Essay: Ethnography

Ethnography refers to the systematic study of cultures and people that are particularly designed to examine cultural phenomena. In ethnography, the researcher explores the society from the perspective of the study subjects. The approach represents a group’s culture both in writing and graphically. The case report that the researcher presents portrays the system of meanings and the knowledge that exists within the target cultural group. Specifically, ethnography entails systematic model to learning the cultural and social lives of institutions and communities among other settings. The approach is investigative, scientific, uses accurate data collection techniques and research methods to minimize bias and promote data accuracy. Moreover, the approach applies both deductive and inductive to allow for the construction of local theories that are both culturally and socially valid so that they can be tested and utilized locally and globally. Further, ethnography emphasizes the development of the perspectives of the people involved in the research settings, whereby the researcher acts as the primary data collection tool.  Ethnography is based on the principle that how people make construct and make meaning, as well as human behaviour, are extensively locally specific and variable. This paper examines the shifting practice of ethnography from 1945 to date, and further illustrates how the shift teaches us about the relationship between the social sciences’ method and politics.
Ethnography in the Traditional Context
Traditionally, ethnography as a science differs from other scientific approaches of enquiry in that it is founded on the assumption that a researcher must focus on first discovering what people do and the factors that influence them to perform such functions before they can adequately interpret the actions using filters derives from theories derived from academic disciplines and personal experiences (Macdonald 2001).  Hence, ethnographic tools are designed for discovery before testing, and they mainly use the eyes and ears of the researcher who learn through systematic observation and interviews and systematically record what they observe, hear or see people do and assign meaning to the things that people make and do. A key weakness of the approach is that some individuals are uncomfortable with the idea of the researcher acting as the primary data collection tool, given their belief and perception of science as an objective. Hence, the interaction and presence of the researcher in environments comprising of such individuals increase the risk of achieving biased results.
Ethnography largely examines the concept of ethnicity, which applies to groups that constantly work together towards maintaining their political and cultural identity, as well as to facilitate access, advancement, and protection of the members’ resources within a national system. The position of individuals within a society is often reciprocal since it is manipulated by individuals themselves as well as the others. Commonly, people tend to act based on the structural constraints that others impose on them in the context of identities, as others tend to control the enactment of roles and redefine their limits (Macdonald, 2001). Moreover, individuals may manipulate their position by determining the people they opt to associate with and the manner in which they present themselves before others for purposes of increasing their cultural, political, and social power over other people.
These factors illustrate the need for ethnographers to determine the disadvantages that face research participants and the multiple power positions that the participants hold. However, the idea also demonstrates the need for the ethnographer to identify his or her characteristics and position, which place them both inside and outside the research site. Awareness of the position that the researcher occupies has become more significant in the recent years since it pertains to more than just the researcher being the last word to the story that is to be told based on the research. In both the traditional and modern contexts, ethnography seeks to examine the behaviour of participants and the interpretation of such behaviour (Kitching 1985). The behaviour that participants portray can be shaped by several factors, including constraints that the individuals experience following the prevailing situations in the society.
Traditionally, ethnography as an approach to research was first pioneered in the cultural, social, and biological branches of anthropology. However, in the since 1945, the approach is increasingly becoming popular in social sciences, including history, communication studies, and sociology (Kitching 1985). A typical ethnography comprises of a holistic study, including a short history, as well as an analysis of the climate, terrain, and habitat. Both the traditional and modern contexts require ethnography to be reflexive and make a tangible contribution towards understanding the humans’ social life, an express reality that is credible and present an aesthetic impact on the audience or reader. Hence, ethnographies record all observed behaviour and describe all the relations that exist between symbols and their associated meanings by applying concepts that evade causal explanations. In the traditional context, ethnography concentrated on the Western perception of the Far East, which was described as exotic. However, presently, researchers apply the approach in examining their social environments since although a society can be viewed as the native, another, or the other in the modern contexts, the society is still described as another since it is characterised by diverse facades that connect people to each other within the society as well as those facades that bring out their outstanding differences within the same society.
The Changing Concept of Ethnography and the Relationship between Politics and the Approach
The concept of ethnography has demonstrated significant changes since 1945. Berman (1996) describes the social sciences approach as more than a methodology or method, as well as more than mere observation of participants. Both in the traditional and present contexts, ethnography refers to both practice and product. Practice pertains to the fieldwork, where the researcher focuses on obtaining information about the study participants through quantitative surveys, interviews, and observations. On the other hand, the product pertains to the ethnographic monogram or the resulting written text. In modern societies, ethnography is central to the study of anthropology.
The concept examines the changes that have occurred, and it has contributed to the ramification of changes in the traditional subject matter of anthropology. In the 1920s, the term was applied to a particular tradition that defined a limited range of regional specialties in ethnography, series of theoretical problems, central monograms, a set of names in Britain (Macdonald 2001). However, the approach applied even to non-British individuals and further spread to other parts of the world, such as France. The numerous changes that have occurred to ethnography since 1945 have influenced the emergence of a new intellectual movement, beginning in the 1970s (Macdonald 2001). As observed in Britain today, anthropologists demonstrate greater diversity both in the range of research in anthropology and the immediate ancestors of anthropology that they claim.
Further, the concept of ethnography has evolved over the years, and it is presently considered as politics and politics considered as ethnography. This factor is largely associated with the idea that politics plays a vital role in influencing people’s behaviour, which forms the basis of ethnography, while the results of ethnography also influence politics by shaping the attitudes of the people towards the existing political systems through explaining the factors that lead to their behaviour towards the political systems. Berman (1996) illustrates this view through Kenyatta’s efforts to address the dilemmas that faced the Kikuyu community during the colonial period as their leader. For the leader to adequate resolve the problems; there was a need for him to satisfactorily understand the problems that faced his community by exploring the community’s behaviour at the time and seeking to establish why such behaviour dominated. The view portrays politics as ethnography in that the political process or politicians are required to study their subjects to understand their needs by observing their behaviour since the role of the system is to resolve the problems that affect their societies or people.
In the case of Kenyatta, he managed to effectively represent the needs of his people by examining the contradictions that existed between the external politics that pertained to group interests and the cultural community, which could be understood through behaviour observation. The external politics involves the extensive political debate within which African communities sought to negotiate the limits of the moral community and the foundations of social status that emerged as reactions to the changes that emanated from the introduction of such new and foreign elements as Christianity, foreign rule, print vernaculars, and capitalist production among others. These elements necessitated the establishment of boundaries and collective rule to counter the competitive forces of the ethnic objectives and leadership resulting from the alien intrusion. Berman (1996) notes that Kenyatta was able to address the people’s concerns successfully by bridging the identified gap by inventing his authority that aimed at uniting the Kikuyu community to ensure that they spoke in his voice, a united voice.
Although ethnography in the modern societies is considered to influence politics and vice versa largely, the approach faces extensive criticism as more people question the findings gathered through the approach, particularly in relation to the political perspective. However, Chilcott (1998) maintains that the structural functionalism, which is an approach to conducting research and analyzing ethnographic data is still a powerful tool today that researchers apply in social sciences. The approach possesses several strengths including the fact that it is effective in solving problems and easily understood among professional educators since it is mechanical. The functionalist approach plays a crucial role in the provision of solutions to problems that are otherwise difficult to justify through a theoretical perspective.
Critical ethnography has also demonstrated a significant contribution to politics particularly in the context of power in the culturally specific and reproductive processes. However, ethnography has changed towards the idea of the naturalization of inequalities and the construction of consent, which presents a distinct element from that of the method applied before 1945 (Banfield 2004). These changes demonstrate the close relationship between politics and ethnography through the processes of detachment, whereby the modern ethnography focuses on working with oppressed groups to understand their problems and their root courses so that they can be addressed effectively through the established political systems. According to Lather (2002) modern ethnography, which focuses on reflexive experimentation, is inseparable from politics in that it enhances the practical and political intent rather than diluting it in the context of critical ethnography.
From this perspective, de Volo and Schatz (2004) postulate that ethnographic approaches play a vital role in the study of politics and issues that influence or affect politics. In most political situations that require study, ethnographic methods form the ideal approaches for identifying the causes of problems and finding viable solutions to the problems. However, the advancements in technology, such as the computer-aided research approaches pose a threat to ethnography as it is seen as gradually becoming outdated. Despite this element, ethnography possesses a great capacity to provide insights into political life. Presently, researchers are increasingly embracing the new technological advancements in the field of research, contributing to the diminishing emphasis on ethnography in the study of politics (Li, 2011). The trend is detrimental to the study of politics because ethnography has demonstrated its strengths in adequately exploring problems affecting societies by studying human behaviour and determining the most suitable problems by analyzing the problems and the accompanying behaviour. These aspects cannot be adequately studied using such approaches as the computer-based data collection methods since some elements of human behaviour can only be studied through the direct interaction of the researcher and the study participants, which allows for the observation of non-verbal communication.
Conclusion
Ethnography has demonstrated significant changes since 1945, whereby the approach only focused on studying human behaviour with the researcher as the primary tool for collecting data as well as the final word to the results obtained. Presently, the methodology incorporates the perspectives of others as well as the inclusion of technological developments since it is applied in the study of politics as they relate to the needs of the people. The shifts in ethnography have further illustrated that politics cannot be separated from the social sciences method of research since the involve addressing the needs of the people so as the people’s objectives can be aligned with those of the political systems to minimize conflicts. Identify such needs require studying populations through ethnographic approaches, which focus on observing human behaviour and interpreting the behaviour to reveal underlying problems and suggest potential solutions. Therefore, although ethnography is increasingly getting outdated with the emergence of more sophisticated, technologically driven approaches to research, the methodology remains vital to the study of politics. Hence, there is a need to equip more researchers with the ideas of ethnography as well as the skills and knowledge essential in effectively studying human behaviour amidst the changing environment as a result of technology.