Ethnographic Interviews

Ethnographic Interviews Describing Culture from a Native’s Point of View

The General Data Collection Process Broad and General Questioning Grand Tour Improves inquiry validity Mini Tour Systematic Approaches Facilitates comparison, triangulation, data portability and analysis Focused Systematic Questioning

Three Types of Interviews • Unstructured • Semistructured • Structured

Understanding complex systems of meaning • We can represent these complex systems of meanings (culture) as cognitive maps • What we do may also be called ethnographic semantics in which we focus on the understanding of cultural meaning systems • Culture can not be observed directly

Ethnographic Inference • From what people say • From the way people behave • From the artifacts people use • Much of what we will learn concentrates on the first

Explicit and Tacit Knowledge • Explicit Cultural Knowledge—Readily expressed cultural knowledge • More easily expressed through language and easy to infer (e.g., “starve a cold and feed a fever”) • The world of South Pole crews being culturally conceived of in terms of “beaker” vs. trades crew

Tacit Cultural Knowledge • Much of culture consists of knowledge that may not be expressed directly—taken for granted and outside our awareness • Ethnographers must make inferences about knowledge from careful attention to what people say, do and use. • Both tacit and explicit knowledge is revealed through speech • Language is the means for transmitting culture from generation to generation

Culture is Encoded in Linguistic Form • The ethnographic interview approach focuses on what people say—apt for the HTT context • It is a strategy for getting people to talk about what they know • “It seeks to build a systematic understanding of all human cultures from the perspective of those who have learned them.” • What we want to do is describe and discover the regularities, patterns and variations in human behavior, but through interviewing.

Describing Culture in Its Own Terms • Translation Competence—refers not simply to the ability to speak a language but to understand and translate the subtleties of a native language • Even if one is a native speaker different native peoples talk about their worlds in subtle ways that might not be correctly interpreted—e.g., Spradley’s “making a flop” • Need to acquire linguistic competence that has an impact on ethnographic discovery • Need to learn another language within a language

Ethnographic Descriptions are a Form of Translation • Combines native terms and their meaning along with ethnographers inferences and interpretations • “The ethnographer wants to discover patterns of meaning in what the informant says.” • Finding patterns both within and between informants

Advantage—You are studying a culture that you are not familiar with—You lack a natives take it for granted type of cultural knowledge.Things will stand out to you that would not to a native.

The ethnographic Interview • It is a speech event and it can appear to some degree like a friendly conversation • You ultimately want to incorporate ethnographic elements into the interview but must be concerned to not go too quickly • You do not want this to seem like a “formal interrogation” • You want rapport with the informant and you want to maintain the informant’s cooperation • “A few minutes of easygoing talk interspersed throughout the interview will pay enormous dividends in rapport.” • The HTT context generally requires the establishment of rapport to take place almost exclusively within the interview itself (we usually get to know informants informally before going into the more formal interview process)

Ethnographic Elements • Explicit Purpose • The ethnographer must make the purpose of the interview clear to the informant. • Ethnographic interviews have purpose and direction and therefore can come off as too formal---you need to minimize this formal feel. • The interview moves from the informal friendly (to build rapport) to the more formal as the interview proceeds

Ethnographic Elements • Ethnographic Explanations • You must always make the purpose of the interview clear (even in the informant has been interviewed before) since you are attempting to get the informant to become your teacher.

The Five Ethnographic Explanations • Project Explanations • Recording Explanations • Native Language Explanations • Interview Explanations • Question Explanations

Project Explanations • General statements about what the project is about (what types of things are you interested in having answered in broad terms). • General: “I’m interested in your life as a herder.” • Specific: “I would like to know what herders do, how they talk about their daily routines, how they talk to other herders, and understand what it means to be a herder from you point of view.”

Recording Explanations • Check to see if writing down or recording interview statements is ok. • “Do you mind if I write notes on what you say so I can go over them later?”

Native Language Explanations • You want informants to use their native language (the subtle kind) and not use their translation competence • They will want to say things in ways they think you want to hear them or translate in to language they think you want to hear or that they think you will understand • “If you were telling this to another herder, what would you say?”

Interview Explanations • Usually there are repeated interviews and the ethnographer can eventually move the interview to a more formal level • We do not have that luxury but can move from a more conversational to more formal interview within the course of a single speech event • These more formal events include drawing maps, doing card sorts, etc. • You need to

Question Explanations • Need to explain when changing the ethnographic question or from one topic to another • “I want to ask you a different type of question.”

Ethnographic Questions • Spradley identifies more than 30 types of questions. The three main types are: • Descriptive questions • Structural question • Contrast questions

Descriptive Questions • Helping to collect samples of an informant’s language or use of words. • Easiest to ask and used in all interviews, particularly in the beginning. • “Could you describe a typical day of herding you stock?”

Structural Questions • Allow for the discovery of information about domains, the basic units of informants’ cultural knowledge • Help in discovering how informants organize cultural knowledge • “What are the kinds of animals you hunted on your last hunting trip?” • “Can you think of any other activities you do while herding your stocks?” (Always important to probe and repeat)

Contrast Questions • Need to find out what informant’s terms mean • Allows for the discovery of dimensions of meaning used to distinguish between objects and events • “You mentioned caribou and moose, what’s the difference between a caribou and a moose?”

The Ethnographic Interview Process Greetings Ethnographic Explanations Asking Friendly Questions Ethnographic Explanations Expressing Cultural Ignorance Asking Ethnographic Question Repeat Express cultural Ignorance Ask Descriptive Question (Grand Tour) Repeat Express Interest Ask Descriptive Question (Mini Tour) Incorporate Native Terms Express Ignorance Ask Structural Question Expressing/Restating Expressing Interest and Ignorance Restate Ethnographic Explanation Take Leave Express Ignorance Mini Tour Question—Hypothetical Situation

Lack of balance in taking turns—informants talk more • Repetition instead of avoidance of repetition • Expressing interest and ignorance is almost all on the part of the ethnographer (remember you are the student) • Instead of brevity the ethnographer encourages the informant to expand at every step • This process requires much practice to acquire

Problem Traditionally ethnographers have weeks or even months to move from the more general and open to the more focused and systematic within an informant You may only have 1 interview before having to ask more systematic type questions or you may have to become more systematic within the same interview

The Ethnographic Record • The native’s language • The ethnographer’s language • Best to have verbatim record of what people say • Distinguish between native terms and observer terms in any field notes or written record

Rapport Process Apprehension Exploration Cooperation Participation

The Rapport Problem is Particularly Problematic Here • Apprehension • Descriptive questions are particularly good for starting the conversation and keeping the informant talking Apprehension hopefully gives way to exploration

Exploration • Figuring out the relationship • May have to set aside prepared questions to talk of something of interest to the informant • Need to judge the reaction of informants to your actions • Make repeated explanations • Restate what informants say —demonstrates interest • Don’t ask for meaning, ask for use---You learn meaning not by asking why but by asking how people use ordinary language

Participation • Informants begin to take on a more assertive role helping you more easily achieve your interview goals • Not all get to this stage particularly for this context

Ethnographic Questions • Assumes the question-answer sequence is a single element of human thinking. • “Thus, the task of the ethnographer is to discover questions that seek the relationship among entities that are conceptually meaningful to the people under investigation (Black and Metzger, 1965:144).”

Discovering Questions • Record the questions people ask in everyday life. • Can inquire directly about questions used by people in some cultural scene or context. • Or, ask informant to talk about a particular cultural scene

Direct Inquiry (Black and Metzger) • “What is an interesting question about_________?” • What is a question to which the answer is________?” • Ask an informant to write a text in question and answer form.

Descriptive QuestionsTalking About a Particular Cultural Scene • “advantage of the power of language to construe settings (Frake)”. • “Could you describe a typical day in the village square?” • “What do you do as a herder?”

Expanding the length of the question expands the length of the response • “Could you tell me what the mosque is like?” • I have never been in a mosque here in _____, so I don’t have much of an idea of what it is like. Could you kind of take me through the mosque and tell me what it’s like, what I would see if I went into the mosque and walked around? • Trying to get the informants to tell you as much as they can in greater detail.

Five Types of Descriptive Questions • Grand Tour Questions • Mini-Tour Questions • Example Questions • Experience Questions • Native-Language Questions

Grand Tour Questions • Typical grand-tour questions • “Could you describe to me a typical day in the olive grove?” • “Could you describe to me how you typically set your salmon net?” • Ask informants to talk and generalize about a pattern of events

Grand Tour Questions • Specific Grand Tour Questions • “Could you describe to me what happened the last time you had an empty soda can?” • “Tell me what you did yesterday, from the time you got up til the time you went to sleep?” • Often hard to describe the typical event but may be easier to anchor on a real event

Grand Tour Questions • Guided Grand Tour Questions • “Could you take me around the farm?” • “Next time you go out to set a fishing net can I come along a so you can explain to me how you do it?” • An actual tour of something

Grand Tour Questions • Task-Related Grand Tour • “Can you draw a map of the village and describe to me the places where men typically socialize with one another in the evenings?” • “Could you play a game of ______ and explain to me what you are doing?” • A simple task that aids in the description

Mini-Tour Questions • Breaking events into their constituent parts • “Could you describe what you are doing with the hydraulic roller while setting the net?” • “Could you describe to me what you do for the mid day meal when herding your flock?” • There are typical, specific, guided, and task-related mini-tour questions

Example Questions • Even more specific and ask the informant to provide an example • Informant: “I was shoulder hopped by this guy.” • Ethnographer: “Could you give me an example of shoulder hopping?” • May lead to interesting stories of actual events

Experience Questions • Asking for informant’s actual experiences with something • “You have probably had some interesting experiences while out fishing; can you recall any of them?” • “Can you tell me about some interesting experiences you’ve had while commuting to work in Kabul?” • Often elicit atypical events

Native-Language Questions • Designed to minimize the influence of informant’s translation competence—encourages terms and phrases most commonly used in the cultural scene • Three Types: Direct-Language Questions Hypothetical-Interaction Questions Typical-Sentence Questions

Direct-Language Questions • “How do you refer to this?” • “What would you call this?” • “Would you say ____?” • Surfer: “When I take off I try to get inside the wave.” • Ethnographer: “How would you refer to the inside of the wave?” • Surfer: “Oh, it is called the tube.”

Hypothetical-Interaction Questions • Since roles and identities are important in what people might say to one another, you can create a hypothetical interaction. • “If you were talking to another surfer (herder, cab driver) what would you say?” • “If I was sitting at a table next to men who were drinking tea in the café what would they typically say to each other?” • Discover how people talk to one another depending on their roles

Typical-Sentence Questions • Provide the informant with one or more native terms to use in a sentence • “What are some sentences I would hear that include the phrase getting some air?”

Ethnographic Interviews