Ethnography

Ethnography is the description, interpretation, and analysis of a culture or social group, or of particular social practices, processes, or problems, through field research in naturally occurring settings. Ethnography is the core research practice of social and cultural anthropology and is commonly used in sociology and cultural studies, as well as in studies of science and technology, health, education, crime, and, increasingly, in consumer research, design, and product development. The method of participant observation is central to the practice of ethnography.

In anthropology, conventionally, ethnographic fieldwork is a long-term, comprehensive social immersion, usually in a culture alien to that of the researcher. This is contrasted with sociological ethnography, which usually involves more bounded periods of fieldwork and relatively discrete cultural forms and often takes place in the researcher's own society.

Within ethnography, participant observation is commonly supplemented with interviewing, as well as other research methods including, but not limited to, textual analysis and the interpretation of visual representations and material artifacts. However, the practice of ethnography cannot be reduced to particular research methods, or even a single methodological position. As John Brewer notes, different theoretical and philosophical frameworks compete over what ethnography is and how it should be practiced, due to their commitment to different understandings of the nature of society (ontology) and the nature of knowledge (epistemology). While sociologists are far from reaching consensus, British sociologists Paul Atkinson, Amanda Coffey, and Sara Delemont have described the “ethnographic imagination” as implying a commitment to the interpretation of social action, an understanding of social organization, an analysis of the realization of macrolevel processes in local social contexts, and a recognition of the complexity and multiplicity of cultural meanings in observed social action (2003, 113–115).