Doing Ethnographic Research. Kimberly Kirner
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of Research Design
Introduction
This workbook was created to help you—the student learning qualitative methods for the first time—understand the total process of research, from design to write-up. Creating a design that works, analyzing data in meaningful ways, and describing your findings to others are at the heart of the challenge. Though it may seem awkward at first, the only way to get good at something is to practice, so give it a try!
Chapter Learning Objectives
Students will be able to do the following:
Identify and justify researchers’ approaches
Identify and justify dependent and independent variables
Construct relationships between variables, indicators, and values using a concept map
Operationalize definitions
Select and articulate a research topic
At the end of Chapter 1, you will be asked to complete a Self- or Peer-Assessment related to the last activity.
Activity 1.1: Ways of Knowing (Personal Reflection)
This activity will help you identify some of your own ways of knowing.
How do you learn new content—through formal or informal instruction? Participation? Intuition (learning informed labels of what you’ve already “known”)? Observing others? Trial and error? In what contexts do you use these ways of knowing?
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Activity 1.2: Identifying Researchers’ Approach
Background: Anthropology is both part of the humanities and a science, depending on each anthropologist’s theoretical perspective and methodology. These two broad-based positions treat “truth” as different concepts, with different ways of studying and understanding it. Science strives for objectivity and chases truths that are thought to be external to the individual researcher. In the humanities, the truth is not an absolute but instead is decided by individual human judgments. It is a constructivist view: the idea that reality is constructed uniquely by each person. Deduction happens when a researcher starts with a theory, creates hypotheses that test the theory, and then conducts research that generates observations that either support or refute the hypothesis. Induction happens when a researcher starts with making observations, then generates ideas about what the data are saying (hypotheses), and from there, builds or discusses relevant theory. Many research projects use both of these approaches in the hypothetico-deductive model, which combines the two: exploratory research, which uses the inductive approach first, and then confirmatory research, which uses a deductive approach to follow up and refine.
In social science, we also talk about paradigms, which are theoretical perspectives, or what we might call grand theory. These are broad ways of looking at the world—a researcher’s paradigm defines the major issues with which the researcher is concerned. Paradigms are related to what we like to call the BIG questions, the questions that social scientists (and philosophers, theologians, and so on) have been trying to answer for hundreds of years (and that may never be fully answered). We can think of these as questions that are broadly interesting and grand (BIG). When you construct your own research project, you should consider how it fits in with these BIG questions and paradigms in your discipline.
Connection: Researchers may use various approaches to their research—humanities versus sciences orientation, induction versus deduction, or exploratory versus confirmatory research. Many times these approaches are buried and unclear in researchers’ abstracts or papers.
This activity will help you identify researchers’ approaches to research questions and how these approaches can be embedded in the stages of research discovery.
Key Terms and Concepts
Humanities orientation
Sciences orientation
Induction
Deduction
Exploratory research
Confirmatory research
Paradigms
BIG questions
Instructions
Using the Notes Graphic Organizer (at the end of the chapter) and the abstracts from articles provided, identify and justify the researcher’s approach. Rather than a single correct determination, the process of justification is the means to supporting your determination of the researcher’s approach.
Common Mistakes
Common mistakes students make when reading abstracts:
Mistaking quantitative research for a scientific orientation
Mistaking qualitative research for a humanities orientation
Mistaking descriptive prose for a humanities orientation
Using verbs rather than context and data to justify exploratory versus confirmatory design
Not looking for what isn’t there. If the abstract lacks a hypothesis, chances are it is an inductive study.
Ask Yourself
Do I need to ask any clarifying questions?
Do I highlight key words in the abstract to help me discern the researcher’s approach?
Do I have a study spot that is designated for uninterrupted studying?
Sample Problems
O’Connor, Kaori. 2008. “The Hawaiian Luau: Food as Tradition, Transgression, Transformation and Travel.” Food 11 (2): 149–72.
Sweet music drifts on the trade winds, the surf surges upon the shore, and a lavish banquet of island fruit, fish and succulent baked pig is served to men and women seated companionably together beneath the palms. & Few meals are as apparently familiar as the Hawaiian luau, one of the iconic repasts of world cuisine. But how much do we really know about this island feast? Using anthropology, ethnohistory and popular art, this paper explores the many narratives, identities and authenticities embedded in the cultural biography and cuisine of the luau.
Example
Non-example
Sharma, Krishan, and Goga Kirandeep Kaur. 2014. “PTC Bitter Taste Genetic Polymorphism, Food Choices, Physical Growth in Body Height and Body Fat Related Traits among Adolescent Girls from Kangra Valley, Himachal Pradesh (India).” Annals of Human Biology 41 (1): 29–39.
Background: Bitter sensitivity among individuals and ethnic groups is partly due to polymorphic