Essential Outcome 3: Ethnography

Ethnography is another complex subject. It is basically a way of studying a culture of a particular group of people while actively becoming a part of their community. As an example, the man who went to live with the villagers in the film that Dr. Archer showed us. He was a part of an ethnographic study, as he lived with the people of the community, learned their culture, and adhered by it. It is hard to really learn everything about the culture, as most things lie beneath a conscious level. For example, if someone were to come live in our house for a week and observe everything we do as a part of an ethnographic study, we wouldn’t tell them everything we do, such as putting on clothes in the morning before heading out, putting our food on a plate before we eat it, using spoons, forks, etc. That sort of stuff seems so natural to us that it may slip past our point of view.

The process of gathering information in an ethnographic study is quite diverse. It can either be by writing it down, recording a video, maybe even typing it, surveying it, etc. In an ethnographic study, it is also important to gather your information from as many sources as possible, to avoid bias opinions or false information. By doing this, you have a better chance of getting more accurate information.

Ethnography is also a good mix of qualitive and quantative measures. Not only are they interested in the quality of their research and data collection; they are also interested in getting into things that can be counted. And that’s what it’s all about. Not only is an ethnographer participating and experiencing a new culture, they are comparing their own culture to the one they are studying. In that regard, the ethnographer can compare and contrast the individual strengths and weaknesses of their culture compared to the one they are studying.

There are many subjects that an ethnographer can study. One that I chose to study as a part of the class exercise was the school computer lab on the floor right above the library. I first walked in and immediately noticed how quiet that the environment was. Everyone seemed to be doing one thing or another on their own computers. I saw that some people were surfing around on the internet, while others were feverishly typing up papers. I went around the room and asked a few people what they were doing there at the computer lab so early in the morning for. The replies I got ranged from “I’m busy right now I can’t talk,” to “I’m working on a paper for my next class,” to “Doing some math homework.” This led me to conclude that most of the students that were there either didn’t have access to a computer at home, or procrastinated and waited until the last minute to get their homework done in time for class that day. Out of the twenty or so people that were there, I noticed maybe one or two who weren’t seriously into what they were doing, and were just kind of messing around. The rest of the students, however, seemed to be working intently on some kind of project or assignment. I myself have had to use the computer lab back when I was living on my own and did not always have the time at home to use my laptop to type up papers. I would go into the computer lab a couple times to fine-tune or type up an assignment. So by participating in this activity, I know now why I got some of the answers like “I’m busy.” When I was typing up my papers I was really focused on what I was doing so I wouldn’t have wanted anyone to come up to me and start asking me random questions and break my concentration.

So basically, I dealt with ethnography on a smaller scale, but there are definitely strengths and weaknesses to the practice. Strengths include being able to understand and become a part of someone’s daily life and practices. Some main weaknesses of that though are the things below the conscious level, or the tacit ones. So while an ethnographer can learn a lot about a particular culture, he/she must get their information from a number of sources to insure accuracy; but they also won’t get the full cultural experience, since many aspects of culture are hard to identify and explain.