A Quick and Dirty
Introduction to the
Spradley-McCurdy
Ethnographic Interviewing
Method
Cole V. Akeson
GEOG5712: Research Design
Professor Kenneth E. Foote
02 March 2009
Agenda
• What is this mouthful called the
Spradley-McCurdy ethnographic
interviewing method?
• How and when is it useful?
• How does it work? A 12 step program
• Caveats: When is it not
useful/applicable?
• Comparisons to other methods
What is this “S-M E I M”?
• Ethnography as a non-linear process
– (continual shuffling between selecting a problem, formulating
hypotheses, collecting data, analysis, writing up)
• Informants’ knowledge is emphasized
• A search for meaning through symbols, i.e. words and verbal
cues, to tacit cultural knowledge
• Moreover, focusing on ethnosemantic symbols
– the symbol, meaning, and relationship between symbol and
referent
– Quoting sociological review: “Drunks are notorious liars and
manipulators. Spradley unfortunately takes the lies as facts and
bases his conclusions on them” (Spradley 1979, 49).
• Finally, an interviewing methodology meant to systematize
methodology for novice and expert alike
Key ethnosemantic
relationships
• Domains: Connections of cultural
symbols/folk terms into interrelated
“domain”
• Domain analysis (taxonomies): Internal
structures of domains demonstrating
differentiation among components
• Componential analysis (paradigms): Search
for differentiating attributes among symbols
• Theme analysis: Relating domains in larger
cultural processes
How and when is the method
useful?
• Designed for use by:
– Novices and experienced academics
– Students, social scientists and non-academic
professionals
• Allowing ethnography to bridge
interdisciplinary divides
• “Grounded theory” approaches
• Can also be adapted to theoretically bound,
structured settings
• Used and adapted by social scientists,
police, journalists, salespeople, etc.
Caveats and criticisms: When is
it not useful/applicable?
• Best for open-ended approaches
• Less useful in shorter-term ethnographic
investigations
• Criticized by more humanistic
ethnographers, social theory devotees
• Earlier renditions critiqued as not
considering positionality, etc.
– Some terms en vogue during publishing of The
Ethnographic Interview and The Cultural
Experience are less often used today
A 12 step program
(no, not that one)
1. Locating an informant
2. Interviewing an informant
3. Making an ethnographic record
4. Asking descriptive questions
5. Analyzing ethnographic interviews
6. Making a domain analysis
7. Asking structural questions
8. Making a taxonomic analysis
9. Asking contrast questions
10.Making a componential analysis
11.Discovering cultural themes
12.Writing an ethnography
A 12 step program
(still not that one)
1. Locating an informant
2. Interviewing an informant
3. Making an ethnographic record
4. Asking descriptive questions
5. Analyzing ethnographic interviews
6. Making a domain analysis
7. Asking structural questions
8. Making a taxonomic analysis
9. Asking contrast questions
10.Making a componential analysis
11.Discovering cultural themes
12.Writing an ethnography
Making ethnographic records
• Utilize both field notes and
transcriptions from recordings
• Condensed notes, expanded notes (i.e.
transcription together with field
notes), journaling
• Analysis and interpretation (i.e.
coding)
– By hand, by computer
Descriptive Questions
• Building rapport
– “Apprehension→Exploration→
Cooperation→Participation” (Spradley 1979, 79)
• Avoid leading questions
• Types of questions:
– Grand tour: broad sweeping explanations of space, time,
events, people, activities, objects
• “Typical,” recent time, show a process
–
–
–
–
Mini-tour: refining explanation of smaller processes
Example
Experiences
Native-language
• Direct, hypothetical, typical sentence
Domain analysis
• Folk terms elicit important cultural symbols
• These symbols are semantically
interconnected in larger processes,
“domains”
– i.e. spatial, cause-effect, rationale, location of
action, functional, sequential relationships
• Next step: Determining not only presence,
but meaning of relationship
Structural questions and
taxonomies
• Elicit informants’ structural relationships within
domains, avoid researchers’ perceived meaning
• Used concurrently, repetitively, contextually, with
descriptive questions (again, non-linear process)
• Types:
– Verification questions
– Cover term questions: Elicit meaning of term and its subcomponents
– Inferential included term questions
– Card sorting questions
• Create taxonomic relationships among terms:
Relate terms hierarchically and functionally along
one-dimensional relationship
Example: “Taxonomy”
Contrast questions and
componential analysis
• Elicit further details of relationships:
comparative/contrasting uses
• Types:
– Contrast verification, directed contrast (list),
dyadic (non-leading) contrast questions, triadic
• Demonstrating multiple semantic
differences (as opposed to taxonomies’ one)
between folk terms, producing
componential analyses or “paradigms”
Example: “Paradigm”
Themes and writing
• Elicited from informants, but will be most
influenced by the ethnographer
• Typically multiple themes will be found in
any research setting/microculture
• Creating cultural inventories to draw forth
themes
– Looking for connections, but also gaps
• Applying componential analysis on a larger
scale, across data collected
References
• Further reading:
McCurdy, David W., James P. Spradley, and Dianna J.
Shandy. 2005. The cultural experience: Ethnography in
complex society. Long Grove, IL: Waveland Press. 2nd ed.
Spradley, James P. 1979. The ethnographic interview. New
York: Harcourt College Publishers.
Spradley, James P. and David W. McCurdy. 1972. The
cultural experience: Ethnography in complex society. Long
Grove, IL: Waveland Press. 1st ed.
• Cover image
Vincent van Gogh, Green Wheat Field, 1889, Kunsthaus
Zurich.
http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/gogh/fields/
(accessed March 1, 2009).