Ethnographic Methods

Ethnographic methods
observations and interviews
INF5220 22.september 2005
Interviews
First well discuss the 3rd assignment Using interviews in your research? Here are two questions that you need to think about:
What status do you allocate to the data? I.e. what do you think about the relation between the interviewees accounts and the world(s) they describe? What do you think about the relation between the interviewee and the interviewer?
What status do the data have?

Geertz, 1973; p.9: What we call our data are really our own constructions of other peoples constructions of what they and their compatriots are up to. Van Maanen, 1979:
Interviewees constructions: first-order data Researchers constructions: second-order concepts, which rely on good theory and insightful analysis
What status do you assign to your data?

Are they facts (e.g. about attitudes and behaviour)?
That is, if you have designed and conducted the interview properly, and avoided problems such as bias.
Do the interview give you accounts of authentic experiences?

That is, if you have managed to engage emotionally and achieved understanding and depth.
Are the interviews jointly constructed encounters of focused interaction?

Do you have your focus on how participants actively create meaning and perform during the interview?
Corresponds to:
The three categories and their focus:
Positivism: prescheduled and standardised interviews Emotionalism: open-ended interviews aimed at acquiring depth Constructionism: also open-ended interviews, reflective
Not one correct category, choice depends on your purpose.

Your practical concerns should guide your analytic position Ask yourself whether interviews really help you address your research topic
(Refer to Silverman chapter 4)
A bit more on constructionism

Within this approach the interview is not (only) a source for data, but a research topic in itself The how and the what issue (form and content). Ref. Silverman:
4.6 Adolescent cultures 4.7 Membership work 4.8 Moral tales of parenthood
On interviewing and questioning

Ways to question:
Closed versus open questions How and What-questions versus Whyquestions Some helpful phrases
Eliciting response without manipulating Be aware of your own body language and engagement
Ethnographic research (1)

Origins: anthropology. Focus: tribes, subcultures, the public realm, organizations In-depth and extended studies, immersion and thick descriptions Aimed at exploration (what is going on here?) rather than testing of theories
Ethnographic research (2)

Participant observation: what is the researchers identity, what is known about the research?
Ethical issues (e.g. informed consent)

Theoretical and methodological choices (access, data collection methods, focus, analysis etc)
Ethical issues
Aim and focus: A scientific, but also an ethical issue:
The romantic impulse to focus on underdogs Do you treat the heroes and the villains equally (in analytic terms)?
Overt versus covert observation Informed consent How do you handle the data?
Physically: locking up tapes and transcripts? Analytically: how do you consider and treat those whom you write about?
Participant observation
Problematising the role of the participant observer:
Confusion: what is the site? What is expected from the researcher? What do we mean by intervention? Involvement into organisational politics
Using these tensions and confusions as an analytic resource showing the multiple realities and interests in the case
Teun Zuiderent: Blurring the center. On the Politics of Ethnography. Scandinavian Journal of Information Systems, vol. 14, no. 2, 2002.
Deciding your theoretical basis

Read again section 2.6 in Silvermans book, + section 3.4 Take your field notes from the observations and attempt to do exercise 3.4, (3.5), 3.6. How did you work:
As a naturalist ethnographer? As an ethnomethodologist? With a grounded theory approach?
Using ethnography in IS research

Six misconceptions (1-3):
Is it just about common sense? No, you should problematize things that are taken for granted. Is an insider view best? Not necessarily, the task is not to replicate the insiders perpsectives Anything goes in terms of methods? Preformulated study design are avoided, but epistemological discipline and systematic method are pursued
Diane Forsythe: Its just common sense. Ethnography as invisible work INF5220 22.september 2005 Journal of CSCW, vol. 8 (March 1999), no. 1-2, pp. 127-145.
Using ethnography in IS research

Six misconceptions (4-6):
Doing fieldwork is just chatting with people and reporting what they say. No, peoples views are data, not results. Understanding and analyzing. To find out what people do, just ask them. Well, the predictive value of verbal representations and the generality of short-term observations are questionable. Complement with extended observations. Behavioural/organisational patterns exist, we must just discover them. Not a matter of looking, the expertise rests with the analyst, not in the recording technique.
Diane Forsythe: Its just common sense. Ethnography as invisible work INF5220 22.september 2005 Journal of CSCW, vol. 8 (March 1999), no. 1-2, pp. 127-145.
Bardram and Bossen

A case study using ethnographic methods, with the aim of informing design (i.e. not purely descriptive)

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Ethnographic methods

observations and interviews

INF5220 22.september 2005

What status do the data have?

INF5220 22.september 2005

What status do you assign to your data?

Do the interview give you accounts of authentic experiences?

Are the interviews jointly constructed encounters of focused interaction?

INF5220 22.september 2005

Not one correct category, choice depends on your purpose.

INF5220 22.september 2005

(Refer to Silverman chapter 4)

A bit more on constructionism

INF5220 22.september 2005

On interviewing and questioning

Ethnographic research (1)

Ethnographic research (2)

Ethical issues (e.g. informed consent)

Deciding your theoretical basis

INF5220 22.september 2005

Using ethnography in IS research

Using ethnography in IS research

Bardram and Bossen

INF5220 22.september 2005

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