Wonderful Ethnography

How do I use this site?

If you are reading this, you are likely looking for resources on how to conduct ethnographic research. Maybe you're enrolled in an introductory anthropology course, a survey course in urban studies, or perhaps a class focusing on qualitative research methods. Whatever brought you here, you have an objective, whether it's to complete an assignment or gain more knowledge about the topic at hand.

Make the most of this site by taking the following steps:

Continue to scroll down reading this home page as it functions as an overview of the site's contents.

Explore the additional pages of the site listed in the menu bar at the top ("Wondering," Observing," and Asking"). Each of these pages focuses on one of the critical steps in developing a strong practice of conducting wonderful ethnography, providing clear examples and resources for each step.

Consult the page listed in the menu at the top called, "Examples." This page offers examples and artifacts from ethnographic research, with specific attention paid to Dexter Park in Providence, Rhode Island.

What do I use it for?

This site can help you develop the skills to conduct ethnographic research with any group of people in any place. Ethnographers acquire vast amounts of information conducting research and in all kinds of places including villages, cities, neighborhoods, businesses, schools, hospitals, parks, construction sites, festivals, factories, train stations, and street corners. Ethnographers also study all kinds of people and related topics including health care, housing, religion, immigration, transportation, work, social mobility, family dynamics, education, crime and safety, environmental sustainability, aging, corruption, and natural disasters. Ethnographers' research findings can go on to influence how different groups and phenomena are understood and treated whether through increased awareness, policy, or continued research.

Wondering

Welcome to an invitation to wonder. At the onset of conducting any ethnographic research project, or better, as soon as we begin to even think about researching a topic, giving ourselves the permission to wonder is critical. We always get inspiration to do research from a particular observation or idea, and therefore, we always come to research with an agenda and a set of assumptions, which can easily influence what we allow ourselves to see, hear, think about, and question.

When we approach our research full of wonder, we open ourselves to learning - to take note of things we would otherwise take for granted. Allowing ourselves to wonder is actually a kind of critical thinking. Instead of accepting that which we already know or think we have already figured out, wondering why things are the way they are and not otherwise calls our very reality into question. We begin to think, “I wonder why the sidewalk looks like this here, but it looks like that over there,” Or “I wonder if those people have always hung out in that space or if something happened at some point that influenced their tendency to gather there.”

Click here to learn more about this first step in conducting research - Wondering

Observing

As humans, we are constantly making rapid judgments about the world around us on a daily basis, whether we are aware of it or not, which often results in making assumptions about things of which we know very little. Online platforms, social media or otherwise, make it easy for us to quickly share our assumptions far and wide, even before we've taken the time to verify their validity.

When we do ethnographic research, however, we are making a conscious effort to learn more and dig deeper, which involves becoming aware of our assumptions, slowing down our thinking, and being hesitant to claim that we have it all figured out. One way to do this is to stop and pay attention to what our senses are telling us. Ethnographers call this practice "observing."

When we hear someone say that they "observed" something, we usually think they happened to see something of interest with their eyes. Seeing, watching, glancing, and looking are all valid ways to observe all kinds of things, including humans and their environments. Observing, however, includes all of our senses. We can observe through our senses of smell, taste, touch, and hearing. These other senses can provide us with a great deal of information that we might otherwise not notice because of our tendency to rely heavily on our sight.

With the same open spirit we bring to the wondering process, good observers open up their senses and without any agenda; they just pay attention to what they receive. Careful observation takes practice, again, because our assumptions about people and places will often creep in without our noticing.

One way to practice observing is to give yourself a set amount of time to concentrate on only one of your senses. For example, you might set an alarm for 5-minutes, close your eyes, and only pay attention to what you hear. As you listen, take note of what you hear and what sounds are closer and further away from you. This can help you refrain from analyzing even if you are tempted to jump to conclusions. Simply listen and observe. If, for example, you hear the voice of a child laughing and have the temptation to say, "That's probably a girl who just got out of school," try to transform that thought into more of an observation rather than a conclusion. Instead you could say, "I wonder if I am hearing a young person; if so, given the time of day it is, maybe they just got out of school." This latter approach privileges wondering over making assumptions. When we approach our observations with the openness of wondering - using words and phrases like, "I wonder" and "maybe" instead claims like "that's one of those" or "that's probably because," we are more likely to encounter new and more complex understandings of the people and places we study.

For more tips on how to become a good observer, click here.

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One of the purposes of conducting ethnographic research is to try to better understand the experiences and perspectives of the people we are studying. It is for this reason that anthropologists engage in observing, often participant observation, in which the ethnographer conducts observations while participating in activities with the people being studied to try to get an insider's point of view. Along with observations, ethnographers often conduct interviews with people to learn about their experiences.

Interviews should only take place after the researcher has taken a sufficient amount of time to familiarize themselves with their object of study. When you ask a person to take time to speak with you about their experiences, you want to show them that you have an idea of what they are talking about. Having this knowledge will help you better understand them and see where they are coming from. It also establishes your credibility as a researcher and makes them more likely to trust you and respond to your questions authentically. If you try to conduct an interview without knowing what you are interested in learning, the interview can go in lots of different directions and may not prove beneficial.

Therefore to make most of everyone's time, before selecting an interviewee, researchers should:

Take time to familiarize themselves with the focus of their research, whether through first-hand observations or library or internet research.
Identify a research topic and/or research question.
Develop a large list of specific questions that will help to answer the overarching research question.
Determine what types of people would be ideal to answer some of these specific questions.

Click here for more suggestions on conducting interviews.

More Wondering

After completing an observation or an interview, we allow ourselves to wonder. We realize that the information we have obtained is incomplete. "Interesting, but why?" we begin to ask ourselves. Or, after conducting observations and interviewing someone at a park, you might say to yourself, "His comment about the grass made sense given what I observed when I was there, but when exactly did he notice that and what caught his attention?"

You begin to bring your data together - in this case, that which you obtained through observations and that which you gained through interviews. You begin to make sense of some things, but more and more questions arise, often more than you had in the first place. When conducting research, realizing you have more questions than answers is often a sign of thoughtful analysis and critical thinking.

And so we conduct more research. Maybe we do some library or online research, or, in the case of ethnography, maybe we engage in more participant observation or conduct more interviews. Each step along the way, we continue to wonder, while simultaneously making sure not to let our wondering influence our careful and precise documentation of what we observe and gain from our interviewees.

For examples of staying open to wondering in research, check out Examples.

One final point on wondering. If you believe that better thinking can make a better world, don't stop wondering. Certainly, the research must halt at some point: an assignment needs to be handed in, a thesis needs to be completed, or an ethnography needs to get published. Yet the wondering does not end. It is a practice and an approach to living. It's about allowing yourself a moment to stop and say, "huh, I wonder why..." It is a way to stay present; sometimes it can even help us to stay somewhat neutral in situations where we would otherwise become strongly opinionated. Wondering helps us not take for granted the 'way things are.' Wondering reminds us that few things are inevitable, and things could be otherwise. An openness to wondering is an invitation to possibility.

What makes you wonder?