ETHNOGRAPHY

Ethnographic research (also referred to as field research or participant observation) is a qualitative social science method that involves the observation of the interactions of everyday life, whether in public parks, business organizations, or mental health clinics. It is social constructionist, exploring intersubjective cultural meanings rather than positivist "social facts," or laws. The theoretical intent of ethnography is inductive, generating concepts and theories from the data. However, in sociology, ethnography is also associated with micro-level theories such as symbolic interactionism, ethno-methodology, labeling theory, and dramaturgy. In particular, the theories of everyday life developed by Georg Simmel (1950) and Erving Goffman (1959) form part of the disciplinary repertoire from which workers in the field draw their concepts. Some field researchers also link their ethnography to critical, macro-theoretical frameworks emphasizing power relations within hierarchies of gender, class, race, age, nationality, or sexual orientation (Diamond, 1993).

The goal of field research is on the development of analytic descriptions or grounded theories (Glaser and Strauss, 1967) of the social world, usually written but sometimes audio- or videotaped. As Clifford Geertz (1988) notes, "thick description" is the foundation of ethnography. But equally important is analysis: the generation of concepts, patterns, or typologies from thick description, and their linkage to concepts, theories, and literatures already established in the discipline. Although some academic fieldworkers may have other goals (such as helping the people in the setting), most seek to publish their ethnographic work as books or articles. There are also some field researchers who have turned to alternative forms of inscription, such as poems or plays, to try to bring to life the social worlds they study or (as in autoethnography) inhabit.

HISTORIES OF ETHNOGRAPHY

The contemporary origins of sociological ethnography are traced to the "Chicago School" of 1915–1940 (Bulmer 1984), and to nineteenth century sociological theory, reformist endeavors, and anthropological exploration. "Origin myths" seek the roots of ethnography in the writings of ancient and medieval travelers who sought first-hand knowledge of other cultures. Herodotus, for example, has been called the father of both history and sociology. In the fifth century b.c.e., Herodotus traveled to distant lands and recorded comments about the peoples and customs he found there; throughout the centuries into modern times, European, Persian, and Chinese explorers, traders, and missionaries followed suit. But it was in the nineteenth century, with the development of sociology as a discipline, that first-hand observation became part of the modern methodological repertoire.

Although the canonical work of the nineteenth century European theorists such as Karl Marx, Max Weber, and Émile Durkheim was macro-level and comparative-historical, the works are read for their ethnographic warrant. In particular, Weber's concept of verstehen, read as an interpretive immersion into the subjective worlds of respondents, is cited as an epistemological foundation of contemporary ethnography. Feminist ethnographers of the late twentieth century have added the names of prominent nineteenth and early twentieth century women to the histories of field research, citing Harriett Martineau's interest in the everyday lives of women and children, and Charlotte Perkins Gilman's "autoethnographic" account of her moral treatment for neurasthenia (Bailey 1996).

Anglo-American reform movements also played a part in the development of nineteenth and early twentieth century observational methods. With an Enlightenment focus on reason and the scientific method, reform efforts came to be accompanied by observational studies of the problems seen as needing remediation, from conditions in mental hospitals to poverty in the streets of London or New York. The work of reformist scholars such as Beatrice Webb and Charles Booth in Victorian London among the poor involved the use of survey and field research methods. During the same era, Beatrix Potter took a position in a London sweatshop in order to document working conditions and attempt to change them (Bailey 1996).

British and American anthropology, following Bronislaw Malinowski's lead, instituted several of the key elements of field research: the time commitment, immersion in the geographical space of the respondents, the use of cultural insiders as key informants, and the inscription of observations and thoughts. Other aspects of ethnographic research are traced to the Chicago School, with its eclectic mix of pragmatist philosophy, symbolic interaction, journalistic interests, and reformist tendencies (Bulmer 1984; Becker 1999). Robert Park's injunction to his Chicago students has been taught to subsequent generations of ethnographers:

go and sit in the lounges of the luxury hotels and on the doorsteps of the flophouses; sit on the Gold Coast settees and on the slum shakedowns; sit in the Orchestra Hall and in the Star and Garter Burlesk. In short, gentlemen, go get the seat of your pants dirty in real research (Bulmer 1984; 97).

The Chicago School sociologists pioneered the case study method, which included oral histories, documents, statistical surveys, and some fieldwork. And it was from Chicago that the themes of 1950s to 1970s fieldwork emerged: the focus on studies of everyday life exemplified by the work of Goffman (1959), and on labeling and deviance by Howard Becker (1963) and others. The methods learned by contemporary sociological ethnographers are grounded in the Chicago, neo-Chicago (Fine 1995) and "California" schools (Adler and Adler 1987), while there has also been convergence with other disciplines practicing ethnography, such as anthropology, education, and business.

DOING ETHNOGRAPHIC RESEARCH

Introductory texts on ethnographic research (for example, Bailey 1996; Lofland and Lofland 1995) emphasize the nonlinear aspect of the method: the reflexive interplay of data collection, writing, and analysis. However, two distinct sets of activities are involved in doing ethnography: interacting within the "field" and inscription. Inscription occurs in the form of field notes (and perhaps diaries, memos, analytic notes, and other writings) and drafts of the ethnographic paper or monograph. Interaction within the field poses the usual everyday life issues of roles and relationships, together with more particular concerns such as human subjects regulations, research ethics, and entrée. Thus, the methodology of field research poses intertwined issues of representation and interaction.

Before initiating research in the field, the ethnographer selects a setting, and makes her preparations for attempting entrée. These preparations may be as simple as walking across the road to the local park, or as complex as negotiating with the governments of Cuba and the United States for permission to travel and stay in Havana. For many studies, especially funded team ethnography, it is necessary for the ethnographer to obtain permission to do the study from Institutional Review Boards (IRBs) at her University, and perhaps at the organization she wishes to study, for example, a prison or mental hospital. These Institutional Review Boards ensure that the fieldworker's plans are in compliance with the basic tenets of human subjects protections: informed consent (which is often not possible in non-interview based field research) and protection of confidentiality (in practice, not naming respondents, nor providing identifying details in published work).

All fieldwork in public places, and some fieldwork in other places, is exempt from IRB scrutiny, but no fieldwork is exempt from ethical considerations. Ethical issues that have preoccupied ethnographers for several decades are those associated with the deception of respondents. In covert fieldwork, where the ethnographer pretends to be a member of the setting (for example, Alcoholics Anonymous), the respondents are deceived about the researcher's identity and purposes. This level of deception is probably less common than it was up until the early 1980s. More common, however, is fieldwork in settings where the researcher is already a member or participant, such as a bar where he is employed, or a bisexual or gay organization of which he is a member. In this type of "nonstranger" research, the fieldworker's identity is known, but she may or may not share her new research purposes with the other members.

Entrée and Incorporation. In a setting where she is initially a stranger, the ethnographer must negotiate entrée into the setting. If this is a public park, she simply goes and sits on a park bench. If this is an organization, she will have already negotiated initial entrée with an administrative "gatekeeper," and now must thread her way through the geographical and relational space of the setting, from the first to the last time she does fieldwork there. It is a truism of field research that entrée is not a one-time event: both physical and relational entrée must continually be negotiated and renegotiated throughout the field study. Initial setting gatekeepers may be followed by new gatekeepers of other parts of the setting, while "freeze outs" bar the door to some occasions or locales.

Once in the door, hoping to be allowed to stay and move about (and perhaps conduct formal or informal interviews), the researcher is incorporated into the setting: assigned a physical and conceptual space within the field by each individual respondent, and by groups of people within the setting. The language of incorporation, as against that of role playing, highlights the reciprocal nature of the interaction between the respondents and the ethnographer, in which the researcher cannot just "decide" what kind of role to play, but, rather, is assigned a place by the people in the setting. The ethnographer's personal and status characteristics—gender, age, nationality, appearance—are an important aspect of incorporation, and determine the place that will be afforded him within the setting. These characteristics may, indeed, preclude or smooth access to particular persons, events, or parts of the field. Much has been written about gender and ethnography (Warren and Hackney 2000, since gender and sexuality are focal elements of hierarchy, interactions, and relationships within many settings.

Incorporation is a powerful emotional force field for many ethnographers, drawing them into the web of relationships in the field. Old hands at fieldwork warn of the necessity—if an analytic description is to be written—of balancing immersion with distance, touching cognitive and emotional base with both disciplinary concepts and out-of-setting roles in order to avoid engulfment in the field (Pollner and Emerson 1988). Researchers who begin as members of the setting they are studying sometimes report the opposite, becoming more detached as they move from immersed membership to analytic observer: the field, once warmly familiar, can become a place of distance and even alienation.

In the classic language of the "research bargain," ethnographers may find that they are approached and sometimes used as economic, medical, status, labor, or even sexual resources in the organizations or communities where they conduct their fieldwork. Fieldwork "warnings and advice," although they avoid the positivist language of bias, note that such research bargains may take a toll on researchers in the form of time, emotions or funds. And at times, the incorporation of the ethnographer into the setting makes leaving the field emotionally difficult, although practically necessary. Some ethnographers, anthropologists in particular, revisit "their" fields at intervals of years or months in order to document change over time. But, once out of the field, the researcher is faced with the disciplinary requisite of starting or finishing the ethnographic writing of the inscription already begun in the field.

Ethnographic Representation. The endpoint of fieldwork is ethnographic representation: an article or book about the field, published in a scholarly journal, or as a monograph or trade book. Two major publication outlets for sociological ethnographies are the Journal of Contemporary Ethnography and Qualitative Sociology; fieldworkers may also publish in general, specialty (for example, gerontology or education), or anthropology journals. Many published ethnographies are "realist tales" (Van Maanen 1988), written in the traditional style of the analytic description: "I am here and this is what is going on here." Some are "confessional tales" which focus on the writer rather than on the respondents, while others experiment with alternative representational forms such as poetry or plays. There is also a well-established tradition of visual sociology which includes photography, film, video, and the internet together with more contemporary genres such as performance ethnography.

Written ethnographic representations begin with fieldnotes: the inscription of the field (Emerson et al. 1995). Fieldworkers are taught and exhorted to write down everything they can, including verbatim conversations, in the service of thick description. This exhortation approaches feasibility in bounded settings such as a self-help group meeting that occurs once a week for fifty minutes. It becomes more problematic when the ethnographer is faced with an entire village, or even perhaps a large urban area. In practice, fieldworkers often take note of, and inscribe, aspects of events and persons to which they habitually attend; for example, one person studying a restaurant takes note of spatial patterns, while another inscribes social types by appearance and clothing, and still another notes the interaction between servers and cooks.

The inscription of fieldnotes is vital to the traditional ethnographic enterprise, since the identification of analytic patterns is difficult without an adequate amount of field notes (what is "adequate" varying with the size and complexity of the field). Alongside fieldnotes (separated by parentheses, or on separate pieces of paper), fieldworkers write memos, diaries, and analytic notes which record their own feelings and thoughts, analytic ideas and possibilities, and sometimes events which they do not want recorded in their formal fieldnotes. Although most fieldnotes have no audience but the self, fieldnotes written for graduate seminars or funded team research may be read by instructors, supervisors, or co-workers. In inscribing the Other, fieldnotes also inscribe the self (Warren 2000).

POSTMODERN ETHNOGRAPHY AND BEYOND

Ethnography, like most corners of the social sciences, has been affected by postmodernism. As representations, both fieldnotes and published ethnographies are open to the postmodern critiques of social scientific representation, critiques which began in sociology with the work of Joseph Gusfield (1976) on the literary rhetoric of sociological writing. One result of this postmodern critique is the deconstruction of realist or traditional ethnography, which, in turn, has resulted in a withdrawal from the field (the Other) into the text or the self. This movement away from traditional fieldwork has given rise to an ironic reversal of earlier exhortations to "get out of the armchairs and into the streets." There is a joke in ethnographic circles today that goes something like this: Respondent to Ethnographer: "Well, enough about you. Why don't we talk a bit about me?"

While the postmodern ethnography of the 1990s sometimes takes place in the armchair and away from the streets, dwelling upon the self rather than upon the Other, it is likely that the new century and millenium will see a renewed concern with the activities, as well as the representations, of ethnography. Those sociologists concerned with relations of power and hierarchy—of gender, race, class, and nation—are particularly concerned that a focus on textual discourse and polyvocality (attending equally to the voices of the ethnographer and those of all the respondents) does not erase the critical function of ethnographic research. Jaber Gubrium and James Holstein (1997) suggest that contemporary ethnographers attend to both the "what" (the field), and the "how" (the representations of fieldwork), becoming "self-consciously attentive to both the world researched and the researcher" (1997: 212). This is the reflexivity toward which our ethnographic practice strives at the beginning of the twenty-first century.

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Carol A.B. Warren