Seminar in Qualitative Communication Research
Com 473 —Baldwin—Communication—Illinois State University
Updated 10/05/05
COM 473 Notes: Ethnography (of Communication)
BRING:
Ethnography books (if any)
Field notes from old exercise file
I. Introduction
to Ethnography (Lindlof, 1995)
A. What does
“ethnography” look like? (aspects, p. 134)
1. methods?
a. Participant
observation
b. Interviews
c. Textual/cultural
analysis
d. CA/DA
2. Purposes?
a. Observe/understand
b. Generalize?
c. Critique
power structures?
3. Benefits/limitations?
B. What traits make an
effective ethnographer? (Lindlof, 1995)
v tolerance for marginality (liminal, periphery,
mental marginality, even when “at home,” going native, ethics)
v requisite variety (of beliefs on the part of the researcher)
v multisensory sensitivity (limits of “observing”/visual bias, tuning up
“bodies”)
v on-line inferencing (deciding on the spot what is and is not important.
cross-referencing?)
v being a good person (“good guy” approach—easy and unpretentious; general social competence
(when to be gregarious, etc.; measured naivite)
v cultural differences (common experiential
grounding; autoethnography: strengths and
limitations!
C. What roles might the ethnographer take?
Role: has range of actions,
obligations, and rights that go with it…a ‘situated
character’
1. Roles based on degree of participation (Gold, 1958). When/why
would you
use each? Assumptions
of research? What are the strengths and limitations?
v complete participant (role pretense; real “naturalistic” research, but
restraints, threat of cover blowing, )
v participant-as-observer (doesn’t have to follow all rules, obligations;
partial access, “greater reciprocity”)
v observer-as-participant (brief contact? “observe
with minimal participation”—risks of imposing too much meaning)
v complete observer (maybe not even known to the interactants;
risk of “going ethnocentric,” of imposing too much structure/interp on participants
2. Roles based on social function
v Adler & Adler: complete
member, active member, peripheral member
“These roles entail different obligations,
liabilities, and chances for experiencing social life” (p. 149)
guarding against going native—see
experience as theorizing
v Snow et al: controlled
skeptic, ardent activist, buddy-researcher, credentialed expert
v Fine & Glassner: friend, leader, supervisor, observer vs.
“least-adult” role; watch out for reification
D. What to observe? (Tactical observing)
Site, scene, performances/practices
Wide angleàtight angle (telescopic
lens)
Suspended judgment. First “experience the
ambient scene” (Schatzman & Strauss, in L&T,
p. 153)
First and later visits (p. 153)
v Actors: “names” (nominal),
statuses, rules (constitutive/regulative)
v Scene: architecture, artifact,
uses of environment, etc.
v Interaction (initial?
process? specific functions?), social acculturation, rel’s,
statuses, etc.
v When/how do actors claim
attention?
v When/where congregate,
interact?
v What communicative events
are significant? (e.g., dugri,
communication, silence?)
1. Choosing a
role
2. Choosing/entering
the “field”
3. Finding the
“scenes” pertinent to the research problem
4. Bracket
judgment and need for closure, categories (be a novice!)
5. Delineating
and fleshing out “events”
“We learn to recognize
events by performing in them, by taking lines of action that make sense to the
participants” (p. 161).
2 principle roles during first weeks: p.
154
1. Developing
role, positioning, perspective
2. “What
is going on here”—full range of actors, scenes, etc.
Some Videos related to
Ethnography:
·
Health reform in Orissa: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rnyeMLtU5fo&feature=related
·
An obscure group in
California (fun): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sRv_oxQKeqw&feature=related
·
Going tribal on drugs: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KB2qjMVl39s&feature=related
·
Goth culture (video): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wekLyxxPz28&feature=related
·
Video games in college dorm:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QmVef5I0t_4
II. Theoretical Approaches to Ethnography
A. Issues
of ontology, epistemology, and axiology
From observation to criticism: T.
Clough
A return to realism?
Hammersly
So--objective,
subjective, or critical? modern or postmodern? Yes.
A. Ethnography
of Communication: Philipsen
1. Fundamental Axiom:
2. Coordinated Action:
3. Particularity
in Meaning and Action:
4.
Cultural
Particularity
The Descriptive Framework [mentioned in Philipsen, 1989, but not spelled out]
·
Scene: Where,
when, environment
·
Participants: Who’s
involved (characteristics, contexts of individuals, friends/not friends,
sissies as victims, who are perps & who are
victims?)
·
Ends: Why are people doing what they are doing? These
can be immediate ends (get close to teacher who is reading the story) or can be
longer-term social ends (establish power over other students).
·
Act sequence: “process,” steps. Is there, for example, escalation
prior to bullying in some cases, or does bullying occur randomly and w/o
provocation? Are there responses to bullying by students or teachers? Are some
more or less effective?
Actàinteractàdouble interact (response)
·
Key: tone, feeling involved.
·
Instrumentalities: How does the participant engage in
the act to meet the ends? Channels? Forms?
·
Norms: What is the accepted or expected range or set of
behaviors within the genre? What is one socially allowed, encouraged to do or
prohibited, discouraged from doing? Are the norms formalized, codified?
·
Genre: General classification of communicative behavior
(e.g., joke, gossip, insult, teaching content, bullying).
B. Rethinking
Ethnography (Conquergood, 1991)
1. The
return of the body
q end of the visual bias
q radical empiricism: from
Other-as-theme to Other-as-interlocuter
q from "schizophrenic
tendencies" to coeval intersubjectivity
q I/eye of ethnography (Renato Rosaldo)
2.
Boundaries and borderlands
q centering and decentering
q recognize the leakiness of categories
(Trinh); boundaries as membranes (RR)
q RR: borderlands, zones of
difference, busy intersections where many identities meet togheter
q Leave presuppositions of
pattern, continuity, coherency, and unity (Clifford), p. 184
q Discourses of (fluid) identity;
discourses of displacement
3. Rise of
Performance
q from patterns to performance
(p. 187)
q particular, participatory,
dynamic, intimate, precarious, embodied, w/I history, contingency, ideology (p.
187)
q linguistic and textual bias
(p. 188)
q performance paradign/polysemic performance
vs. "text-positivism"
4. Rhetorical
Reflexivity
q ethnography as rhetoric,
rather than as science (Geertz)
q writing oneself into the
text
q the irony of it all! (p. 193)
COM 473-Seminar in Qualitative Comm
Research Methods
Scene:
Participants:
Ends:
Act sequence:
Key:
Instrumentalities:
Norms:
Genre: