the former, the ethnographer pretends to be a part of the research subjects while hiding his or her true identity of being a researcher. 

In undisguised participant observation, the ethnographer becomes a part of the group being observed and reveals his or her identity as a researcher to the group. This technique is more prone to reactivity, unlike disguised participant observation. 

The primary advantage of participant observation as a research technique is that the ethnographer is exposed to more information. He or she is better able to understand the experiences and habits of the research subjects from the participant’s point of view. 

There are a number of limitations associated with this research technique. First, the presence of the researcher can affect the behaviors of the research subjects; especially with undisguised participant observation, and this can affect the authenticity of the result. 

In addition, there can be the issue of biased research outcomes. As a result of the relationship between the researcher and the group, the ethnographer may become less objective and this can lead to experimental bias which affects the research outcomes. 

An ethnographic interview is a qualitative research method that merges immersive observation with one-on-one discussions in order to arrive at the most authentic research outcomes. In this research design, the ethnographer converses with members of the research group as they engage in different activities related to the research context. 

During this contextual inquiry, the researcher gathers relevant data related to the goals and behaviors of the members of the research group. As the ethnographer observes the research subject in its natural environment, he or she has the opportunity to ask questions that reveal more information about the research group.

An ethnographic interview is usually informal and spontaneous, and it typically stems from the relationship between the researcher and the subjects. The ethnographic interview often results from the participant observation method where the ethnographer actively engages with the members of the research group in order to find out more about their lives. 

As a two-way research method, an ethnographic interview allows the researcher to gather the most relevant and authentic information from the research group. However, it can also be affected by experimental bias as a result of the relationship between the ethnographer and the subjects. 

 An ethnography survey is an inductive research method that is used to gather information about the research subject. This research design is also referred to as analytic induction and it involves outlining hypotheses in the form of survey questions and administering these questions in the research environment. 

Administering a survey will help the ethnographer gather relevant data, analyze this data and arrive at objective findings. The aim of carrying out an analytic induction is to discover the causative factors of certain habits of the research group and come up with accurate explanations for these behaviors. 

In order to gather the most relevant responses using this, it is best to include different question types in your survey. Likert scale questions , open-ended questions, multiple-choice questions , and close-ended questions are common types of ethnography survey questions. 

To make your ethnography survey even more effective, you can create and administer it online using data-collection tools like Formplus . Formplus allows you to build your ethnography survey form in minutes using the Formplus builder and you can easily share your survey with respondents via available multiple sharing options.

High survey drop-out rates and survey response bias are some of the major limitations of this research method. However, this method is fast and cost-effective especially when carried out online and if done right, it can reveal useful insights about a research group. 

• Archival Research

Archival research is a qualitative approach to ethnographic research in which the researcher analyzes existing research, documents and other sources of information about the research group in order to discover relevant information. This method can also be referred to as understanding.

Archival research adopts ethnography to a collection of related documents from the past which substitute for actual physical presence in the research environment. It pays absolute attention to every piece of information about the research variables. 

As a method of data collection in ethnography, archival research reduces the chances of experimental biases since the researcher does not directly interact with the subjects. Also, it allows the ethnographer to have access to a large repository of research data that results in more accurate findings. 

However, because archival research is often subject to randomization, its findings may not accurately reflect the research group. Also, archival data is not full-proof as there may be biases when the data is recorded and this will affect the research outcomes. 

When to Use Ethnography Research

Ethnographic research should be used in the early stages of user-focused systematic investigations. This is because ethnography research helps you to gather useful information about the dispositions, goals, and habits of the research variables in specific contexts. 

Ethnography research is most suitable for complex research processes especially in markets and customer settings. In market research, ethnography allows organizations to gain insights into consumer habits and receive first-hand feedback on the extent to which their product or service meets the needs of target markets.

This research design is also useful for examining social behaviors and interactions. It is extremely beneficial in the study employees’ disposition to organizational work culture and policies. 

While ethnographic research helps businesses bridge product gaps and improve consumers’ experience, there are certain situations where this research design is counter-productive. Ethnographic research should not be used in processes that require statistically valid analysis, test-runs or group comparisons. 

How to Conduct Ethnographic Research with Online Surveys 

Formplus is a data-gathering tool that allows you to create and administer online surveys for ethnography research easily while saving time and cost, and improving your research sample size. 

Here is a step-by-step guide on how to conduct ethnographic research with online surveys using Formplus: 

Access Formplus Builder

In the Formplus builder, you can easily create your ethnography survey form by dragging and dropping preferred fields into your form. To access the Formplus builder, you will need to create an account on Formplus . 

Once you do this, sign in to your account and click on “Create Form ” to begin. 

Edit Form Title

• Click on the field provided to input your form title, for example, “ETHNOGRAPHIC SURVEY”.

• Click on the edit button to edit the form.
• Add Fields: Drag and drop preferred form fields into your form in the Formplus builder inputs column. There are several field input options for survey forms in the Formplus builder.
• Edit fields
• Click on “Save”
• Preview form.

Customize Form

Formplus allows you to add unique features to your ethnographic survey form. You can personalize your form using various customization options in the builder. Here, you can add background images, your organization’s logo, and other features. You can also change the display theme of your form. 

Save your ethnographic survey form and share the link with respondents. 

Advantages of ethnographic research .

• Ethnographic research allows you to have access to a wider and more accurate data scope than other research designs. This qualitative research approach collects first-hand information about the research variables and gives the ethnographer a wider range of data to work with thereby resulting in more objective research outcomes.
• Ethnography research enables the researcher to partake in the experiences of the research variables in their natural environment.
• Ethnography research accounts for complex group behavioral patterns and highlights interrelationships among research variables.
• It helps researchers understand the scope, reason(s) and context of the habits of research variables.

Disadvantages of Ethnographic Research

• Ethnographic research requires expertise and it is time-consuming. It takes time to observe research variables in order to arrive at cogent findings.
• Ethnographic research is capital-intensive too.
• It is subject to experimental biases stemming from the relationship between the subjects and the researcher.
• Issues of data sample size can also arise with ethnographic research. This is because small data samples can suggest false assumptions about the disposition of the research group while large quantities of data may not be processed effectively.

Risks Associated with Ethnographic Research

Unlike other research methods, ethnographic research tends to be sporadic and extends for a long period of time. And although respondents can stop participating in the research process at any time, there are still a few risks they are likely to encounter during this research

1. Psychological Risks

During uncomfortable topics, respondents may feel psychological triggers like guilt, fear, sadness, etc This can cause them to lose interest in the research or pull out from participating. In some cases, research participants may need constant reassurance to encourage them.

2. Social Risks

Depending on the research subject, there are social risks that are posed to a respondent during ethnographic research. These risks include stigmatization or condemnation from their community particularly if confidential information is shared and friction in personal relationships. This can further lead to a psychological risk. 

3. Physical and Economical Risks

Although these risks are uncommon in ethnographic research, it is imperative that you prepare for them as a researcher. In politically volatile communities, or research that involves tedious physical activity, physical risks are on the high side.

Economic risks can arise when research participants are removed from their jobs or limited from carrying out profitable ventures.

During your study, ensure that you disclose the possible risks to your research participants and elaborate on how you intend to mitigate these risks. 

FAQ’s on Ethnographic Research

• Does Ethnographic research come before or after a survey?

Most research uses data collected from various studies to validate a hypothesis or seek better clarity. So it is often conducted after a large-scale survey or quantitative segmentation study. However, it all largely depends on what the goal of the research is.

• Is ethnographic research qualitative or quantitative?

Ethnographic research is a qualitative research method where researchers study their respondents in their own environment

• How long does an ethnographic research project take?

The duration of your ethnographic research completely depends on the scope of your study. However, they usually last for a couple of months.

• Do ethnographers use field guides?

Yes. In ethnographic research, there are field guides to help guide the research process. However, it’s just a tool, and most times, it isn’t followed verbatim on the field. 

• How do I create a database for comparative analysis during Ethnographic?

You can compile your data using the Formplus PDF Builder to create PDFs of your analysis or create forms for documentation and save them using the secure Formplus storage.

Conclusion 

Ethnographic research helps individuals and organizations to gain useful insights into users’ behaviors as influenced by their natural environment. This form of systematic investigation bridges the gap between the ethnographer and the research variables because the researcher has the opportunity to be a part of their experiences. 

Administering online surveys for ethnographic research will speed up your data collection process and would allow you to save costs and have more control over your sample size. You can use Formplus to create and administer online ethnographic research surveys easily. 

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Ethnography study  is a research method used in social sciences. It involves studying people in their natural environment. Researchers observe and interact with a group over a period of time to understand behaviors, and social interactions. The research can involve interviews, surveys, and direct observation. Your goal is to gain a deep understanding of how the group lives and sees the world.

If you’re here, you probably know that researchers should rely on ethnographic study to obtain accurate results. Indeed, as a qualitative research, it offers a far more realistic representation of human interactions than any other method. 

On the other hand, if you don’t know the tricks of ethnographic methodology, you are more likely to fall into the trap. It’s like throwing darts blindfolded. So, our paper writers have prepared this guide and ethnography examples to make sure that you never fail.

What Is Ethnography Research: Definition

Before we discuss the writing process, let’s first sort things out and define ethnography. Ethnography is a qualitative type of study where researchers examine a specific community in its natural environment through direct observation. In a nutshell, in this type of research you will examine or communicate with people in their local setting.  Ethnographic research method allows participants to feel comfortable while experiencing their authentic culture. Thus, it is perfect for studying things as they are.  The second meaning of “ ethnography ” is a written work that ethnographers complete after studying a community and gathering information about it. Sometimes, it may take years to collect necessary data about some group of people, especially when it comes to a tribe. For example, Claude Lévi-Strauss spent several years in different parts of Brazil before writing his notorious ethnographic work Tristes Tropiques (‘The Sad Tropics’).  Now that you know what ethnographic research is, let’s move on to the goals of study.

What Are The Goals of Ethnography Study?

As long as you are familiar with the ethnography meaning, let us look at this study’s main goals.  The primary purpose of ethnographic research is to get a whole picture about some community by observing how individuals interact in their natural environment. Ethnographers also use this research method to gain insights into culture and traditions of distant tribes. Besides just trying to understand distant and diverse societies, ethnographies also focus on our involvement in different cultures.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Ethnography

All qualitative research methods have their own advantages and disadvantages, and ethnography is not an exception. While being the only method that offers a hands-on approach to learning the interactions within any social or cultural group, this study is rather time-consuming. It’s important that you consider all pros and cons before selecting this research method.

Ethnographic Research: Main Advantages

Ethnographic research can benefit in many ways. Advantages of ethnography include:

• Direct observation of some community.
• Hands-on experience of any culture.
• Comprehensive picture of any social group .
• Flexibility and wide scope of study.
• Accurate information about local traditions and practices.

So if you are seeking to learn about some community in an empirical way and communicate with the representatives directly, opt for ethnography. 

Ethnographies: Main Disadvantages

Main disadvantages of ethnography are as follows: 

• Long duration of study.
• Potential ethical issues.
• High overall cost and many resources.
• Difficulty to access or build a natural environment.
• Geographical boundaries and geopolitical factors.
• High tendency to bias due to subjectivity.

As you can see, a major disadvantage of ethnography is its time-consuming process. It is not an option if you need the results yesterday. Besides, this method requires thorough preparation and a considerable amount of expenses for a trip that may last years. This creates a high price label that not every novice researcher can afford.

Ethnographic Research Approaches

As a method of anthropology, ethnology has several peculiarities which define a researcher's approach. You will have to choose between such approaches:

• Open or closed setting.
• Overt or covert study.
• Active or passive monitoring.

These techniques depend on the nature of study and the way you want to observe your participants. Let’s look closer at each of these approaches.

Ethnographic Study: Open vs. Closed Settings

The setting of your ethnography research is a location where you observe your subject group. An environment may have some boundaries or no limits at all. In other words, it can be either open or closed.  Intuitively speaking, an open setting is an environment without any borders or restrictions. It’s often called a public setting since you can access it easily. For instance, you may consider a local park or neighborhood because this setting doesn’t restrain you.

• Open setting

Closed settings have restricted access. Generally, such environments are private and can block researchers from studying a social group. To access an open setting an ethnographer should get a special permission. For example, it can be an educational institution, a company or an organization.

• Closed setting

Overt vs. Covert Ethnography Research Methodology

Ethnography research methodology implies particular procedures a researcher chooses in order to study a cultural or social group. Participation in ethnography – overt or covert – plays an essential role in choosing a setting and methods.  Overt ethnography is a research where participants are aware they are being examined. An overt method is considered ethical since the group’s members know the research is taking place and give their consent. To access a community, you need to directly explain your presence and be honest about your intentions.

• Overt ethnography

Covert ethnography is a study where people have no clue they are being observed. Usually, to obtain access to such community, an ethnographer should pretend to be an actual group member. Though a covert method involves deception, it allows to avoid reactivity. The participants behave naturally, so the results will be more accurate.

• Covert ethnography

Active vs. Passive Observation

The results of ethnographies also depend on the level of researcher’s involvement – active or passive. It is a context that defines your level of activity.  During an active observation, you will join the group and experience its culture together with the participants. In this case, people won’t be anxious. However, interference may cause reactivity.

• Active observation

In a passive observation, researchers won’t interfere with the group and its normal functioning. The task is to observe what other people do. This method allows a more meticulous observation since researchers will have time to take notes.

• Passive observation

Now let’s get to the part we know you’ve been eagerly waiting for since the beginning of our article. It’s time to learn how to write ethnographic research.

How to Write an Ethnography Step by Step

Writing an ethnography won’t be a challenge if you follow our step-by-step guide that will keep you on track. From getting access to creating notes and interpreting the dynamics, we’ve got you covered. Here’re 4 clearly defined steps you should go through to ensure that your research time is efficient.

1. Get Access to Group for Your Ethnography

One of the most critical and often challenging things in ethnography is getting access to a group. How an ethnographer should solve this question primarily depends on the setting and the type of sociologist participation (overt or covert). Here’s what should be considered:

Ethnographies are long-term studies. This means you should not only enter the field, but also maintain your access to the community. Therefore, an ethnographer should put extra effort to ensure a constant immersion in the setting, especially if it’s a closed one. Be ready for unexpected changes and try to behave naturally.

2. Find the Informants for Your Ethnographies

Informants are people who understand your ethnography research  and can share valuable insights about the community. They can tell you about group members, places and conditions. As providers of information, they can explain what behavior and activities are acceptable within a target group. Besides, your key respondents can provide you access, interpret the results, or even help you cope with stress.  However, it’s extremely important that you keep in mind 2 things:

• Your findings can be influenced by an informant’s subjective opinion.
• Some responses may be provided to please an ethnographer.

For this reason, you might want to find several respondents. This way, you will gain representative information about the entire population. 

3. Create Field Notes for Your Ethnographic Study

Field notes are detailed records that sum up what a researcher observed, heard or experienced during an ethnographic study. Taking notes of every single event or person can be quite tiresome. That’s why an ethnographer should first identify the main objectives of the study. With clear and good research questions , you will be able to determine what situations are significant and write down notes only when necessary.  Still, sometimes people may interact in the way you don’t expect. It’s a qualitative study so you should be prepared for changes. Don’t get stressed, though. Adjust to the situation and be flexible.

4. Writing an Ethnography

Once you are done, the last step will be writing an ethnographic research report. Ethnographies come in different ‘sizes and shapes’ – you can write an article or even a whole book.  There is no general structure you should follow when creating an ethnography. Some scientific reports just describe background information and briefly summarize the research. Meanwhile, other ethnographies are structured like other types of research. These reports contain an abstract, an introduction, methods, outcomes, discussion and conclusion.  As for the content, ethnographies usually take the form of a narrative. Since you will be sharing your own experiences, opt for a more personal style of writing. And above all, remember that your representation of the group should be convincing. So, you should support your reasoning with evidence.

Ethnographic Research Examples

Here are several ethnography examples that can get you inspired:

• Observing a sports team during the training and actual game.
• Examining how employees work remotely and on site.
• Exploring the behavior of residents in a local park.

Feel free to use these examples to come up with a narrow topic for your study. And here’s an ethnography sample that you use as a guide during research or the writing process.

Final Thoughts on Ethnographies

Let’s wrap this up: ethnography research is a qualitative study where a sociologist observes some group of people in their natural context. Depending on the nature of research, you should plan your strategy and choose a proper approach. If you want to dig deeper into details, make sure you check links scattered through this article. This should give you some valuable insights into the tricks of research and paper writing.

Simplify! Entrust your ethnography to our research paper and thesis writing service and get your work done in no time. Our writers have solid experience and all necessary skills to seriously level-up your academic writing.

Ethnographic Study: Frequently Asked Questions

1. what are the main focuses of ethnographic research.

The main focuses of ethnographic research are observation, understanding, interpretation and representation. You should be a careful observer and pay attention to practices within the group. In addition, you must be able to understand why people act in a certain way and interpret your findings to introduce this community.

2. What is ethnographic research strategy?

An ethnographic research strategy is a study that allows ethnographers to get a realistic picture about any social or cultural group. Typically, researchers use direct observation or personal interviews as methods to study a community.

3. Who uses ethnography?

Ethnography is often used by anthropologists, ethnographers and sociologists. Moreover, ethnographic studies quite often come in handy for marketers, business analysts and geographers.

4. What are the characteristics of ethnography?

The main characteristics of ethnography are: 

• Naturalism: focusing on society in a natural setting.
• Context: access to public or private space.
• Various sources of information: key informants and participants.

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89 Ethnographic Essay Topic Ideas & Examples

🏆 best ethnographic topic ideas & essay examples, 📌 interesting topics to write about ethnographic, 👍 good essay topics on ethnographic, ❓ ethnographic research questions.

Ethnographic essays are an excellent way to show your understanding of the science and the relationships that form a particular development or situation. You have to display your knowledge of anthropology and how it influences a particular population group based on a variety of circumstances.

There are many factors that can affect a group of people, including their geographic location, climate, relationships with other groups, numbers, and more. As such, compiling them to form a logical conclusion can be an overwhelming task.

The complex relationships between different variables may appear relevant when they are not and vice versa. However, there are several tips that will let you write an outstanding essay.

You should try to determine the root causes behind the formation of a particular culture or phenomenon and work outwards from them. For example, overpopulation does not generally occur without a definite reason, as human populations tend to regulate themselves.

Once you identify that it is present, search for causes such as immigration, poverty, or sudden removal of a threat. After you identify the reason, you can mention it in your essay before overpopulation and use the two to develop a logical argument.

In doing so, you will establish a link and introduce a structure to your essay. The relationships may even provide you with ethnographic essay ideas that you may explore in detail.

Here are some tips for your writing process:

• Write a clear and concise thesis that will describe the topic of your essay and include it at the end of the introduction. It will help the reader understand what you are discussing early on and evaluate your arguments.
• Try to focus on one specific option among different ethnographic essay topics and have every point you make support it. The goal of the essay is to defend ideas, and deviations into unrelated matters serve as distractions. The reader will not appreciate a deviation from the subject matter into unknown territory.
• Separate the body of your essay into sections with concise and descriptive titles. A structure that divides the paper by topics makes navigation easier in case the reader wants to revisit your essay later.
• Remember that you are writing about ethnography, the study of cultures. While it may be tempting to concentrate on the circumstances of a specific group, your goal is to explain its practices and traditions. As such, you have to provide concrete examples of how a behavior emerged to suit the population’s needs.
• Make sure to cite relevant scholarly research whenever you want to make a statement of fact. Today’s science is founded on the achievements of past researchers, and their findings should not be taken as universal truths.

These considerations will help you improve your essay while you write it, reducing the workload and letting you achieve better results. The paper you will produce by following the tips will be easy to read and comprehend and show your understanding of the topic.

It will also demonstrate that you have studied the relevant sources and obtained accurate data for the formation of your conclusions.

However, you may struggle to write an essay from nothing using just these suggestions, as they require that you have some notion of the ideas you will discuss. For inspiration, visit IvyPanda to find ethnographic essay examples and other useful paper samples!

• Ethnographic and Phenomenological Approaches to Research Ethnographic research is an approach to data collection and analysis that aims at evaluating and categorizing human experiences through the lens of the participants’ cultural and ethnic backgrounds.
• Ethnographic Research Methods Participant observation can be defined as a qualitative method in ethnology research that is used by researchers in the areas of cultural anthropology in which the researcher in given the opportunity to get a close […]
• Navajo Ethnographic and Ethnological Studies The story is preserved in myths and is recounted in the ceremony known as ‘blessing way’ which is the foundation of the Navajo way of life.
• The Kurds Culture: An Ethnographic Study The most popular of the two dialects is the Kurmanji, it is the language of communication for most of the Kurds today.
• Barker’s Ethnographic Exposé: Revealing Structural Violence Against the Marshallese Barker’s study of the Marshallese people and their victimization by the U.S.government is an outstanding demonstration of how ethnographic research and writing should be conducted.
• A Critical Review of Ethnographic Analysis The difference between these two techniques is transparent: in the case of open observation, the group of respondents knows that the researcher is conducting an analysis and is aware of its goals, whereas covert observation […]
• Ethnographic Design: Types The investigator is required to define the characteristics of the society under study. Abalos, argues that “critical ethnographic studies are a type of ethnographic research in which the author is interested in advocating for the […]
• Ethnographic Design: Characteristics According to Abalos, “ethnography is the in depth study of naturally occurring behavior within a culture or a social group; it seeks to understand the relationship between culture and behavior, with culture referring to beliefs, […]
• Clement Restaurant: Ethnographic Description The ethnographic analysis will be added with a demographic review of the region in order to identify whether the business success is stipulated by the ethnographic background of the restaurants, or the population that is […]
• Ethnographic Prospects in Teaching and Learning Such a controversial view on the approaches taken in the research complies with the changeability of the social life at the moment.
• Ethnographic Interview of the Costa Rican People The analysis of the social environment is the important aspect of realizing the cultural background and the social problems of the clients.
• Tourism Management as an Ethnographic Theme Thus, as it is stated in some of the interview, tourists generally expect the attitude of obeisance towards them, and the workers of the tourism sphere feel themselves as the obedient servants.
• Hong Kong Street Food in Ethnographic Studies Bronislaw Malinowski is often cited as one of the first practitioners of this method during his research of the people of Papua New Guinea.
• Mayan Culture in Ethnographic Interpretation The Mayan elders were charged with the responsibility of safeguarding the traditions of the people and overseeing all the cultural practices.
• Mesoamerican Ethnographic Interpretation The civilization of these people faced strong influences from the people in the non-Maya cultures which include the Olmecs of Mexico and the Izapa cultures of people who lived in the Pacific coast.
• Mayan Ethnographic Interpretation: Traditions and Rituals According to The Mayan culture, the human body was viewed as a combination of the body and the souls. This means that the blood could communicate to the inner and the outer environment of the […]
• Kmart Department Stores: Ethnographic Study During the meeting, much attention was paid to the particular features of communication between the meeting participants in order to understand the aspects of the environment, characteristics of individuals, their interactions, and the presented culture.
• Ethnographic State in India He stated that their ignorance of the customs and beliefs of the Indian people had a hit against the British and that this had resulted to a distant loss of administrative power to British government.
• Cheyenne Indians History and Culture Furthermore, it was to emphasize the unique powers and the superiority of the chief priests and the prophets in the community.
• The Significance of Ethnographic Observation Thus, Arthur concentrates on the role of women in the use of lithics and the role of females in the development of Prehistoric communities, whereas Sillitoe and Hardy study the use of stone tools and […]
• Ethnographic Research: Coming of Age in Samoa Considering Margaret Mead’s ethnography, Coming of Age in Samoa, it is possible to say that dwelling upon that society she paid much attention to religion, education, upbringing and relation to each other within a family, […]
• Ethnographic Field Notes from Starbucks The two large supermarkets, the large pharmacy, the three playgrounds, the community garden, the eclectic shopping and night life of South Street itself, the mural art of Isaiah Zagar, and other attractions, all pull a […]
• Ethnographic reflection Mixing the scientific and humanistic approaches and implementing the anthropological framework and the concept of the bio-cultural triad for covering various sides of life of Beaver community, Brody uses dialogic procedures for depicting and explaining […]
• Twin Oaks Intentional Community Ethnographic Analysis It was through field work that the community was noted as one of the intentional communities. One of the main lessons learnt was their effort to bring gender equality in the community.
• Understanding the Science of Ethnographic Through Oneirology
• An Overview of the Dream State and the Concept of Human Ethnographic
• Understanding the Unconcious Ethnographic
• The Beauty Of Ethnographic: How Dreams Drive The Individual
• The Skeptical Ethnographic Argument of Rene Descartes, and the Priori and the Posteriori
• Ethnographic And Post Traumatic Stress Disorder
• An Overview of the Controversy of Ethnographics, a Cognitive Activity During Sleep
• Animal Ethnographic And Substantiation A Connection To Humanity
• The Psychological Theories Of The Function Of Ethnographic
• The Ethnographic and Traditional Aboriginal Spirituality
• Sleeping and Ethnographic and Theories of Sleep
• Ethnographic Is Known As The Journey Your Mind
• The Centrality of the Ethnographic and Its Importance for Aboriginal Spirituality
• The Benefits Of Lucid Ethnographic
• Procrastination and Day Ethnographic
• Comparing and Contrasting Psychological Theories of Ethnographic
• Ethnographic as a Significant Process in Human Life Experience
• The Use of Illusion Argument, Ethnographic Argument, and Evil Genius Argument by Descartes
• Varieties of Lucid Ethnographic Experience, by Stephen Laberge
• Day Ethnographic in the Middle of the Summer Heat
• Ethnographic Various Amount Of People Experiences Different Effects
• Dreams, Ethnographic and Phases of Sleep
• Freud’s Theory of Ethnographic and Repression
• Synchroncities in the History of Paranormal Ethnographic
• Dreams and Ethnographic Nightmares in Children
• Gender And Ethnographic in Mapuche Shamanistic Practices
• Phenomenology of Ethnographic
• Descartes’ Meditations: Ethnographic and Evil Demon Arguments
• How Is the Power of Dreams and Ethnographic in the Novel of Mice and Men
• Difference Between Astral Projection And Lucid Ethnographic
• The Significance of Land to the Ethnographic for Aboriginal People and the Impact of the Land Rights Movement
• The Importance of Ethnographic and Sleeping
• Ethnographics Can Bring Misery in the Great Gatsby By F. Scott
• Exploring Causes of Sleep Difficulty and Ethnographic Problems
• The Importance of Ethnographic and the Sub-Conscious
• What Are the Problems and Constraints of Making Films on Ethnographics?
• What Importance May the Sex of the Anthropologist Have on the Ethnographic Process?
• What Does Ethnography Mean?
• What Is an Ethnographic Example?
• What Is Considered Ethnographic?
• What Is Ethnography Used For?
• What Is the Difference Between Ethnography and Anthropology?
• Why Is Ethnography Critical in Research?
• What Is Ethnography in Sociology?
• What Is Ethnography in Social Research?
• What Kind of Research Is Ethnography?
• What Is a Synonym for Ethnography?
• Is Ethnography a Research Design?
• How Do You Use Ethnography in a Sentence?
• When Did Ethnology Appear?
• How Does Ethnography Work in Real Life?
• What Are the Critical Characteristics of Ethnography?
• What Is the Difference Between Phenomenology and Ethnography?
• Who Was the First Ethnographer?
• Who Is the Father of Ethnography?
• How Do Ethnologists Study Culture?
• What Is the Difference Between Archaeology and Ethnography?
• What Is the Ethnological Argument?
• Is Ethnography a Theory?
• What Is the Weakness of Ethnography?
• What Is the Difference Between Ethnography and Qualitative Research?
• What Are the Problems With Traditional Ethnographic Film-Making?
• What Is the Relationship Between Students and Teachers in Ethnographic?
• What Are the Pros and Cons of Ethnographic Reflexivity?
• What Are the Defining Activities and Principles of Ethnographic Research?
• Intercultural Communication Questions
• Social Change Topics
• Cultural Relativism Questions
• Stereotype Topics
• Eugenics Questions
• Organizational Behavior Research Topics
• Demographics Topics
• Sociological Perspectives Titles
• Chicago (A-D)
• Chicago (N-B)

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Bibliography

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Lorena Gibson

Anthropod: Thoughts from a cultural anthropologist

A template for writing fieldnotes

For my PhD I carried out ethnographic fieldwork in different locations: bastis  (slums) in the twin cities of Howrah and Kolkata (India), and urban and peri-urban settlements in the city of Lae (Papua New Guinea). I knew from earlier visits that these different settings would mean that I was in for very different fieldwork experiences. I also knew I was unlikely to have much control over events. However, I could take steps to standardise my data collection and notetaking processes as much as possible. In the early stages of my research I decided to create a fieldwork template with that goal in mind.

After reading what others had to say about ethnographic fieldnotes (including A Thrice-Told Tale  by Margery Wolf [1992], Fieldnotes: The Makings of Anthropology  edited by Roger Sanjek, [1990], and Writing Ethnographic Fieldnotes  edited by Robert Merson, Rachel Fretz and Linda Shaw [1995]), I created a fieldnote template  with the following sections:

[filename] [TITLE] [DATE] In these sections I insert the filename of each document as a header, give each fieldnote a short title, and record the date.

[DESCRIPTION OF ACTIVITY] This is for describing what happened during the day as accurately as I can. I take a ‘who, what, when, where, why, how’ approach and try to stick to ‘facts’ to create a verbal snapshot of what happened. This includes noting direct quotes and snippets of conversations, text messages, filenames of voice recordings, and what photos I took.

I am aware that all fieldnotes are constructed, and what we choose to take notes about are influenced by a range of factors, so in this section I try to minimise that. My aim is to keep description separate from analytical work for as long as possible while recognising that these snapshots are just that; a glimpse of a point in time from a particular perspective, through a particular lens.

[REFLECTIONS] I reflect on the day’s experiences, writing about how I might have influenced events, what went wrong (and what I could do differently next time), and how I feel about the process.

[EMERGING QUESTIONS/ANALYSES] Here I note questions I might ask, potential lines of inquiry, and theories that might be useful. This is where I start to do some analytical work .

[FUTURE ACTION] This is a ‘to-do’ list of actions. I usually include a timeframe alongside each point.

How it works for me I usually type my fieldnotes at the end of each day and use this template alongside handwritten notebooks, which I carry when I am out and about. I find that people often want to look at (and correct!) what I’m writing in notebooks so I use them to record people’s names, questions I want to ask, specific times of events, and for participants to write notes about what they think I should pay attention to.

I draw on all of the above sources, as well as photographs, emails, voice recordings (and their transcriptions), and my memories, when I write. I find the description section of my template is extremely useful for providing the context for photographs, recordings and transcriptions, and as a point of comparison for my memories, which change over time .

I have not (yet) started using digital media in my fieldnotes, although I am interested in how this works. I have been following EthnographyMatters since Tricia Wang’s post Writing Live Fieldnotes: Towards a More Open Ethnography about  ‘live fieldnoting’  on Instagram. A recent issue of Popular Anthropology Magazine ( Vol 4, No 1, 2013 ) has a section dedicated to blogging fieldnotes .

I am always keen to hear about how others take fieldnotes. What is your process? What are your thoughts on ‘live fieldnoting’ or blogging from the field?

If you are interested, I wrote a follow-up post in March 2024 that you are welcome to read.

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Published by lorenagibson

I am an anthropologist and musician based in Wellington, Aotearoa New Zealand. I currently teach cultural anthropology at Victoria University of Wellington. My research interests include the anthropology of hope, NGOs and development, music and other creative practices, how people relate to the future, children and youth, gender relations, and agency. These interests and have taken me to India and Papua New Guinea (among other places). View all posts by lorenagibson

14 thoughts on “ A template for writing fieldnotes ”

Thank you for these observations. I have little experience in ethnography but am embarking on some qualitative research my work for a charitable nonprofit organization. Your notes here have been very useful.

I’m at the beginning stages of my field work and have been toying around with how best to stay organized, and reading your post is super helpful. Thank you!

Thank you for your template it helped as I start to write my field notes.

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Hi! I am halfways in my process of doing fieldwork for my masters. I want to ask you if it would be possible to see one fieldnote of you? That would tremendously help me through my process 🙂 Best, Katharina

thanks for the upload

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Home — Essay Samples — Arts & Culture — Ethnography

Essays on Ethnography

Ethnographic essay topics and outline examples, essay title 1: unveiling cultural realities: an ethnographic study of [specific culture].

Thesis Statement: This ethnographic research paper provides an in-depth exploration of [specific culture], aiming to reveal the cultural practices, beliefs, social structures, and everyday life experiences of its members, while also shedding light on the impact of globalization and modernization.

• Introduction
• Research Context: Overview of [specific culture] and Its Significance
• Research Methods: Participant Observation, Interviews, and Data Collection
• Cultural Practices and Traditions: Rituals, Customs, and Social Norms
• Community and Social Structure: Family, Hierarchy, and Social Roles
• Impact of Globalization: Changes, Challenges, and Adaptations
• Conclusion: Insights Gained and the Cultural Richness of [specific culture]

Essay Title 2: Urban Ethnography: Exploring the Dynamics of [Specific Urban Community]

Thesis Statement: This ethnographic study focuses on [specific urban community], examining the urban environment, social interactions, community networks, and the challenges and opportunities that residents encounter in their daily lives.

• Research Context: Introduction to [specific urban community] and Its Demographics
• Research Methods: Immersive Fieldwork, Surveys, and Ethnographic Data
• Urban Landscape: Architecture, Public Spaces, and Neighborhood Characteristics
• Community Bonds: Social Cohesion, Networks, and Support Systems
• Challenges of Urban Life: Poverty, Gentrification, and Access to Resources
• Aspirations and Resilience: Stories of Residents and Their Urban Experience
• Conclusion: Understanding [specific urban community] and the Complex Urban Fabric

Essay Title 3: Ethnography of [Specific Subculture]: Navigating Identities, Belonging, and Expression

Thesis Statement: This ethnographic research paper explores the world of [specific subculture], shedding light on the subcultural identity, values, rituals, and modes of expression, while also examining the subculture's relationship with mainstream culture and the challenges it faces.

• Subcultural Context: Introduction to [specific subculture] and Its Significance
• Research Methods: Immersion, Interviews, and Documenting Subcultural Practices
• Subcultural Identity: Shared Beliefs, Symbols, and Modes of Expression
• Subculture vs. Mainstream Culture: Tensions, Resistance, and Integration
• Subcultural Challenges: Stereotypes, Stigmatization, and Legal Issues
• Subcultural Resilience: Community Building, Artistic Expression, and Social Change
• Conclusion: Embracing the Diversity of [specific subculture] and Its Impact on Society

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Ethnomusicology and Music Education

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The Concept of Feminist Ethnography

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Ethnography as Methods of Anthropology

Strengths and weaknesses of ethnography in relation to marxist geography, the analysis of ethnographic methods, the role of ethnography in jenkins work, autoethnography: a personal and cultural exploration, debating napoleon chagnon's ethnography: fieldwork among the yanomamo, analysis of "the white mans burden".

Ethnography (from Greek ἔθνος ethnos "folk, people, nation" and γράφω grapho "I write") is a branch of anthropology and the systematic study of individual cultures.

Ethnography explores cultural phenomena from the point of view of the subject of the study. Ethnographers mainly use qualitative methods, though they may also employ quantitative data. The typical ethnography is a holistic study and so includes a brief history, and an analysis of the terrain, the climate, and the habitat.

Gerhard Friedrich Müller developed the concept of ethnography as a separate discipline whilst participating in the Second Kamchatka Expedition (1733–43) as a professor of history and geography. Whilst involved in the expedition, he differentiated Völker-Beschreibung as a distinct area of study. This became known as "ethnography," following the introduction of the Greek neologism ethnographia by Johann Friedrich Schöpperlin.

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Human Relations Area Files

Cultural information for education and research, hraf academic quarterly, vol 2024-02.

Francine Barone

This summary features some of the exciting research accomplished using HRAF data from the eHRAF World Cultures and eHRAF Archaeology databases as well as Explaining Human Culture (EHC), Teaching eHRAF, and other open access materials from HRAF. If you would like to stay informed of the latest eHRAF research, sign up here to receive an email when our next summary is available.

This Academic Quarterly focuses on ethnographic data science and its applications. From 2020 to 2023, the NSF-funded HRAF IKLEWS (Infrastructure for Knowledge Linkages from Ethnography of World Societies) Project began developing semantic infrastructure and associated computer services for eHRAF World Cultures. The basic goal of this project was to greatly expand the value of the eHRAF World Cultures database to students and researchers who seek to understand the range of possibilities for human understanding, knowledge, belief and behavior ( Fischer, et al. 2022 ). The results of this ongoing research will soon become available in the form of data services for researchers in addition to integrated tools in the eHRAF World Cultures database. Experimental services are expected to launch in Fall 2024.

eHRAF contains roughly 750,000 pages from 6,500 ethnographic documents covering 360 world societies over time. There has been growing popularity among researchers within and beyond anthropology wishing to apply natural language processing and data science methods to search and analyze this uniquely curated collection of ethnography. In this edition of the Academic Quarterly, we will highlight machine-learning approaches to HRAF data, as well as share promising new directions for natural language processing (NLP), AI and text analyses in the social sciences. Topics include teaching and leadership in hunter-gatherer societies, self- and other-directed harm, knots, and democracy. We also share how HRAF’s classification system, the Outline of Cultural Materials, is being used in cultural heritage databases and conclude with a memorial to the eminent Indonesian Anthropologist and former HRAF researcher, Koentjaraningrat.

Featured Publications

Analyzing offenses against life data: a machine learning approach on data extracted from the Human Relations Area Files (HRAF) database M. Lelasseux (BSc thesis in Computer Science, Leiden University)

For this research machine learning techniques were used to analyse data extracted from the Human Relations Area Files (HRAF), a worldwide database with ethnographic collections. Much research has been conducted on other-directed harm (such as assault and homicide) and self-directed harm (such as self-harm and suicidal behaviours), but there has been little research on how to model available data on self-harm and other-directed harm and how to predict future events where self-harm and assault could occur using machine learning methods. The predictions of these events could help with preventing them and are relevant for educational purposes, for example for police training, and for psychologists to better understand the roots of self-harm and other-directed harm. Other-directed harm and self-directed harm have been framed by evolutionary researchers as bargaining strategies to influence conflict outcomes. This researched aimed to investigate what machine learning techniques can be implemented to analyse the differential causes and social contexts of other-directed harm and self-directed harm.

For this analysis the CRISP-DM method was used. […] The covariation of OCM codes related to self-directed harm, other-directed harm, and types of conflicts, were analysed using machine learning techniques to target different OCM codes. Regression methods were used to research connections between the OCM codes and applied on one-hot-encoded data (all the OCM codes were binary coded), with various models such as Bayesian Ridge, Light Gradient Boosting, and Orthogonal Matching Pursuit being the best models. From there, feature importance plots were created, each feature importance plot shows the top 10 of most important predictor variables. Lastly, the hierarchy of OCM code 762 (Suicide) was determined and cluster analysis was done on the OAL data file.

Teaching is associated with the transmission of opaque culture and leadership across 23 egalitarian hunter-gatherer societies Zachary H. Garfield and Sheina Lew-Levy (Pre-print)

Despite extensive work on the evolution of cooperation, the roles of teaching and leadership in transmitting opaque cultural norms—foundations of cooperative behaviors—are underexplored. Similarly, while teaching is well-studied in the evolution of instrumental culture, little attention is given to its role in transmitting opaque culture, such as social values and norms. Transmitting opaque norms often requires teaching, and group leaders are best positioned to transmit them. We explore teaching, leadership, and instrumental versus opaque culture using comparative ethnographic data. We address three questions: Are leaders disproportionately involved in teaching? Does teaching mainly transmit opaque culture? Which age groups are primary learners of opaque cultural norms? Drawing on data from 23 egalitarian foraging societies, we find teaching is more associated with transmitting cultural values and kinship knowledge than subsistence skills and is closely linked to opaque culture and leadership. Leader-biased teaching may drive cooperation, suggesting new research avenues.

From the article:

“We then we used a term-document matrix developed from the corpus of ethnographic paragraphs and text analytic techniques to identify the semantic content of ethnographic passages associated with the Subject Codes indicating  transmission of both instrumental and opaque cultural learning. Lastly, we used variables coded by researchers from the ethnographic paragraphs to compare evidence for teaching to other researcher-coded measures, i.e., learning processes, cultural domain, the mode of social learning, and the age and gender of the learner, using a Bayesian multi-level logistic regression model. These analytic approaches leverage three distinct (albeit related) sources of evidence: researcher-coded data, eHRAF-provided data, and raw ethnographic text, from which results could potentially converge”.

The ties that bind: Computational, cross-cultural analyses of knots reveal their cultural evolutionary history and significance Roope Oskari Kaaronen, Allison K. Henrich, Mikael A. Manninen, Matthew J. Walsh, Isobel Wisher, Jussi T. Eronen, Felix Riede (Pre-print)

Integral to the fabric of human technology, knots have shaped survival strategies throughout history. As the ties that bind, their evolution and diversity have afforded human cultural change and expression. This study examines knotting traditions over time and space. We analyse a sample of 332 knots from 83 ethnographically or archaeologically documented societies over ten millennia. Utilising a novel approach that combines knot theory with computational string matching, we show that knotted structures can be precisely represented and compared across cultures. This methodology reveals a staple set of knots that occur cross-culturally, and our analysis offers insights into their cultural transmission and the reasons behind their ubiquity. We discuss knots in the context of cultural evolution, illustrating how the ethnographic and archaeological records suggest considerable know-how in knot-tying across societies spanning from the deep past to contemporary times. The study also highlights the potential of this methodology to extend beyond knots, proposing its applicability to a broader range of string technologies.

The Multi-Capital Leadership Theory: An Integrative Framework for Human Leadership Diversity Zachary H. Garfield, Christopher von Rueden, Edward H. Hagen (Pre-print)

Human leadership and followership take many forms, shaped by the social, economic, political, and cultural contexts of our groups and societies. Underlying this complexity, we argue, are key elements of human social psychology regarding social comparison and the resolution of coordination and collective action problems. More specifically, the Multi-Capital Leadership (MCL) theory posits that leader emergence and effectiveness depend on perceptions of individuals’ abilities to either provide benefits or impose costs in the context of problems associated with group living, by deploying different forms of capital. These forms of capital include material capital, social capital, and embodied capital, which encompasses somatic capital (e.g., physical formidability, height, and immune functionality) and neural capital (e.g., knowledge, intelligence, personality, and supernatural abilities). We apply this theory to a review of the diversity of leadership forms, including leadership in non-state and non-industrial societies and novel analyses of comparative ethnographic data. Critically, the context-specific requirements for coordination and collective action, as well as the extent to which social comparison is accurate, profoundly affect the structure and dynamics of leadership and followership.

The data package used for this analysis comes from eHRAF World Cultures:

“We draw on the leadership data package (Garfield and Hagen, 2019) to assess evidence for different forms of capital associated with the ethnographic evidence for leaders across distinct domains. The leadership data package provides researcher-coded measures of leadership domain using a sample of 1,212 ethnographic texts (paragraphs) from the electronic Human Relations Area File database (eHRAF), describing leadership across 59 diverse, largely non-industrial societies. The leadership domains include the aforementioned seven domains: Conflict resolution, providing counsel, organizing cooperation, punishment, group representation, resource distribution, and ritual leadership.”

Democratic mind: Under what conditions can political intuitions help us sustain democratic checks and balances? Honorata Mazepus (Pre-print proposal)

In 2022, six of the 27 members of the European Union were reported to experience democratic backsliding – a gradual erosion of liberal democracy, where elected leaders disturb the checks and balances that constrain their power. This has been met with little backlash from citizens. At the same time, public opinion research shows high and stable levels of support for democracy. Moreover, evidence from psychology, anthropology, and cognitive science suggests that individuals should support constraints on authorities, because humans are vigilant of rule violations and weary of being dominated. Therefore, it is puzzling why citizens do not react when authorities undermine democratic checks. DEMOMIND strives to solve this puzzle by investigating the interaction between the human mind and democratic institutions. […] DEMOMIND will (1) develop a novel theory of intuitions as micro-foundations of democracy; (2) create a typology of political intuitions relevant for democratic checks and balances; (3) investigate the trade-offs they create and their consequences for democracy; (4) model intuition-based trade-offs to assess system-level outcomes. DEMOMIND will use a unique combination of methods from different disciplines to achieve these objectives: analyse anthropological records, develop video-based survey experiments, and build agent-based models. By focusing on the role of political intuitions and testing their impact on support for liberal democratic institutions, the project will break new ground in the theory of democracy.

The analysis of ethnographic records from eHRAF, in which small-scale communities imposed checks on the authority and fellow members of their community, form the basis for this proposed study.

Large Language Models (LLMs) and Anthropology

The following projects focusing on practical implementation of LLMs, a promising innovation for anthropologists and other social scientists considering future uses and broad applications of these technologies.

A step-by-step method for cultural annotation by LLMs Edgar Dubourg, Valentin Thouzeau, Nicolas Baumard

Building on the growing body of research highlighting the capabilities of Large Language Models (LLMs) like Generative Pre-trained Transformers (GPT), this paper presents a structured pipeline for the annotation of cultural (big) data through such LLMs, offering a detailed methodology for leveraging GPT’s computational abilities. Our approach provides researchers across various fields with a method for efficient and scalable analysis of cultural phenomena, showcasing the potential of LLMs in the empirical study of human cultures. LLMs proficiency in processing and interpreting complex data finds relevance in tasks such as annotating descriptions of non-industrial societies, measuring the importance of specific themes in stories, or evaluating psychological constructs in texts across societies or historical periods. These applications demonstrate the model’s versatility in serving disciplines like cultural anthropology, cultural psychology, cultural history, and cultural sciences at large.

Rather than evaluate whether or not LLMs can or should be used in science, the researchers offer a how-to guide for applying these models to large cultural datasets:

“This guide is designed to provide practical insights for various applications of such automatic annotation, including annotating Human Relations Area Files (HRAF) descriptive accounts of non-industrial societies, generating or annotating descriptions of cultural items such as novels, video games or technological patents, analyzing folklore narratives, or extracting thematic elements from human-generated texts. Note that we strongly advocate for pairing LLM methods with other more established research techniques in all studies where it is possible, enabling case-by-case convergence testing and facilitating future meta-analyses.”

CultureBank: An Online Community-Driven Knowledge Base Towards Culturally Aware Language Technologies Weiyan Shi, Ryan Li, Yutong Zhang, Caleb Ziems, Chunhua yu, Raya Horesh, Rogério Abreu de Paula, Diyi Yang

To enhance language models’ cultural awareness, we design a generalizable pipeline to construct cultural knowledge bases from different online communities on a massive scale. With the pipeline, we construct CultureBank, a knowledge base built upon users’ self-narratives with 12K cultural descriptors sourced from TikTok and 11K from Reddit. Unlike previous cultural knowledge resources, CultureBank contains diverse views on cultural descriptors to allow flexible interpretation of cultural knowledge, and contextualized cultural scenarios to help grounded evaluation. With CultureBank, we evaluate different LLMs’ cultural awareness, and identify areas for improvement. We also fine-tune a language model on CultureBank: experiments show that it achieves better performances on two downstream cultural tasks in a zero-shot setting. Finally, we offer recommendations based on our findings for future culturally aware language technologies.

Museum Collections

A Gamification System for Acquiring Appreciation Perspectives in Museum 2024 12th International Conference on Information and Education Technology Kaisei Nishimoto, Kenro Aihara, Noriko Kando, Yoshiyuki Shoji, Yusuke Yamamoto, Takehiro Yamamoto, Hiroaki Ohshima

We find it difficult to remember the artifacts we viewed after visiting the museum. In this paper, we propose a guidance system for museums that aims to make the artifacts more memorable to visitors. This is achieved through the implementation of Mandala Bingo, a game inspired by bingo. The system targets the National Museum of Ethnology (a.k.a. Minpaku) and incorporates gamification into the Minpaku Guide. The objective is to enable users to appreciate the artifacts based on their unique perspectives, making the artifacts more memorable. The evaluation results indicated that visitors became more conscious of the connections between the features of the artifacts. However, one participant mentioned that he became too focused on searching for the artifacts to be used in Bingo. An important future task is to conduct long-term experiments to measure the retention of memories.

HRAF’s Outline of Cultural Materials (OCM) is used to catalogue the items in the game:

“In the proposed Mandala Bingo, we use a portion of the data provided by Minpaku as the appreciation perspectives. Minpaku possesses a database containing diverse information about approximately 80,000 artifacts, including details like materials, purposes, and regions of origin. […] This view displays various information, including the artifact’s name and specimen ID, as well as other details. We use the OCM and Exhibition Location categories. In this research, we use Japanese translations of these categories. OCM is represented by a three-digit number. For example […] the tag Preservation and Storage of Food corresponds to 251, Alcoholic Beverages corresponds to 273 and Utensils corresponds to 415.”

AMSD: The Australian Message Stick Database Piers Kelly, Junran Lei, Hans-Jörg Bibiko, Lorina Barker

Message sticks are wooden objects once widely used in Indigenous Australia for facilitating important long-distance communications. Within this tradition an individual wishing to send a message would carve a stick and apply conventional symbols to its surface. The stick was entrusted to a messenger who carried the object into the territory of another community together with a memorised oral statement. Between the 1880s and the 1910s, settlers and international scholars took great interest in message sticks and this was reflected in efforts to document, collect and store them in museums worldwide. However, by this period, the practice was already undergoing profound changes, having been abandoned in many parts of the continent and transformed in others. While message sticks were still being used in a traditional way in Western Arnhem Land up until at least the late 1970s, today they feature in public interactions between Indigenous and non-Indigenous organisations, in art production and in oral narrations. Accordingly many questions concerning the history, pragmatics and global significance of message stick communication remain unanswered. To address this we have compiled the Australian Message Stick Database, a new resource hosted at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, and The Australian National University, Canberra. It contains images and data for over 1500 individual message sticks sourced from museums, and supplemented with information derived from published and unpublished manuscripts, private collections, and from field recordings involving contemporary Indigenous consultants. For the first time, knowledge about Australian message sticks can be evaluated as a single set allowing scholars and Traditional Owners to explore previously intractable questions about their histories, meanings and purposes.

This fascinating database of material culture takes inspiration from eHRAF in how the artifacts are presented:

“Beyond hypotheses that can be addressed solely with statistical or decontextualised data, the AMSD seeks to be a resource for informing more traditional historiography by associating artefacts with full archival sources that are linked to each entry. As such it follows the lead of eHRAF World Cultures , where the relevant textual evidence is supplied in context and without manipulation.”

Koentjaraningrat at HRAF

Koentjaraningrat Memorial Lecture: Koentjaraningrat’s Legacy and Contemporary Anthropology in Indonesia James J. Fox

On 14 June 2023, James J. Fox presented a lecture in Fakultas Ilmu Sosial dan Politik (FISIP) at Universitas Indonesia as part of the 100th-year celebration of Professor Koentjaraningrat. Kanjeng Pangeran Haryo Koentjaraningrat was an Indonesian anthropologist known to many as “the father of Indonesian anthropology”.

From the lecture:

Koentjaraningrat via fkai.org

In 1954 Koentjaraningrat [Pak Koen] was offered a Fulbright Scholarship to study anthropology at Yale University. Yale’s Anthropology Department was, at this time, one of the leading—if not the leading—anthropology departments in the United States. The Department was dominated by the presence of Professor George Peter Murdock who had published his major work, Social Structure , in 1949 and had begun work on compiling the Human Relations Area Files —an initiative of significance for American anthropology.

Not surprisingly, as a student at Yale and on Murdock’s prompting, Pak Koen was put to work on adding information on Indonesia to the Human Relations Area Files. At a time when kinship was a dominant mode of anthropological inquiry, Pak Koen wrote a thesis at Yale entitled: A Preliminary Description of the Javanese Kinship System . In his preface, Pak Koen appropriately thanks G. P. Murdock for his ‘valuable suggestions’ but extends his special thanks to Edmund M. Bruner.

In 1962, at an early stage in this creation process, Pak Koen took a year’s sabbatical at the University of Pittsburgh. By this time, his mentor and supporter, George Peter Murdock, had retired from Yale and moved to the Department of Anthropology at the University of Pittsburgh. Pak Koen’s academic immersion in American anthropology continued. On his return from Pittsburgh, Pak Koen was made Professor of Anthropology at the University of Indonesia.

In 1957, Koentjaraningrat established Indonesia’s first anthropology department at the University of Indonesia. He would later found the Indonesian Centre for Knowledge and, throughout his career, write several major textbooks for anthropological and social science research.

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Examples of Ethnographic Research in Different Fields

This article explores the diverse applications of ethnographic research, from cultural anthropology to healthcare and business, highlighting its importance in understanding human behavior and culture.

Ethnographic research is a qualitative research method that involves the systematic observation and analysis of human behavior and culture in a natural setting. This approach allows researchers to gain a deeper understanding of the social, cultural, and historical context in which individuals live and interact.

Ethnographic research is used in a wide range of fields, including anthropology, sociology, psychology, education, and marketing. In this article, ilovephd will explore some ethnographic research examples and their applications.

Ethnographic Research Examples and Their Applications

1. cultural anthropology.

In cultural anthropology, ethnographic research is used to study different cultures and societies around the world.

Ethnographers observe and participate in cultural activities, gather data, and analyze the meaning and significance of cultural practices.

For example, an ethnographer studying the Maasai people in Kenya might observe their daily routines, rituals, and beliefs, and examine how these practices reflect the Maasai’s cultural values and traditions.

2. Education

In education, ethnographic research is used to study the classroom and learning environment.

Ethnographers observe and interview students, teachers, and administrators to gain insight into how students learn, how teachers teach, and how schools function.

For example, an ethnographer studying a high school might observe how teachers use technology in the classroom, and analyze how these practices impact student learning and engagement.

3. Marketing

In marketing, ethnographic research is used to understand consumer behavior and preferences.

Ethnographers observe and interview consumers in their natural settings, such as homes or stores, to gain insight into their buying habits, motivations, and decision-making processes.

For example, an ethnographer studying consumer behavior might observe how shoppers navigate a grocery store and analyze how packaging and placement of products impact their purchasing decisions.

4. Healthcare

In healthcare, ethnographic research is used to study patient experiences and interactions with healthcare providers.

Ethnographers observe and interview patients, families, and healthcare providers to gain insight into how patients navigate the healthcare system, how healthcare providers communicate with patients, and how cultural and social factors impact healthcare outcomes.

For example, an ethnographer studying patient experiences might observe how patients interact with doctors and nurses during a hospital stay, and analyze how these interactions impact patient satisfaction and outcomes.

5. Business

In business, ethnographic research is used to understand organizational culture and work processes. Ethnographers observe and interview employees, managers, and customers to gain insight into how organizations function and how they can improve efficiency and productivity.

For example, an ethnographer studying a manufacturing company might observe how workers use equipment and tools, and analyze how changes in work processes can improve safety and productivity.

In conclusion, ethnographic research is a versatile research method that can be applied in a wide range of fields. By observing and analyzing human behavior and culture in a natural setting, ethnographers can gain deep insight into the social, cultural, and historical context in which individuals live and interact.

Ethnographic research is a valuable tool for researchers, practitioners, and businesses alike, and can lead to innovative solutions and insights that can improve people’s lives.

Also Read: Quantitative Vs Qualitative Research

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• human behavior
• organizational culture
• patient experiences
• qualitative research
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