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Ethnographic Insights: Observing People and Context

Learn the importance of community participant observation through Sidewalk Methods. Explore context crucial in understanding criminal justice and housing markets. Discover the value of showing real people and situations, using sociological theories in observations. Embrace transparency by admitting biases and avoiding cherry-picking data. Consider moral and ethical issues like trust, exploitation, and fairness in research. Respect human subjects beyond IRB standards in the field.

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Ethnographic Insights: Observing People and Context

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  1. SOC 531: Community Organization Participant Observation

  2. Sidewalk Methods (Five Points) • Talk is Cheap • What people say • What they do • What it means • Consider what we get from • Transcriptions • Recordings • Field notes

  3. Sidewalk Methods (point #2) • Context is crucial • Criminal justice system • Housing market • Can’t be blinded by details (ethnographic fallacy: can understand everything from ethnography, without any background or contextual information) • Must inform ethnography/local detail with larger context

  4. Sidewalk Methods (point #3) • Show people and situations • Need to find living and breathing persons • Need to discover situations • Use people as “incumbents of roles” (or what we have called cats)—not fully developed characters (like social workers in Cornerville) • Can then use sociological theory • Confront theories with persons and situations • Consider use of twelve step programs in recovery and stories of people who don’t use the programs

  5. Sidewalk Methods (point #4) • Not insulating self from data • Ethnography is an Open Method • Don’t know topics in advance • Need to be open to • People • Situations • Can’t be captive of first contact (Doc In Cornerville) • Need contact to get in • Need to go beyond that initial contact

  6. Sidewalk Methods (continued) • Not a random or representative sample • Need to look beyond the available • Need to ask, “Who and what are missing?” • Public urination • Drugs • Chatting up women

  7. Sidewalk Methods (point #5) • Transparency • Admit personal biases • Recognize when author’s opinion is influencing • Respondent’s words • Respondents actions • Avoid “cherry picking” or selecting snippets that defend author’s opinion and interpretation • But also avoid letting respondent impose his/her interpretation and presentation of self

  8. Sidewalk Methods • Example of Ishmael and addiction • Ishmael focuses on his own efforts • Author recognizes that Ishmael had been in a program

  9. Moral and Ethical Issues • IRB: Do No Harm • But what about exploitation? • Author makes money • Author gets status as professor • Proposal to share royalties • After the book was published (not to influence production) • Effort to share the money (~$200 each) • Respondents did not believe that was all

  10. The Problem of Trust • When in the field, trust and honesty is critical • Your identity • Your project • Your ethical standards • After the book comes out • Resentment that story was not “fair and unbiased” (Cornerville characters) • Resentment that author profited from encounter

  11. Resentment is Inevitable • Need to take this seriously • Need to respect the human subject • Above and beyond Institutional Review Board (IRB) approval • Concern about lawsuits • Concern about university’s reputation • Concern about the people (including the guy who was a crack addict: Ron “Obie”)

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