Ethnography
Ethnography is an explanatory account of life experiences in a social system based on detailed observations of what people do and express (Marcus, 1995). Ethnography aims to study social and cultural aspects of a society and the researcher focuses to collect information for that. It focuses on behaviour of people with respect to the social setup they live in. This approach is highly immersive and provides one with a highly transparent and original account of information allowing the culture to speak for itself (Khan, 2018). The behaviour of the participants in each social situation is examined along with the group members’ interpretation of such behaviour (Wolff, 2015). Ethnography uses both qualitative and quantitative research methods when studying specific groups that form a part of a larger complex society (Falzon, 2005).
Ethnography: GO-GN Insights
Chtena (2019) has developed a multi-sited ethnographic design including interviews, observations and a system analysis approach to track the development and implementation of open textbooks in Californian higher education. What makes multi-sited ethnography attractive is the prospect of systematically linking observations seemingly distant geographical, institutional, organisational, cultural, technological and cognitive settings. In this case, multi-sited ethnography does not set out from a particular site, but rather from the construction of specific social practices and phenomena within a relational network that connects several places (e.g., institutions, people, objects, projects and discourses).
“The study demonstrates that binary conceptualizations of openness (i.e., “open” vs “closed”) based on formal characteristics (e.g., licensing) are not reflective of how people “do” openness in practice, and that different needs, values, priorities and interpretations of “open” give rise to different artifacts in different disciplines and institutional settings. Moreover, the study shows how the frictions of open textbook production, circulation, and maintenance belie the fantasy of open textbooks as a dynamic interface prime for adaptation, modification and remix. What makes multi-sited ethnography attractive is the prospect of systematically linking observations from seemingly distant geographical, institutional, organizational, cultural, technological and cognitive settings. The promise of multi-sited ethnography is, far beyond the simple multiplication of field-sites, a new way of describing systemic relationships and the interdependency of the many ‘parts and subparts’ of the sociotechnical infrastructure in which technology, such as open textbooks, is embedded. A concern with multi-sitedness, on the other hand, is that by spreading the ethnographer too thinly across space, it jeopardizes anthropology’s commitment to depth and thick description. If, especially, the overall duration of the fieldwork remains the same as in single-sited research, it will only be possible to visit and investigate each site comparatively briefly, and build relatively superficial relationships with key informants. Thus, one of the key strengths of ethnography is in danger of being lost. While this is an important corrective, I believe that, in the context of this study, the benefits of multi-sitedness outweigh the potential disadvantages. Since I followed the movement of content and ideas through the open textbook ecosystem, a systemic, multi-locale, multi-entity and multi-platform approach is fitting.
“My advice for anyone interested in multi-sited ethnography is to make sure they have a really good grasp of ethnographic methods, as well as systems theory. It is a lot harder, in many ways, than single-sited ethnography — harder to plan and harder to execute, so be strategic and be prepared to get outside your comfort zone. I wouldn’t recommend this method to anyone who’s trying to finish their project in a very short amount of time. I also believe that it necessitates a highly interdisciplinary outlook and training.”
Walter Butler used Netnography (online Ethnography) to support research into virtual communities of practice and provide a framework to guide the research through various stages. It also supports the utilisation of further complementarymethods (including interviews and content analysis) throughout.
“Using Netnography holds several advantages for my research project specifically: it supports research online and provides a framework to work within guiding the research through various stages. It also supports the utilization of different methods throughout its stages. But it is a younger methodology, which may be disadvantageous to some. I am also applying a
two-stage, sequential design. I feel that this approach allows me to address the research questions in a more strategic manner, and it also provides me with a pacing-structure to the research (ie: let’s figure this out first so that I can begin thinking about this other piece). This may take more time, though, than other processes, and it also leads to some ambiguity; ie: I couldn’t give a precise prediction of how many participants I would have for the second stage of the research project, as it was contingent on the findings from the 1st stage. This may be problematic for some.”
Useful references for Ethnography: Angrosino (2007); Falzon (2005); Khan (2018); Marcus (1995); Marcus (1999); Williams et al. (2014); Wolff (2015).