9.2 Ethnographic Research

Definition:ethnography is both the method (the full toolbox: fieldwork + observation + interviews + documents, integrated) and the product (the written account of a culture — the monograph, the case study). Characteristics:holism (the whole setting in view); thickdescription (Geertz — behaviour with its meanings: not "a wink" but the wink's world — Unit 2.4); natural settings (no laboratory); the researcher as instrument; reflexivity (the observer's position in the account — the postmodern settlement — Unit 2.5); iterative design (questions revised in the field — analysis begins in the field, not after). Forms (name four): the classic single-site ethnography; multi-sited ethnography (Marcus — follow the migrant, the herb, the remittance: Nepal's yarsagumba circuit from Dolpa to the Chinese trader is a textbook multi-sited design); rapid appraisal (the applied compromise: weeks, not years — development anthropology's tool — Unit 7's projects); team and comparative ethnography (the standard in large development assessments); and the modern layers: digital/online ethnography (the Facebook tol, the migrant's WhatsApp village). Standards of quality: saturation (when new interviews stop yielding newpatterns); triangulation (multiple methods converging — the validity engine); and the honest reporting of disconfirming cases.