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Challenges in Ethnography Steve Kutay

Challenges in Ethnography Steve Kutay. “The besetting sin of interpretive approaches to anything…is that they tend to resist, or be permitted to resist, conceptual articulation and thus to escape systematic modes of assessment.” - Clifford Geertz, 1973. Three Areas Analyzed . Observation

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Challenges in Ethnography Steve Kutay

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  1. Challenges in EthnographySteve Kutay

  2. “The besetting sin of interpretive approaches to anything…is that they tend to resist, or be permitted to resist, conceptual articulation and thus to escape systematic modes of assessment.” - Clifford Geertz, 1973

  3. Three Areas Analyzed • Observation • Interpretation • Participation

  4. Observational Bias • Demand Characteristics: When informants or respondents are aware of being observed. • Experimenter Bias is the unintentional conveyance of expectations relating to the behavior of those being studied. • Measurement Artifacts such as audio or video recording equipment potentially influence responses or behaviors. (Frankfort-Nachmias and Nachmias, 2008) • Noninteractional Artifacts refers to systematic errors in observation (Rosenthal, 2008) based, in part, on pre-existing assumptions that define, limit or distort what is observed (Johnson, 1953).

  5. Observational Bias cont. • Ethical Considerations - Privacy and Confidentiality - responses or behaviors may be muted or withheld for fear of exposure. • Overt and Covert Agendas • Explicit agendas may produce respondent or informant notions of what is expected or anticipated. • Hidden agendas beg the question, “Would the informant object to being studied if the agenda was known?

  6. Interpreter Bias Peer assessments of research less frequently question what is observed, but more frequently question the interpretation of what is observed. (Rosenthal and Rosnow, 2008) Noninteractional artifacts of interpretation - The memory can selectively choose what is important. - The eye can be deceived. (Rosenthal and Rosnow, 2008) Interactional artifacts - Recording devices are neutral, but add an additional layer of obtrusion.

  7. Interpreter Bias cont. • Motivation Does the interpreter occupy a neutral space? Are the interpretations of data intended to support previous research? • Subjective positioning Theoretically sound in phenomenology, but does it tell the whole story? Are all informants (and therefore all positions) adequately represented?

  8. Participatory Bias Becoming accepted is an anthropological privilege and gives the observer an inside view to a culture (see Geertz, 1973). • Question: Does this moment of acceptance alter the perspective necessary to critically observe? • Empathy, sympathy and sense of kinship can affect an observer’s interpretations. • Boundary Management balances closeness and distance in order to maintain a critical perspective (Arber, 2006).

  9. Corrective Measures Lincoln and Guba (1985) - four-point criterion for establishing validity and reliability in qualitative research. 1. Credibility – incorporates critical peer review, and ‘member checks.’ 2. Transferability – provides a highly detailed (thick) description to judge the findings. 3. Dependability – achieved by way of an auditing procedure. 4. Confirmability – seeks to establish neutrality through reflexive self- analysis. The fifth criteria of Lincoln and Guba (1989, 1994) 5. Authenticity – demonstrates fairness achieved through representing multiple viewpoints. (Seale, 2002, pp.104-105)

  10. Corrective Measures cont. Hammersley (1992) promoted a quantitative and qualitative compromise drawing on evidence. Three principles to establish ‘validity’ and ‘reliability’: 1. Variations on the existing knowledge of a subject require sufficient evidence. 2. Core arguments require ample evidence to support them. 3. Different levels of evidence are required to support definitions, descriptions, explanations and theories. (Seale, 2002, p.107)

  11. “Good quality research has the character of a well-crafted artefact” - Clive Seale, 2002

  12. References • Arber, A. “Reflexivity: A challenge for the researcher as practitioner?.” Journal of Research in Nursing 11, no. 2 (2006): 147. • Geertz, C. “1973. Deep play: Notes on the Balinese cockfight.” The interpretation of cultures (1972): 412–53. • Hammersley, M. “What's Wrong with Ethnography.” Ethnography. Methodological Explorations (1992). • Johnson, M. L. “Seeing's believing.” New Biology 15 (1953): 60–80. • Lincoln, Y. S., and E. G. Guba. Naturalistic inquiry. Sage, 1985. • Lincoln, Y. S. and E. G. Guba. Fourth generation evaluation. Sage Publications, 1989. • Lincoln, Y. S., and E. G. Guba. “Competing paradigms in qualitative research.” Handbook of qualitative research (1994): 105–117. • Nachmias, D. Frankfort-Nachmias, 2000 Research Methods in the Social Sciences. St Martin's Press, New York. • Nathan, R. My freshman year. Cornell University Press, 2005. • Rosenthal, R., and R. L. Rosnow. Essentials of behavioral research: Methods and data analysis (2008) 3rd. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill. • Seale, C. “Quality in qualitative research.” Qualitative inquiry 5, no. 4 (1999): 465.

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