Advantages And Drawback Ethnographic Report

Running head: KEY CHARACTERISTICS, ADVANTAGES AND DRAWBACKS OF
ETHNOGRAPHIC RESEARCH
Key characteristics, advantages and drawback of ethnographic research
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Author Note

KEY CHARACTERISTICS, ADVANTAGES AND DRAWBACKS OF ETHNOGRAPHIC
RESEARCH
Introduction:
The paper is developed to conduct a detailed analysis of ethnographic research by
addressing the key characteristics, drawbacks and advantages. The paper focuses on the
important methodology of qualitative research that is ethnography. All such aspects of
ethnographic research is discussed by referring to the relevant theory and research work.
Ethnography can be described as the study behaviour, social interaction and behaviour that
happens within any particular groups such as communities, team and organizations. That is
the research design of ethnography is precisely about the societies, individual and culture,
where the cultural and social aspects of the society is read. Ethnography has its own
advantages and disadvantages as like other methods of research. However, the method of
collecting data is totally different when using ethnographic design in the research paper. The
objective of designing ethnographic research is to explore phenomenon of culture where the
society is observed by the researchers from a particular point of view. Also, the research
method used in this particular study is qualitative where the participants of study is interacted
and observed by the researchers in their real life environment. The application of
ethnographic research can be done virtually to any thoughtful of anthropological and
sociological subject of enquiry.1 Lastly, paper has also outlined the differences and
similarities between ethnographic and other qualitative research approaches.
Discussion:
Ethnography was originated in year dated back to early 1990 when the research
undertook the work of anthropological studies of rural and small societies and the
documentation of their belief system and social arrangements were done. Later on, the
application of this approach was done on the numerous urban settings to study their social
lives by the members of Chicago school of sociology. Ethnography has the central objective
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KEY CHARACTERISTICS, ADVANTAGES AND DRAWBACKS OF ETHNOGRAPHIC
RESEARCH
of providing holistic and rich insight into the actions and views of the people along with
incorporating the observation of nature of their location and such information was done by
conducting a detailed interviews and observation2. The enquiry of ethnography also included
some new development such as auto ethnography, virtual or online ethnography and eta
ethnography. In the auto ethnography, the central element of study is the perspective and
thoughts of researcher in their social interaction, in visual or online ethnography, the
customary notions of study of ethnography is extended to interactions that are technologically
mediated in online communities and network from face to face interaction of the participants
of researcher and situated observation. Numerous elements in the field notes is required to be
recorded by the ethnographers due to the complicated nature of social life. The observations
of participants is typically gathered by the ethnographers and this necessitates direct
involvement and engagement with the world they have undertaken study on3.
Some instances where ethnographic studies can be used include conducting research
on the meanings of the views and norms of culture, for gaining an understanding of the
reasons behind the application of certain practices and behaviour, when it is required to
examine social encounters and interaction, for understanding the sanitation and hygiene
practices of particular communities, for studying the workers behaviour in any organization,
when it is required to gain new insights and identify particular pattern in the social behaviour
and when it is required to conduct an examination into any particular trend and instances of
migration, divorce and illness4.
Characteristics of ethnographic research:
Ethnography is one of the kind of qualitative research that helps in producing a
comprehensive and detailed account of variety of social phenomenon by gathering data from
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KEY CHARACTERISTICS, ADVANTAGES AND DRAWBACKS OF ETHNOGRAPHIC
RESEARCH
interviews, observations and documentaries. Such research methodology has a strong
foundation in naturalism and empiricism as the data collection is done in a social setting that
is naturalistic. There is a difference between positivistic inquiry and ethnographic study as the
hypothesis of research work is not done by the ethnographers and no testing of hypothesis is
set out by the ethnographers5. The research work conducted under the ethnographic design is
rather exploratory in nature rather than positivistic. Under this approach, in order to explore a
certain social interactions and a cultural group, it is required by the ethnographers to get out
in the field and therefore, it is not necessary to specify the research questions at the beginning
of conducting the research work. As the ethnographers is required to study the social
phenomenon, research questions are developed by thick descriptions and which is facilitated
by iterative and inductive approach.6
The social phenomenon that is being studied under the ethnography offers a richly
described accounts with the help of its written record. Such phenomenon can be explained,
illuminated and framed by entailing a theoretical component with the help of producing
textual reports. Like the needs of all other researches, it is important that ethnographic
research is undertaken in an ethical manner and attention and due care should be exercised so
that the interest of the participants of research is safeguarded.7 For the purpose of data
analysis, ethnographic research literature demonstrates the trend where such method becomes
reliant on the software programmes. Ethnographers are provided with a new ways to manage
and organize the data due to great variation in the capabilities available in the software
packages.
Some of the main characteristics of ethnography research are listed below:
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