Ethnography: How we learn what
we know…
• Ethnographic inquiry
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What is ethnography?
How is it done?
Is it testable?
Examples of
ethnographic work
– Indigenous peoples
– Fieldwork
Ethnography
• Ethno – refers to human culture
• Graphy – means description of
• A research process used in the scientific study
of human interactions in social settings
• Used extensively in anthropology
• Has become increasing popular in many
different fields over the past few years
• Nursing, education, market research, business,
etc
Ethnography
• Ethnographers should take note of all
impressions
– including senses,
– details about the physical setting including size,
space, noise, colors, equipment and movement,
– about people in the setting, such as number,
gender and race, appearance, dress movement,
comportment, feeling and tone.
Ethnography
• Interactional Detail - observing events in an
intimate microscopic manner to recount what
happened in fine detail
• Key Events - focusing on key events…such as
weddings, funerals, etc…is a useful way to
organize your fieldnotes; it involves selecting
noteworthy incidents out of the flow of
ongoing activity
Ethnography
• Purpose – to describe and explain a facet or
segment of group social life
• Hypotheses and questions – begin as a broad
statement about the purpose of the research,
then are allowed to emerge more specifically
as data are amassed.
Ethnography
• Data - verbal descriptions of people,
interactions, settings, objects and phenomena
within the context being studies
• Data Sources – the people, settings, and
relevant objects being observed
Ethnography
• Data Collection – done by the researcher
through observation, often combined with
formal and informal interviews
• Data treatment and analysis – presentation of
verbal descriptions and/or logical analysis of
information to discover salient patterns and
themes
The Process
• A question or concern is
identified for study
• A group to study is
identified
– Typically small
– Typically purposively
selected
The Process
• Permission to study the
group is obtained
• The researcher
observes the group
– Privileged observer: just
observes
– Participant observer:
functions as part of the
group
The Process
• Researcher watches and listens attentively and records as
much detail as possible (this is called naturalistic
observation).
• Large amounts of notes are typically generated (My
example, 15 tapes = hundreds of pages of transcriptions).
• This process may last a week or two or could be years.
• The researcher analyzes the notes, identifies themes,
looks for answers to research questions, and makes
logical inferences.
The Process
• The final step is to write the
research paper describing
the process, observations,
findings, and conclusion.
• Often rich descriptions are
provided so the readers can
make their own
interpretations.
• This is often described as
reflective.
• So, How do we get to the
thick description?
Analyzing Data
• Asking questions of your data…
– What are people doing? What are they trying to
accomplish?
– How exactly do they do this? What specific means
and/or strategies do they use?
– How do members talk about, characterize, and
understand what is going on?
– What assumptions are they making?
– What do I see going on here? What did I learn from
these notes?
– How to get from data to analysis?
Coding Data
• Coding leads you well on your way to
transforming your fieldnotes into writings that
speak to wider audiences
• You will sift through your notes and look for
threads that can be woven together
Coding
• Definition: gives line-by-line categorization of
specific notes
• Coding allows you to discover/create original
theory in your data
• Grounded theory and emergent theory
• Read line-by-line through your fieldnotes,
writing codes in the margins and re-read them
until you have exhausted all possibilities of
codes (themes, issues, ideas)
Strengths and Weaknesses
• Strengths
– Looks at the situation holistically
– May arrive at greater understanding of the
problem than other research processes
• Concerns
– Possible bias on the part of the observer (which
leads to validity concerns)
– Generalizability (how generalizable are the
findings from a small, purposely selected group)
Criteria for Judging Qualitative
Research
• Credibility – would the group being observed say the
findings were credible? Are the findings logical and
reasonable?
• Transferability – Would a reader be willing to transfer
the results to another group or setting?
• Dependability – the researcher accurately describes
the context, setting and changes that may have
occurred during the study.
• Conformability – if there were additional observers,
would they describe the situation the same and
arrive at the same conclusions.
When to Conduct Ethnographic
Research
• To define a problem when the problem is not clear
• To define a problem that is complex and embedded in
multiple systems or sectors
• To identify participants when the participants, sectors, or
stakeholders are not yet known or identified
• To clarify the range of settings where the problem or situation
occurs at times when the settings are not fully identified,
known, or understood
• To explore the factors associated with the problem in order to
understand it
Making a Living: Five Adaptive Strategies
Foraging
Horticulture
Pastoralism
Agriculture
Industrialism
Ethnographic Examples
• Foragers
– Very few such groups
remain
– Eskimos/Inuit
(Alaska/Canada)
– !Kung (Africa)
– Aboriginal Australians
Foragers
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All humans were foragers
until 10,000 B.P.
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Out-populated by food
producers (J. Diamond)???
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Bands
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Social mobility
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Egalitarianism
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Gender-based division of
labor
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Age-based social
distinctions
Forager Subsistence
• Anthropologists have identified
three major variations of the
foraging subsistence pattern:
• Pedestrian: diversified hunting
and gathering on foot
• Equestrian: concentrating on
hunting large mammals from
horseback
• Aquatic: concentrating on fish
and/or marine mammal hunting
usually from boats
Population Levels
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Foraging population densities are
very low.
In harsh, relatively unproductive
environments, densities of foragers
have been as low as one person per
10-50 square miles.
In rich environments, the densities
have been as high as 10-30 people
per square mile.
The optimal community size usually is
about 25-30 people, depending on
the availability of food and water
Thus high degree of stability
Most of human history as Foragers
TODAY almost completely exterminated
Ethnographic Examples
• Horiculturalists
– Tribal peoples living a
ethnohistorical lifeway in
the present?
– Few such groups remain
• Yanomami
• Ashaninka
• Kuikuru
Horticulturalists - Agriculturalists
• Horticulture: an
agricultural technology
distinguished by the use of
hand tools to grow
domesticated plants.
• Does not use draft animals,
irrigation, or specially
prepared fertilizers.
• How are the subsistence
practices, social
organization, and political
organization structured?
The oasis theory
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A type of environmental determinism.
Southwest Asia became dryer 12 to 15,000 years ago.
People congregated around oases.
People collected the seeds of wild grasses
This led to plant cultivation.
Cultivation of plants attracted wild cattle and sheep and
goats.
• This led to animal domestication.
• Problem: Domestication did not occur first at oases
Population growth theory
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Hunting, fishing and gathering were very productive
So productive that population grew.
More people needed more food
People in marginal areas decided to domesticate animals and plants to
provide new food
• Problems.
• Domestication is gradual and would not provide people with more food in
the short term.
• Assumes domestication was intentional. However, people cannot predict
which plants or animals could be domesticated.
Seasonal stress theory of plant domestication
• The earliest plant domestication took place around the margins of
evaporating lakes. For example, the Jordan River Valley.
• Beginning in the Mesolithic, the climate became warmer with seasonal
droughts (these are seasonal stresses.)
• Annuals are best adapted to this environment,
– wild cereal and grains produce abundant seeds and survive for long
periods of drought.
• People collected wild plants, for example, wheat, barley, and rye.
• They used sickles, which meant that plants with tough stems and seeds
that did not readily scatter were the most likely to be carried back to
settlements.
• Some lost seeds germinated at disturbed sites such as latrines, garbage
pits, and burned over areas.
• People began to promote growth of these annuals.
The Ashaninka and Yanomami as Examples
• Incredible knowledge of
the forest.
• Technology such as hoe,
plow, steel.
• Women cultivate.
• Men slash and burn.
• Same plot for 1-3 years.
• Fallow 25 years.
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Remaining indigenous horticulturalists…
Social Organization
• No division of labor beyond
age & gender
• NO SPECIALISTS;
• Unranked kinship
• Bilateral kindred
• Little property, storage
• Matrilocality
• Patrilocality
• SIBLING EXCHANGE
Political organization
• Informal, flexible
authority.
• Headman resolves
disputes
• Fission? When individual
villages get to big…
• Ego/Enviro
counterbalanced by
shamans
• “Keeper-of-Game”
Political Organization
• What are the potential
social cleavages?
• Gender, remember the
Yanomami?
• Privacy
• Feuding
• Jealousy
Often balanced by religion
Pastoralists – Africa
• Domesticated
Ungulates
• Diet of 88% Milk
• Blood Cake, drink, ritual
• Meat, all types
• Dung
• Urine, medicine and
curing of hides
• Skin, bones, horns
Pastoralists: The Maasi
• How does herding work on the savanna?
• Grazers of grass: cattle (wet season MILK) and
sheep (dry MILK)
• Browsers (leaves) Camels (annual milk), goats
(dry milk)
Animal Husbandry
• How did we get from
Hunting to Herding?
• Animal Husbandry
• Transition: ~ 10,000 BP
• This was also period of
agriculture development
• First sheep and goats
• Later cattle, pigs, camels,
horses
The hilly flanks theory of animal domestication
• Wild sheep and goats were domesticated in the hilly flanks or the foothills
of the Zargos Mountains in present day Iraq and Iran
• Wild sheep and goats migrated up and down mountains due to the
seasonal availability of grasses.
• Sheep and goats grazed in the lowlands during the winter and in the high
past years. In the summer.
• People follow these animals, and became very familiar with their behavior
and habits
• By 11,000 years ago, the percentage of immature sheep remains
increased.
• This indicates the presence of herd management
– Females were spared for breeding and people were feasting on ram
lambs.
• By 8000 years ago, domesticated sheep and goats were being kept at
villages like Jericho.
Pastoral Nomadism
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All members of the pastoral society
follow the herd throughout the year.
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Transhumance (seasonal movement
of group with herd) or Agro
pastoralism
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Part of group follows herd; other part
maintains a home village (usually
associated with some cultivation)
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Move to cool highland valleys in the
summer and warmer lowland valleys
in the winter.
Patterns of Pastoralism
• Small herd-management units
consisting of extended patrilocal
households
• Marriage
• Bride Wealth/Bride Price – the
cost of children
• Wealth stratification
• Patron-client ties established on
the basis of cattle loaning
relations with neighboring
pastoral groups based upon
animal raiding
• Decentralized political
organization
Subsistence
• More productive than
foraging
• 10,000 kg of biomass per
km2
• Maasai 2 – 6 km2 per person
• Animal husbandry by elders
• Stock-raiding
• Care for herds by women &
children
• Foraging
• Cash economy
Economy
• Pastoral economies
– based upon
domesticated herd
animals
– members of such
economies may get
agricultural produce
through trade or their
own subsidiary
cultivation
Means of Production
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Means of production include land,
labor, technology, and capital.
Land: the importance of land varies
according to method of production
Land is less important to a foraging
economy than it is to a cultivating
economy.
Labor, tools, and specialization:
nonindustrial economies are
usually, but not always,
characterized by more cooperation
and less specialized labor than is
found in industrial societies.
Industrialism
Major changes in agriculture, manufacturing,
production, and transportation had a profound
effect on the socioeconomic and cultural
conditions globally.
Typical characteristics of an industrial society
include:
• a division of labor;
• cultural rationalization;
• a factory system and mechanization;
• the universal application of scientific
methods to problem-solving;
• time discipline and deferred gratification;
• bureaucracy and administration by rules;
• and a socially and geographically mobile
labor-force.
Industrial Production
• Non Agriculture
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Factory
Energy
Media
Leisure
Information
Military
Communication
Politics?
• Agriculture
– Major crops
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Food
Drink
Fiber
Pharma
Fuel
– Animal Production
• Cattle - milk, hide
• Pig – meat, oil
• Chicken – egg, meat
Industrial Europe
Potatoe Farm
Cattle Lot
Shantys and Hotels
Detriot Ghetto
A post industrial strategy?
• Is there one? Perhaps in the USA, but can the same be
said in the manufacturing centers of the globe?
• Are we living in an “information society?” What does
that mean?
• Are there new strategies for living in this society?
• I would argue, while there are new strategies, we are
still living within a capitalist society, our subsistence
patterns have not changed. Our political organizations
and agricultural practices are very much the same.
What has changed?
• Globalization of trade, the rise of the information
infrastructure, the spread of “throw away” capitalism.