Ethnographic methods

1
Ethnographic methods

• observations and interviews

2
Interviews

• First well discuss the 3rd assignment
• Using interviews in your research? Here are two
  questions that you need to think about
• What status do you allocate to the data? I.e.
  what do you think about the relation between the
  interviewees accounts and the world(s) they
  describe?
• What do you think about the relation between the
  interviewee and the interviewer?

3
What status do the data have?

• Geertz, 1973 p.9 What we call our data are
  really our own constructions of other peoples
  constructions of what they and their compatriots
  are up to.
• Van Maanen, 1979
• Interviewees constructions first-order data
• Researchers constructions second-order
  concepts, which rely on good theory and
  insightful analysis

4
What status do you assign to your data?

• Are they facts (e.g. about attitudes and
  behaviour)?
• That is, if you have designed and conducted the
  interview properly, and avoided problems such as
  bias.
• Do the interview give you accounts of authentic
  experiences?
• That is, if you have managed to engage
  emotionally and achieved understanding and
  depth.
• Are the interviews jointly constructed
  encounters of focused interaction?
• Do you have your focus on how participants
  actively create meaning and perform during the
  interview?

5
Corresponds to

• The three categories and their focus
• Positivism prescheduled and standardised
  interviews
• Emotionalism open-ended interviews aimed at
  acquiring depth
• Constructionism also open-ended interviews,
  reflective
• Not one correct category, choice depends on your
  purpose.
• Your practical concerns should guide your
  analytic position
• Ask yourself whether interviews really help you
  address your research topic

(Refer to Silverman chapter 4)
6
A bit more on constructionism

• Within this approach the interview is not (only)
  a source for data, but a research topic in itself
• The how and the what issue (form and
  content). Ref. Silverman
• 4.6 Adolescent cultures
• 4.7 Membership work
• 4.8 Moral tales of parenthood

7
On interviewing and questioning

• Ways to question
• Closed versus open questions
• How and What-questions versus Why-questions
• Some helpful phrases
• Eliciting response without manipulating
• Be aware of your own body language and engagement

8
Ethnographic research (1)

• Origins anthropology.
• Focus tribes, subcultures, the public realm,
  organizations
• In-depth and extended studies, immersion and
  thick descriptions
• Aimed at exploration (what is going on here?)
  rather than testing of theories

9
Ethnographic research (2)

• Participant observation what is the researchers
  identity, what is known about the research?
• Ethical issues (e.g. informed consent)
• Theoretical and methodological choices (access,
  data collection methods, focus, analysis etc)

10
Ethical issues

• Aim and focus A scientific, but also an ethical
  issue
• The romantic impulse to focus on underdogs
• Do you treat the heroes and the villains
  equally (in analytic terms)?
• Overt versus covert observation
• Informed consent
• How do you handle the data?
• Physically locking up tapes and transcripts?
• Analytically how do you consider and treat those
  whom you write about?

11
Participant observation

• Problematising the role of the participant
  observer
• Confusion what is the site?
• What is expected from the researcher?
• What do we mean by intervention?
• Involvement into organisational politics
• Using these tensions and confusions as an
  analytic resource showing the multiple
  realities and interests in the case

Teun Zuiderent Blurring the center. On the
Politics of Ethnography. Scandinavian Journal
of Information Systems, vol. 14, no. 2, 2002.
12
Deciding your theoretical basis

• Read again section 2.6 in Silvermans book,
  section 3.4
• Take your field notes from the observations and
  attempt to do exercise 3.4, (3.5), 3.6. How did
  you work
• As a naturalist ethnographer?
• As an ethnomethodologist?
• With a grounded theory approach?

13
Using ethnography in IS research

• Six misconceptions (1-3)
• Is it just about common sense? No, you should
  problematize things that are taken for granted.
• Is an insider view best? Not necessarily, the
  task is not to replicate the insiders
  perpsectives
• Anything goes in terms of methods?
  Preformulated study design are avoided, but
  epistemological discipline and systematic method
  are pursued

Diane Forsythe Its just common sense.
Ethnography as invisible work Journal of CSCW,
vol. 8 (March 1999), no. 1-2, pp. 127-145.
14
Using ethnography in IS research

• Six misconceptions (4-6)
• Doing fieldwork is just chatting with people and
  reporting what they say. No, peoples views are
  data, not results. Understanding and analyzing.
• To find out what people do, just ask them.
  Well, the predictive value of verbal
  representations and the generality of short-term
  observations are questionable. Complement with
  extended observations.
• Behavioural/organisational patterns exist, we
  must just discover them. Not a matter of
  looking, the expertise rests with the analyst,
  not in the recording technique.

Diane Forsythe Its just common sense.
Ethnography as invisible work Journal of CSCW,
vol. 8 (March 1999), no. 1-2, pp. 127-145.
15
Bardram and Bossen

• A case study using ethnographic methods, with the
  aim of informing design (i.e. not purely
  descriptive)