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Ethnography engages with the theoretical foundations of anthropology and is written with cultural contextualization in mind, speaking to anthropology as a discipline as well as furnishing greater understanding of the cultural world that has been explored. While ethnographers may also keep a fieldwork diary containing personal notes, ethnography is much more than a recounting of daily events. Writing ethnographyĮthnographic writing differs from other types of academic, historical, journalistic, or travel writing about peoples and places. Some anthropologists use quantitative methods when analyzing their research, such as producing statistics based on their findings. Anthropologists also engage in informal conversations, more formal interviews, surveys, or questionnaires, and create photos, sound or video recordings, as well as conduct historical or archival research into correspondence, public records, or reports, depending on their research area. This type of data-gathering is when the anthropologist records their experiences and observations while taking part in activities alongside local participants or informants in the field site. The hallmark method of ethnographic field research in anthropology is known as participant-observation. EthnographyĮthnography can mean two things in anthropology:Ī) the qualitative research methods employed during fieldworkī) the written descriptive and interpretive results of that research Doing ethnography In the fieldwork process, anthropologists eventually piece together ideas about kinship, language, religion, politics, and economic systems, which allows them to build a picture of the society. It can take months or years to begin to accustom themselves to the society or community within which they will live and learn. They will likely make mistakes, and locals will find them funny or strange.

They may have trouble communicating until they have learned the local language. Anthropologists enter the field location much like a newborn child. Nearly any setting or location can become “the field”: a village along the Amazon river, a large corporate office in Tokyo, a small neighborhood café in Seattle, or even a social networking site like Facebook.įieldwork takes time. Fieldwork is the process of immersing oneself in as many aspects of the daily cultural lives of people as possible in order to study their behaviors and interactions.

Ethnographic fieldwork is how anthropologists gather data.

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