Ethnographic Studies

Ethnographies in Anthropology and Other Social Sciences

The origins of ethnographic studies can be traced back to the 19th century: the first work about collecting data regarding non-European peoples can be considered to be Joseph-Marie De Gérando's Considérations sur les Diverses Méthodes à Suivre Dans l'Observation des Peuples Sauvages (Considerations on the Various Methods to be Followed in the Observation of Savage Peoples), published in 1800, in which problems related to gathering information in different societies are thematized and the importance of knowing the local language is underlined. In the second half of the 19th century, ethnographic studies developed in close relation with the colonial enterprise, which connected the Western world with previously unknown distant places. Many of these pioneer studies were based on derived sources, collected through surveys such as the ones published under the title Notes and Queries on Anthropology. This first model of ethnographic inquiry was followed by a new trend, with anthropologists visiting the terrain for longer periods. Later in the century, in fact, several ethnographic surveys were conducted in teams, comprised mainly of naturalists whose research was guided by positivist and evolutionist principles. Ethnographic methods were by then closely related to ethnology, a discipline whose aim was to establish comparisons among different cultures and societies. Some of these experiences, such as the 1898 Cambridge Anthropological Expedition to the Torres Strait, produced important data about the social features of the peoples involved and showed the urgency of specific in-depth research carried out in small-scale societies. This expedition team, which included the physician and musician Charles Myers among its members, achieved some of the earliest music recordings on wax cylinders.

The real turning point came in the 1920s with Bronislaw Malinowski's work, which laid the foundation of modern ethnography and anthropology. In Argonauts of the Western Pacific (1922), based on his research in the Trobriand Islands (Papua New Guinea), Malinowski presented a new research method: the participant observation. This approach involves intensive fieldwork and a long stay within a community during which the ethnographer interacts with its members as intimately as possible. This implies, on one hand, that the researcher participates in the life and activities of the group, has a practical experience of living like the group, and so develops an understanding of their culture from the inside. On the other hand, Malinoswki insisted on a strictly scientific methodology, which allows the researcher to observe the organization of the society, its beliefs, and cultural norms, while producing “objective” knowledge. The balance between an insider and an outsider perspective should produce an understanding of the given society that reflects its intimate feeling, perceived through the ethnographer's empathy, but that can be grasped by people that are not part of it.

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