What Does an Ethnographer Do?

Ethnography, also known as ethnography, is a writing text and a research method of anthropology. It is a writing of customs based on first-hand observation and participation based on field work in the crowd. Or it is usually a description of culture, in order to understand and explain society and to provide theoretical insights.

Ethnography

(Writing text)

Ethnography is both a research method and a process and result of cultural display. It uses

Three stages of ethnographic development:

1. The earliest amateur ethnography

Such as

Ethnographic content is mainly related to the content of visits, the review of archive records, and the credibility of measured and accessed content. From this content, you can find out the association between specific groups and organizations, and write for the caring and professional colleagues The ins and outs of the whole story. And ethnographers record people's daily lives. The focus of research is on the more predictable patterns in human thought and behavior. For the true record, after the 1930s, the generation of ethnography usually required quite a long practical experience.

Ethnography is characterized by the open mind of the ethnic group or cultural content being studied. However, this characteristic does not mean that its content is not precise. These open features are scattered in the theoretical form, example study design, data collection skills, analysis tools, and a specific writing form of the visited ethnic group or group.

In the "pre-colonial period" before the 20th century, ethnographic research activities and content mainly in the Western world (including Japan) had preconceived ideas or prejudices. In fact, the choice of question, region or population is inherently biased. In addition to controlling prejudice and focusing prejudice, the ethnographic work in the post-colonial world has also reduced the negative impact of this academic prejudice through multi-party verification, contextualization and non-subjective direction.

Observation and participation in observation

Direct, first-hand observations of daily behavior, including participation in observations. Ethnographic researchers observe individual and collective behavior on various occasions. They often stay in field locations for more than a year, so they can observe the cycle throughout the year.

Get along and talk

Researchers conduct interviews using a variety of formal interviews. Includes gossip that helps maintain a trusting relationship, provides knowledge of current activities, and long-term interviews. Interviews may be structured or unstructured.

Genealogy

Early researchers developed genealogical signs and symbols to study kinship, succession, and marriage. Genealogy is the organizational foundation of a non-industrial society, and locals live and work with close relatives every day. Anthropologists need to collect genealogical data to understand social relationships and reconstruct history.

Important cultural reporter

Every community has certain people who, because of their luck, experience, talent, or training, can provide all or useful information about some aspects of life. It also became an important cultural reporter.

Life history

Some villagers are more interested in researchers than others, and more helpful, funny, and enjoyable. When someone is particularly interested in anthropologists, they may collect his or her life history.

Theme and guest views

Ethnographic researchers often combine two research strategies: thematic perspective emic, local perspective, guest perspective etic, scientist perspective. These vocabularies are derived from linguistics, and thematic perspectives explore how locals think about the world of perception and classification. The guest view is what is important to the observer.

Problem-oriented ethnographic research

Ethnographic trends have shifted from narrative perspectives to more problem-oriented and experimental nature. It is impossible to study everything. Before entering the field, most anthropologists often collect a question about a problem that they are going to deal with.

Long-term research

Long-term research is a long-term study of a community, region, society, culture, or other unit, which is often based on repeated visits. Most ethnographies now include data from more than two field studies.

Team research

Newcomers build on the contacts and discoveries of previous scholars to advance knowledge of how locals respond to and operate in the new environment. Academics should be a collective undertaking, and the pioneers will put past data into this whole undertaking, and let the new generation of scholars continue to use it.

Research

More and more anthropologists are engaged in research in large-scale societies, and they have developed innovative ways of combining ethnographic research with investigative research. Since surveys deal with large and complex groups, their research results must be analyzed statistically. Ethnographic research can complement and fine-tune investigations.

Cultural anthropology and social anthropology are developed around ethnographic research, and their classic texts are mostly ethnographic: for example, The Voyager of the Western Pacific by Brownislaw Malinowski; Margaret The Mead's "Adulthood of Samoan"; Ivan Pritcha's "Nur"; or Bateson's "Nafin" (1958). Today's social and cultural anthropologists give high value to the actual ethnographic research, which is relative to ethnologya comprehensive comparative study of ethnographic information.

Ethnographic Research Focus in Postcolonial Period

The post-colonial ethnography focuses on the actual recognition and implementation of ethnography, which may take as long as one and a half years, or even years, decades.

Ethnography is not a documentary of the lifestyle of the other, but a presentation with a subjective origin.

The origin of the ethnographic research approach or the approach to the subject must be in-depth "watched."

Although ethnography is a side branch of anthropology, it is not just a dependency of anthropology.