research paper about ethnography

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Ethnographic research as an evolving method for supporting healthcare improvement skills: a scoping review

Georgia b. black.

Department of Applied Health Research, UCL, London, UK

Sandra van Os

Samantha machen, naomi j. fulop, associated data.

All papers included in the review are listed in Additional file 4 and are publicly available from their publishers’ websites.

The relationship between ethnography and healthcare improvement has been the subject of methodological concern. We conducted a scoping review of ethnographic literature on healthcare improvement topics, with two aims: (1) to describe current ethnographic methods and practices in healthcare improvement research and (2) to consider how these may affect habit and skill formation in the service of healthcare improvement.

We used a scoping review methodology drawing on Arksey and O’Malley’s methods and more recent guidance. We systematically searched electronic databases including Medline, PsychINFO, EMBASE and CINAHL for papers published between April 2013 – April 2018, with an update in September 2019. Information about study aims, methodology and recommendations for improvement were extracted. We used a theoretical framework outlining the habits and skills required for healthcare improvement to consider how ethnographic research may foster improvement skills.

We included 274 studies covering a wide range of healthcare topics and methods. Ethnography was commonly used for healthcare improvement research about vulnerable populations, e.g. elderly, psychiatry. Focussed ethnography was a prominent method, using a rapid feedback loop into improvement through focus and insider status. Ethnographic approaches such as the use of theory and focus on every day practices can foster improvement skills and habits such as creativity, learning and systems thinking.

Conclusions

We have identified that a variety of ethnographic approaches can be relevant to improvement. The skills and habits we identified may help ethnographers reflect on their approaches in planning healthcare improvement studies and guide peer-review in this field. An important area of future research will be to understand how ethnographic findings are received by decision-makers.

Supplementary Information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12874-021-01466-9.

Research can help to support the practice of healthcare improvement, and identify ways to “improve improvement” [ 1 ]. Ethnography has been identified particularly as a research method that can show what happens routinely in healthcare, and reveal the ‘ what and how of improving patient care [ 2 ]. Ethnography is not one method, but a paradigm of mainly qualitative research involving direct observations of people and places, producing a written account of natural or everyday behaviours and ideas [ 3 ]. Ethnographic research can identify contextual barriers to healthcare improvement. For example, Waring and colleagues suggested that hospital discharge could be improved by allowing staff to have more opportunities for informal communication [ 4 ].

There have been advances in ethnographic methods that support its role in supporting healthcare improvement. Multi-site, collaborative modalities of ethnography have evolved that suit the networked nature of modern healthcare [ 5 ]. Similarly, rapid ethnographic approaches (e.g. Bentley et al. [ 6 ];) meet the needs of improvement activities to produce findings within short timeframes [ 7 ]. However, the production of sustained ethnographic fieldwork has waned in response to demands for rapid evidence [ 6 , 8 , 9 ]. Critics of rapid ethnographic methods worry that they are diluting ethnography within applied contexts more widely [ 5 , 10 ].

The relationship between ethnography and healthcare improvement has been the subject of methodological concern [ 8 ]. The first concern is that some research identified as ethnography does not fit within the ethnographic paradigm, merely collecting observational data without a theoretical analysis, interpretation or researcher reflexivity [ 11 ]. A second concern is whether the topics of ethnographic inquiry produce findings that are seen as useful for improvement [ 12 ], particularly if they do not make explicit recommendations or produce checklists [ 8 , 13 – 15 ]. Authors fear that ethnographic findings that capture complexity [ 16 ] and expose taken-for-granted behaviours and phenomena [ 14 , 17 ] may be too abstract to be relevant to healthcare improvement [ 8 ]. However, these critiques position ethnographic research as a product which may be taken up by healthcare improvers, rather than seeing ethnographic work itself as an improvement activity. We take the view that healthcare improvement aims to change human behaviour to improve patient care, and is therefore reliant on the development of particular skills and habits (such as good communication) [ 18 ]. We would consider that engaging in ethnographic research may support skill development and habit formation that serves healthcare improvement.

In the literature of ethnography in healthcare improvement, there is not much discussion of the close relationship between methodological features of ethnographic research, and their impact on improvement skills. The aim of this paper is twofold: (1) to describe current ethnographic methods and practices in healthcare improvement research and (2) to consider how these may affect habit and skill formation in the service of healthcare improvement [ 19 ].

This is a scoping review following the methods outlined by Arksey & O’Malley and later refined by Levac et al., [ 20 , 21 ] including a systematically conducted literature review and reported in accordance with the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses extension for Scoping Reviews (PRISMA-ScR; see Additional file 1 for PRISMA checklist). No protocol was published for this review. Our literature search and analyses were conducted iteratively, searching reference lists and undertaking discussions with colleagues about key lines of argument. We also held a workshop at Health Services Research UK conference in 2018 on this topic to gain a wide range of stakeholder views.

Systematic retrieval of empirical papers and purposive sampling

Our search strategy was designed to capture a wide range of approaches to ethnography from different journals, healthcare settings and types of research environment. It was not our aim to capture every study using this methodology, but to map the current field. Thus we did not search grey literature, books or monographs. The search strategy was developed and piloted in consultation with a health librarian. Medline (on OVID platform), PsychINFO, CINAHL and EMBASE databases were searched, and six journals were hand-searched, including: BMJ Quality & Safety, Social Science and Medicine, Medical Anthropology, Cochrane library, Sociology of Health and Illness and Implementation Science. These databases were searched between dates April 2013 – April 2018 and an update was performed in September 2019 using the search terms outlined in Additional file 2 . We limited the search to these dates in order to capture the most recent methodological characteristics of ethnographic studies in this field.

We screened titles and then abstracts according to the inclusion and exclusion criteria detailed in Table ​ Table1. 1 . We included studies which self-identified as using ethnography or ethnographic methods rather than using our own criteria. This is because ethnography can be hard to define, and use of criteria may risk excluding papers which exemplify the sorts of tensions and workarounds we are trying to capture.

Inclusion and exclusion criteria

The retrieved papers were screened by GB, SVO and SM based on inclusion and exclusion criteria (Table ​ (Table1). 1 ). The total number of papers after screening titles, abstracts and full texts was 274 (Fig. ​ (Fig.1 1 ).

PRISMA statement of all references retrieved, screened and included in the scoping review

Numerical charting

Characteristics of each paper, such as title, authors, journal, year, country and healthcare subject area were extracted (see Table ​ Table2 2 ).

Characteristics of studies in review

a some studies have been allocated to more than one region

Thematic analysis and development

We coded all 274 papers using NVivo software for stated aims and recommendations. This included close reading, and retrieval of key ideas and quotations from the papers that exemplified key ideas in relation to healthcare improvement, methodology and the authors’ reflections on these. The coded extracts of aims and recommendation in conjunction with the closer reading of the sub-sample were used to inductively develop conceptual ideas, such as how the corpus of papers explicitly aimed to contribute to healthcare improvement, and if not, how this affected the types of conclusions drawn. Some papers were read in greater depth to understand how the authors’ methods related to their findings and conclusions. In order to consider how ethnography supports habits and skills associated with healthcare improvement, we drew on a framework which identifies five habits of ‘improvers’: creativity, learning, systems thinking, resilience and influencing [ 19 ]. Applying this model to our selected papers, we mapped traits or approaches to the ethnographic studies that exemplified these habits either in the authors, or as part of developing these habits in others (e.g. healthcare decision-makers and professionals). Thematic interpretations and lines of argument were generated and discussed by all the authors.

Overview of study characteristics

The included studies covered a wide range of ethnographic methodologies and healthcare subjects, published internationally (Table ​ (Table2) 2 ) in predominantly social science and clinical journals (see Additional file 3 ). The full list of the 274 included studies is available in Additional file 4 .

Most studies described themselves as an ‘ethnography’ or ‘ethnographic’, although some described their methodology as ‘mixed methods’ including ethnographic components. For example, Collet et al. conducted a mixed methods participatory action research study using observations to produce an “ethnographic description” [ 22 ].

Almost all studies relied on observation and interviews as the main data sources. It was not always specified whether researchers took a participant or non-participant approach to observation. There were some examples of other data sources e.g. video data, surveys, documents, field notes, diaries, and artefacts. A few examples contained a paucity of data, such as only video data [ 23 ], limited fieldwork [ 24 ], a small number of interviewees [ 25 ], or reliance on focus group data alone [ 26 ]. Methods associated with qualitative methodology (but not necessarily ethnographic) were also used, such as data ‘saturation’ to denote that additional data did not provide new insights into the topic [ 27 ].

There were a number of minority or unusual ethnographic variations:

• Quantitative ethnography [ 23 ]: temporal coding of physicians' workflow and interaction with the electronic health record system, and their patient.
• Cognitive ethnography [ 28 ]: “identifying and elaborating distributed cognitive processes that occur when an individual enacts purposeful improvements in a clinical context”.
• Street-level organizational ethnography [ 29 ]: intensive case study methods to explore the implications of healthcare policy at a street level.
• Phenomenological ethnographies [ 30 ]: focussing on the lived experience and meanings associated with a phenomenon.
• Geo-mapping [ 31 ]: geomapping of selected service data to define Latino immigrant community before conducting interviews and observations.

Use of different types of ethnography to support healthcare improvement

We found that many studies used methods that could identify issues relating to power and vulnerability, with potential relevance to how healthcare improvement problems are defined and solved, and by whom [ 1 ]. For example we noted a significant minority of studies using institutional and critical ethnography, mostly in vulnerable populations (see Table ​ Table3). 3 ). These studies were explicitly attentive to systems and power relations, rather than on individual practices. We suggest that the use of geographically-oriented methods such as geo-mapping and street-level organisational ethnography are also attentive to the power structures inherent in place and space, and could be relevant to other geographical healthcare improvement topics such as networked healthcare systems, care at home and patient travel for treatment.

Ethnographic methodology and its relevance to healthcare improvement

The high prevalence of ethnographic studies with vulnerable populations (e.g. psychiatry, end of life care) suggests that ethnography is also being conceptualised as an emancipatory method, reversing healthcare power structures in its focus. This has been a traditional focus of ethnography since social changes in power and representation in the 1970s, incorporated into the development of healthcare research methodology [ 40 , 41 ]. Some methods used were calculated to maximise the potential for supporting vulnerable groups, for example, Nightingale et al. [ 42 ] used focused ethnography (prolonged fieldwork in a small number of settings) to look at patient-professional interactions in paediatric chronic illness settings. The authors suggested that focussed ethnography is particularly suited to settings where fostering trust is essential. We would also suggest that ethnography may be particularly suited to settings in which participants are less able to verbalise their experiences.

The reviewed studies suggested that video ethnography can support healthcare improvement at a team level. For example, Stevens et al. [ 43 ] promoted video ethnography as a way to capture in-depth data on intimate interactions, in their study of elective caesareans. The video data allowed them to make use of timing data (e.g. of certain actions), physical positioning of different actors and equipment, and verbatim dialogue recording. The video data also suited the technical nature of the procedure, which was relatively time-limited. This form of data collection may not suit environments where healthcare activities are more spread out.

The impact of healthcare practitioner involvement in ethnographic fieldwork and findings

We noted that the use of ethnography for healthcare improvement has led to healthcare practitioners’ widespread involvement in data collection or analysis. We suggest that this is a form of negotiation across the healthcare-academia boundary, translating from ‘real world’ to data and back again. This has potential to create rich and relevant ethnographic studies that are geared towards improvement. However, some studies were undermined by a lack of reflexivity about the dual practitioner-ethnographer role.

A significant number of papers involved healthcare practitioners in fieldwork (e.g. Abdulrehman, 2017, Hoare et al. 2013; [ 37 , 44 ]). For example in Hoare et al. the lead researcher was a nurse, and wrote that they hoped “to bring both an emic and etic perspective to the data collection by bracketing my emic sense of self as a nurse practitioner in order to become a participant observer within my own general practice ” [ 37 ]. In this study, the findings fed directly into local service improvement as the lead researcher felt compelled to “share new ‘best practice’ information and join in the conversation.” There was little discussion about how this affected the generalisability of the findings, and whether their recommendations were adopted.

Similarly, Bergenholz et al. [ 45 ] conducted a study where a nursing researcher completed the main fieldwork and “assisted the nurses with practical care .” They acknowledged that “This may have caused limitations with regards to ‘blind spots’ in the nursing practice, but that it also gave access to a field that might be difficult for ‘outside-outsiders’ to gain .” However, there was no commentary on where the blind spots or extra access occurred, and how this may have affected the relevance and dissemination of their findings.

How might ethnography support healthcare improvement habits?

In this section, we evaluate the studies included in the review in terms of how their methods relate to improvement. We draw on the idea that successful improvement is based on a set of habits and their related skills acquired through experience and practice [ 19 ]. This section is structured around Lucas’s five habits of ‘improvers’: creativity, learning, systems thinking, resilience and influencing [ 19 ]. Under those headings, we describe the mechanisms by which ethnographic studies can support healthcare improvement habits, using illustrative examples.

Resilience is defined as being adaptable, particularly tolerating calculated risks and uncertainty, and proceeding with optimism. Being able to recover from adverse events is core to improvement, reframing them as opportunities. Adaptation and the ability to bounce back from adverse events and variation are core to improvement.

Tolerating the uncertainty of ethnographic data collection

While we did not relate these traits to any particular ethnographic approach in our studies, we would consider that undertaking any ethnographic project requires resilience, as data collection is inherently exploratory and uncertain. For example, Belanger et al. wanted to know how health care providers and their patients approach patient participation in palliative care decisions. The authors explicitly eschewed the pull to create guidelines or other formalised knowledge, but aimed to explore the “unforeseen and somewhat unavoidable ways in which discursive practices prompt or impede patient participation during these interactions.” [ 46 ]

Creativity is defined as working together to encourage fresh thinking by generating ideas and thinking critically.

Using a theoretical lens

Researchers may consider healthcare through a particular theory or framework (e.g. private ordering [ 47 ], masculine discourse [ 48 ], compassion [ 49 ]). The restriction of the theoretical lens enables critical thinking, and keeps the ethnographer creatively engaged. For example, Mylopoulos & Farhat [ 28 ] used the concept of adaptive expertise in a cognitive ethnography to explore “the phenomenon of purposeful improvement” in a teaching hospital. This theoretical lens revealed that clinicians were engaging in “invisible” improvement in their daily work, in “specific activities such as scheduling, establishing patient relationships, designing physical space and building supporting resources”. The authors suggested that these practices were devalued in comparison to more formal improvement activities, justifying the utility of the ‘adaptive expertise’ theory in bringing the daily improvement practices to light.

Challenging current problems and perspectives

We identified studies that challenged or reframed existing improvement problems e.g. Mishra [ 50 ]. This role removes the ‘blinkers’ of improvement research [ 51 ], and can ‘dissolve’ previously intractable implementation problems. For example, Boonan et al. [ 52 ] studied the practice of bar-coded medication from the perspective of nurses using the intervention. In their discussion, the authors challenge the assumption that if you introduce technology, then you will mitigate human factor risks. They highlighted that external pressures on hospitals perpetuate this perspective, and that “nurses and patients are consequently drawn into this discourse and institutional ruling, to which they are not oblivious”. Their recommendation was to understand the skills of nurses in tailoring technology to meet individual patients’ needs rather than trusting in systems blindly.

Learning is defined as harnessing curiosity and using reflective processes to extract meaning from experience.

Inviting reflection

We noted that some studies did not make explicit recommendations for improvement, but wrote their findings in a manner that would invite reflection on its subject matter. For example, Thomas & Latimer [ 53 ] wrote that they view their role as provocateurs of new ideas, stating that their intention “is not to propose specific policies or discourses designed to change or improve practice. More modestly, we hope that by analysing the everyday and by theorising the mundane, this article will ignite reflexive, ethical and pluralistic dialogues – and so better communication between practitioners, parents and the wider lay public – around reproductive technologies and medical conditions” (authors’ underline; p.951-2) [ 53 ]. Others such as Mackintosh et al [ 54 ] used their discussion section to examine their results in the context of other theories and provide illumination: “Our focus on trajectories illuminates the physiological process of birth and the unfolding pathology of illness (and death). This frame provides a means for us to link the agency of those involved in organising the care of acutely ill patients with the wider socio-political factors beyond the clinic, such as governmentality and risk (Heyman 2010, Waring 2007), death brokering (Timmermans 2005) and the medicalisation of birth and death (De Vries 1981).” (p.264). These two examples show that ethnographic work can be offered as an opportunity for learning and reflection, without a translation to specific recommendations.

Supporting a more ethical, expansive, inclusive, and participatory mode of healthcare

Problem-finding is highlighted as an important part of learning in improvement [ 19 ]. Several studies paid attention to multivocality and power, using this to find problematic, unethical and exclusive practices in healthcare. For example, some studies reported previously unheard viewpoints [ 55 – 57 ], or identified restrictive organisational barriers and normative assumptions [ 58 , 59 ]. Others promoted ethnography as a way of exploring ethics and morality [ 47 , 60 , 61 ], such as criticising research that prioritizes the needs of individuals over the good of society [ 62 ]. Ross et al. [ 63 ] suggested that it is also more ethical to use critical ethnography than other evaluative methods in researching vulnerable populations (e.g. neurological illness), by being able to “explore perceived political and emancipatory implications, [clarify] existing power differentials and [maintain] an explicit focus on action” .

Some studies directly researched power within the healthcare setting. For example, Batch and Windsor’s study of nursing workforce suggested that senior nurse leaders should use their positions to advocate for better working conditions [ 35 ], “ Manageable nurse/patient ratios, flexible patient-centred work models, equal opportunity for advancement, skill development for all and unit teamwork promotion”. Challenging traditional cultural assumptions that have produced and reproduced stereotypes is problematic because they most often are, by their very nature, invisible. In a more critical approach, Gesbeck’s thesis [ 62 ] on diabetes care work challenges the very mechanism of achieving healthcare improvement through research, stating that “we need to change the social and political context in which health care policy is made. This requires social change that prioritizes the good of the society over the good of the individual—a position directly opposed to the current system oriented toward profit and steeped in the ideology of personal responsibility.”

Systems thinking

Systems thinking is defined as seeing whole systems as well as their parts and recognising complex relationships, connections and interdependencies.

Suggesting reorientation to new ‘problem’ areas

We found that many ethnographic studies emphasised skills of synthesis and connection-making, reorienting improvement to different areas, for example in overarching policy recommendations (e.g. Hughes [ 36 ]; Liu et al. [ 64 ], Matinga et al. [ 65 ]), or resetting priorities. For example, Manias’ [ 66 ] ethnography of communication relating to family members' involvement in medication management in hospital suggests that “greater attention should be played on health professionals initiating communication in proactive ways ” [p.865]. In another example, Cable-Williams & Wilson’s (2017) focussed ethnography captures cultural factors within long-term care facilities. Their discussion suggests that acknowledgement of death is under-represented in front-line practice and government policy, reorienting discussions towards an integration of living and dying care.

Exposing hidden practices within the everyday

We found that several studies drew attention to ‘hidden’ practices in healthcare work, allowing them to evaluated and improved. For example, we found reference to practices such as coordinating [ 67 ], repair [ 68 ], caretaking [ 69 ], scaffolding [ 68 ], tinkering [ 52 ] and bricolage [ 58 ]. We also found that some studies had new interpretations of ‘the everyday’ or ‘taken-for-granted’ (e.g. nursing culture [ 34 , 35 , 45 , 70 ], interprofessional practice [ 67 , 71 – 75 ]). Authors’ outputs included frameworks [ 76 ] or models [ 69 , 71 , 77 , 78 ] that map these types of practices in a way that is helpful for intervention development or quality improvement. For example, Mackintosh et al. [ 54 ] looked at rescue practices in medical wards and maternity care settings using Strauss’s concept of the patient trajectory. Their findings highlighted the risks inherent in the wider social practices of hospital care, and suggested that improvement was needed at a level “beyond individual and team processes and technical safety solutions.”

Influencing

Influencing is defined as engaging others and gaining buy-in using a range of facilitative processes.

Direct translation of findings to targets for improvement

Lucas suggests that to be influential, ethnographic studies need to have some empathy with clinical reality, whilst being facilitative and comfortable with conflict [ 19 ]. This was shown in ethnographic studies that made pragmatic recommendations, such as in Jensen’s study of clinical simulation. They advised that simulation might be useful in staging “adverse event scenarios with a view to creating more controlled and safer environments.” ( 80). In MacKichan et al. [ 79 ] observations and interviews were used to understand how primary care access influenced decisions to seek help at the emergency department. The authors made empathic, actionable recommendations such as “ simplifying appointments systems and communicating mechanisms to patients.” (p.10).

Evaluating the context of healthcare improvement

By capturing contextual and social aspects of healthcare improvement, ethnographic evaluations can support leaders and managers who are trying to implement improvement activities. This is a particularly helpful trait in ethnographic studies that pay attention to politics, governance and social theory in their evaluation of new interventions, “zooming out” [ 80 ] beyond the patient-clinician interaction to broader social networks. For example, Tietbohl et al. [ 81 ] investigated the difficulties of implementing a patient decision support intervention (DESI) in primary care through the theoretical lens of relational coordination between “physician and clinical staff groups (healthcare professionals)”. The authors’ recommended attention to the “underlying barriers such as the relational dynamics in a medical clinic or healthcare organization” when creating policies and programs that support shared decision-making using support interventions. This sort of insight can make it more likely that new policies or interventions will succeed. This skill was particularly fertile in the tradition of techno-anthropology, exploring technology-induced errors and the real-world interaction between people and technology, e.g. decision-support tools [ 81 – 86 ], the introduction of robot caregivers [ 87 ] and clinical simulations [ 88 ]. Other approaches included an investigation of one intervention or change but with a theoretical lens of inquiry.

Summary of findings

This scoping review has identified the methodological characteristics of 5 years of published papers that self-identify as ethnography or ethnographic in the field of healthcare improvement. Ethnography is currently a popular research method in a wide range of healthcare topics, particularly in psychiatry, e.g. mental health, dementia and experiential concerns such as quality of life. Focused ethnography is a significant sub-group in healthcare, suggesting that messages about the importance of research timeliness have taken hold [ 89 ].

We have identified ethnographic methods reported in these papers, and considered their utility in developing skills and habits that support healthcare improvement. Specific practices associated with the ethnographic paradigm can encourage good habits (resilience, creativity, learning, systems thinking and influencing) in healthcare, which can support improvement. For example, using relevant theories to look at every day work in healthcare can foster creativity. The use of critical and institutional ethnography could increase skills in ‘systems thinking’ by critically evaluating how healthcare improvement problems are defined and solved, and by whom.

Comparison with previous literature

This scoping review is the first to consider how current ethnographic methods and practices may relate to healthcare improvement. Within the paradigm of applied healthcare research, there is normative value in being ‘useful’ or ‘impactful’ in our research, which affects our prospects for funding and career success [ 12 ]. However, our review has uncovered a multitude of ways that an ethnographic study can be useful in relation to healthcare improvement, without creating actionable findings. We found a spectrum of interactions with healthcare improvement: some authors explicitly eschewed recommendations or clinical implications; others made imperative statements about required changes to policy or practice. However, this diversity was not necessarily a reflection on how ‘traditional’ the ethnographic methodology was. This challenges the paper by Leslie et al. which puts ethnographic studies in two output categories with respect to healthcare improvement: critique versus feedback [ 8 ]. Instead, we uncovered a variety of ways that ethnography can support healthcare improvement habits, such as encouraging reflection, problem-finding and exposing hidden practices in healthcare.

We did find that supporting healthcare improvement through ethnographic research can require strategic effort, however. For example, we noted that several authors wrote multiple articles based on the same project, often for different types of journal to reach different audiences such as diverse readerships in health services and academic settings. For example, Collier and colleagues published two papers based on a video ethnography of end-of-life care (both in 2016), one in a healthcare quality journal [ 32 ] and one in a qualitative research journal [ 76 ]. The former is shorter, with explicit recommendations for patient safety, whereas the latter is longer, has more detailed results and long sections on reflexivity. Similarly, Grant published an article in a sociology journal [ 90 ] and a healthcare improvement paper [ 91 ] on the same work about medication safety. The sociological paper covered “spatio-temporal elements of articulation work” whereas the other put forward “key stages” and risks, suggesting that it was more closely oriented to improvement.

There have been some considerable debates about changes in ethnographic methods and tools, with concerns about lost researcher identity, dilution of the method, and challenges to “upholding ethnographic integrity” [ 92 ] . We contest this, suggesting that new variants such as focussed and cognitive ethnography are evolving in response to the complexity of hospitals and healthcare [ 93 ], while also being highly regulated, standardised and ordered by biomedicine. Such complex environments cannot be studied and improved under one paradigm alone. Ethnographic identity and method have also been affected by the cross-pollination of ethnography with other social science paradigms and applied environments (e.g. clinical trials, technology development). Debates about theoretical and methodological choices are not only made merely with respect to healthcare improvement, but also in response to professional pressures (e.g. university requirements for impact) [ 12 ], and the mores of taste situated within the overlapping communities of practice that evaluate ethnographic healthcare research [ 94 ]. That said, we echo previous authors’ calls for attention to reflexivity, particularly in embedded or clinician-as-researcher roles [ 95 ].

Our scoping review challenges a previously expressed concern that ethnographic studies may not produce findings that are useful for improvement [ 10 , 12 , 16 ]. By considering different ethnographic designs in relation to skills and habits needed for improvement, we have shown that studies need not necessarily produce ‘actionable findings’ in order to make a valuable contribution. Instead, we would characterise ethnography’s role in the canon of healthcare research methodologies as a way of enhancing improvement habits such as comfort with conflict, problem-finding and connection-making.

Strengths and limitations

This review has a number of limitations. The search may not have found all relevant studies, however the retrieved papers are intended as an exemplar rather than an exhaustive or aggregative review. The review is also limited to journal articles as evidence of researchers’ approach to improvement. This ignores many other ‘offline’ and ‘online’ activities such as meetings, presentations, blogs, books, and websites, which are conducted to disseminate findings and ideas. Our reliance on self-report for the identification of ethnographic studies will have excluded some studies within an ethnographic paradigm who chose different terms for their methodology (e.g. critical inquiry, case study). The strengths of this paper are its comprehensive coverage, incorporating all representative studies in healthcare research published within a five year period, and a wide range of ethnographic sub-types and healthcare subjects, drawn from an international pool of research communities.

We did not prescribe the right way for ethnographers to engage in healthcare improvement, indeed, we have identified that a variety of approaches can be relevant to improvement. The habits we identified may help ethnographers reflect on their approaches in planning healthcare improvement studies and guide peer-review in this field. Issues of taste, traditionalism and researcher identity need to be scrutinised in favour of value and audience. An important area of future research will be to understand how ethnographic findings are received by decision-makers, and further focused reviews on the relationship(s) between ethnographic methods, quality improvement skills and improvement outcomes.

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank Lorelei Jones, Natalie Armstrong, Justin Waring and Bill Lucas for their insightful comments and direction in the undertaking of this work.

Authors’ contributions

NJF and GB led the development and conceptualization of this scoping review and provided guidance on methods and design of the scoping review. GB, SVO and SM made contributions to study search, study screening, and all data extraction work. All authors analysed the data. All authors contributed to the writing and editing of the paper, and all authors have read and approved the manuscript.

This paper is independent research funded by the National Institute for Health Research CLAHRC North Thames. The views expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and not necessarily those of the National Institute for Health Research or the Department of Health and Social Care.

NJF is an NIHR Senior Investigator. GB is supported by the Health Foundation’s grant to the University of Cambridge for The Healthcare Improvement Studies Institute.

Availability of data and materials

Declarations.

The authors have no competing interests to declare.

The original online version of this article was revised: due to incorrect figure 1 and the number of included papers need to be changed from "283" to "274".

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Change history

A Correction to this paper has been published: 10.1186/s12874-022-01587-9

Ethnographic research in healthcare - patients and service users as participants

Affiliation.

• 1 School of Health and Sports Sciences, University of Suffolk, Ipswich, UK.
• PMID: 32202439
• DOI: 10.1080/09638288.2020.1741695

Purpose: This discussion paper provides an introduction and overview of Ethnography as a qualitative research methodology and outlines its usefulness in understanding the experiences of patients and service users during their healthcare journey. Ethnographic research provides an insight into the group being studied. In this paper that author suggests that ethnography can provide an insight into the behaviours, thoughts and feelings of a patient group.

Methods: Research methods used in ethnographic research have been outlined and discussed along with some of the possible methodological and ethical issues that might occur when carrying out an ethnographic study with a group of patients.

Results: This paper discusses some of the potential results of an ethnographic study with patients and how ethnographic research can be used to study the experiences of patients.

Conclusion: the author draws together some lessons that can be learnt and some possible applications of ethnographic research in healthcare settings with patients. Implications for rehabilitation are also proposed.IMPLICATIONS FOR REHABILITATIONEthnography is a simple and effective qualitative research methodology for studying groups of people with a common enterprise or experience, ethnography studies the culture, behaviours and norms of the group.Ethnography is a useful research methodology to understand the experiences of patients and service users during their healthcare journey. It can provide information about what it is like to have a particular medical condition or diagnosis and the norms and behaviours of patients with this condition. Ethnographic data allows the patient's voice to be heard. Data from ethnographic studies of patient groups can be used for service improvement within health and social care.

Keywords: Ethnography; health; observation; patients; qualitative research.

Publication types

• Anthropology, Cultural*
• Delivery of Health Care
• Qualitative Research
• Research Design*

Digital Ethnography: An Introduction to Theory and Practice

The rise of the internet age and digital spaces has created a whole new world for ethnographic investigation.

Anthropology has long been a discipline based on physical presence—archaeologists travel to ruins, biological anthropologists analyze physical remains, and sociocultural anthropologists travel to communities to interview, participate, and observe. However, especially in the latter subfield, the rise of the internet age and digital spaces has created a whole new world for ethnographic investigation, a methodology that usually relies on personal experience and face-to-face interactions. Nearly all of us engage in some form of online community, or at the very least, digital communication. From niche subreddits to your family’s Facebook posts to self-help webinars, the human experience exists in a blending duality: while still physical, increasingly digital. This reality became even more prescient with the arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic and ubiquitous virtual contact. Thus, this guide provides you with both an introductory look into the background and theoretical grounding of digital ethnography while also exploring a few useful examples of this type of scholarship available in the JSTOR library .

Background & Theory

E. gabriella coleman, “ ethnographic approaches to digital media ,”  annual review of anthropology  39 (2010): 487–505..

In this widely useful introduction to digital ethnography, Coleman contends that while the variety and profundity of digital media makes this methodology difficult to approach, digital media is a critical object of anthropological inquiry. Admittedly, the elements of the cyberworld are incredibly difficult to distill into distinct categories, but Coleman critically provides three broad categories of media for investigation. First, they investigate the cultural politics of media—how digital spaces are tied to the creation, recreation, and subversion of cultural identities, representations, and thought. Second, they look toward the vernacular cultures of digital media to understand modes of communication, practices, and sociocultural groups dependent on the digital world. Third, they explore how digital media continues to shape other types of social practices from economic exchange to religious worship. While this piece is now more than a decade old, the insights of these categories are important for scholars investigating how digital spaces increasingly tie into cultural representations, group formation, and a myriad of social practices.

Keith N. Hampton, “ Studying the Digital: Directions and Challenges for Digital Methods ,”  Annual Review of Sociology  43, (2017): 167–188.

Hampton explores how the methods for studying digital technology both rely on well-established methods in the social sciences but also require innovations for scholarly study. While this article explores both the quantitative and qualitative applications of digital studies, their insight into digitally centered interviews, ethnography, and participant observation is the most part useful in this discussion. Hampton importantly clarifies that early digital ethnographic work sought to clarify between online and offline personas, whereas the methodology as currently used goes beyond these distinctions to immerse social science work in digital worlds that can span both time and place. For example, while traditional ethnography is limited to the present moment of the ethnographer’s experience, trace ethnography of existing internet logs, text data, and social media posts can also provide fruitful objects of study. Furthermore, digital social science work can remove cost as a barrier: it can make the practice of anthropology more accessible—even if there’s debate in the field over the quality of virtual interviews and observation. Finally, this text also provides many useful reviews, citations, and points of further exploration for those just dipping their toes into the waters of cyberethnographic work.

Jeffrey A. Tolbert and Eric D. M. Johnson. “ Digital Folkloristics: Text, Ethnography, and Interdisciplinarity ,”  Western Folklore  78, no. 4 (2019): 327–356.

Tolbert and Johnson outline and advocate for a “digital folkloristics” that combines the textual approaches of the digital humanities with the tools of digital ethnography. In doing so, they demonstrate that digital scholarship and ethnography have applications across disciplines beyond just rote anthropology. The paper moves beyond a call for studies of digital folklore  and instead endeavors to outline existing forms and methods of digital scholarship to inform its broad usage in the study of folklore. Even for those outside of the folklore space, Tolbert and Johnson’s work is useful in its broad exploration of concepts such as digital scholarship and the digital humanities while also pushing back on the at-times arbitrary and exclusionary divisions drawn between digital social science and non-digital social science. Additionally, the authors demonstrate the inherent and valuable interdisciplinarity of methods in digital scholarship—highlighting how digital ethnography can complement other forms of research including but not limited to folkloristics.

Anne Beaulieu, “ From Co-location to Co-presence: Shifts in the Use of Ethnography for the Study of Knowledge ,”  Social Studies of Science  40, no. 3 (2010): 453–470.

Approaching digital ethnography from the lens of science and technology studies (STS), Beaulieu explains how the shift from co-location (sharing a physical space) to co-presence (sharing interaction more broadly) allows for new studies of lab environments including e-research and e-science. Crucially, this piece questions the definition of the “field” as the object of ethnography and what types of fieldwork can provide insights into studies of knowledge production. While ethnographic studies of labs were critical for many of STS’s insights, including the epistemological and ontological diversity present in science, this type of research becomes more difficult in knowledge production spaces where research is less controlled and less centralized. Beaulieu’s example perfectly encapsulates this point: an ethnography of a life sciences lab is far different than an ethnography of a group of women’s studies scholars. The adoption of co-presence through digital ethnography that foregrounds the relationship between the ethnographer and the interlocutors and, critically, their bidirectional relationships, can provide for insightful accounts of anthropological subjects of study.

Daniela Paredes Grijalva, “ Paper, Pen and Today’s Communication Platforms: Remote Disaster Research during a Pandemic ,”  Sojourn: Journal of Social Issues in Southeast Asia  36, no. 2 (2021): 376–385.

The restrictions of the COVID-19 pandemic upended many ethnographers’ attempts at fieldwork, including Grijalva’s. However, digital and remote ethnography have provided a salve for scholars who—for a multitude of reasons—are unable to physically visit their field site. While in-person fieldwork will remain central to the practice of anthropology, this scholarly note demonstrates how virtual ethnographic practices can still inform critical research. This article explores one route for remote ethnography, including starting with virtual contacts through e-mail, WhatsApp, and social media like Facebook Messenger. Grijalva reflected on these conversations through a more traditional practice: a diary of fieldnotes. They also document how the act of engaging in a localized or regional social media space can provide insight into social science questions. Of course, while remote methods can prove useful, they’re not without their faults—none more obvious than the difficulty in observing the particularities of everyday human interactions in a field site. Thus, Grijalva also takes the time to reflect on the implications of remote ethnography and how these methods may impact and limit anthropological scholarship when used.

Nicolle Lamerichs, “ Fan Membership: Traditional and Digital Fieldwork ,” in Productive Fandom: Intermediality and Affective Reception in Fan Cultures (Amsterdam University Press, 2018), 47–58.

Lamerichs approaches ethnography through studies of participatory cultures—of fans and audiences. In doing so, they’re a part of the growth of qualitative methods in the realm of cultural studies. The analysis finds that online platforms and the results of digital ethnography are best placed within the context of offline spaces. This methodological hybridity allows for the treatment of many contexts as what Lamerichs refers to as “rich and social space[s] of production.” However, this article also cautions researchers looking to jump into digital ethnography. It explores some of the most critical challenges: determining the ethnographer’s level of involvement, selecting the proper method of record-keeping, and grappling with the ethics of the less-obvious researcher presence in online settings.

Digital Ethnography in Practice

Jowan mahmod, “ new online communities and new identity making: the curious case of the kurdish diaspora ,”  journal of ethnic and cultural studies 6, no. 2 (2019): 34–43..

Mahmod uses both online and offline methodologies to explore the creation of new forms of Kurdish identity through the related processes of diaspora, transnationalism, and digital forms of communication. To illuminate this complex subject, this article combines in-depth interviews with an ethnographic exploration of the online Kurdish community. It explores several critical topics of identity creation from online anonymity as a tool in the fight against gender inequality, the use of insults as identity markers, and the progression from victimhood to senses of entitlement post-diaspora in Europe. Overall, Mahmod finds that the view of diasporic communities (especially the Kurdish one) as a static and unified entity fails to understand their evolving nature and marked differences across generation—while also demonstrating the methodological value of combining in-person interviews with digital insights.

Kiri Miller, “ Grove Street Grimm: ‘Grand Theft Auto’ and Digital Folklore ,”  The Journal of American Folklore  121, no. 481 (2008): 255–285.

Miller takes a different approach to the digital social sciences through their academic treatment of the video game Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas —treating this popular entry as an anthology of stories, a record of vernacular culture, a frame for performance, and a cultural artifact in its own right. Miller reimagines GTA as an entry into Grimm Brothers style folklore, engaging both in literary analysis and traditional ethnographic methods including interviews, survey work, and “visits” to the field site of the game world of San Andreas. Through this unique work, Miller argues that videogames and digital spaces are capable of folkloric qualities while also establishing new cultural traditions. They further contend that digital media genres including video games impact values and beliefs through the interpretation of the protagonist CJ in the game’s “episodic travails.” This treatment of both the digital game and space opens new opportunities and pathways for ethnography in cyber realms while inviting folklorists to approach a new medium.

Sheila Bock, “ Ku Klux Kasserole and Strange Fruit Pies: A Shouting Match at the Border in Cyberspace ,”  The Journal of American Folklore  130, no. 516 (2017): 142–165.

Bock utilizes digital ethnography to explore the collective social media performance of #PaulasBestDishes that mocked celebrity chef Paula Deen after she admitted to using the “N-word” and discussed a plantation theme for her child’s wedding. Specifically, Bock explores how the wordplay and vernacular expression of these tweets can illuminate parts of the complex racial dynamics and discourse at work in the United States. While this article relies heavily on cultural studies, historical exploration, and performance studies, it also interacts with ethnographic theory to draw key cultural insights from the realm of Twitter. This piece demonstrates how digital ethnographic investigations can operate much differently than traditional ones, even limiting themselves to the exploration of a single hashtag, while still providing valuable academic insight.

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Gordon L. Ulmer and Jeffrey H. Cohen, “ Ethnographic Inquiry in the ‘Digitized’ Fields of Madre de Dios, Peru and Oaxaca, Mexico: Methodological and Ethical Issues ,”  Anthropological Quarterly  16, no. 2 (2016): 539–560.

Ulmer and Cohen seek to detail the relationship between digital and physical methods of ethnography while also discussing both the privacy and ethical considerations of digital ethnographic inquiry using case studies from both authors’ work. Ulmer describes their hybrid fieldwork in Madre de Dios regarding conservation labor and Cohen reflects on their work in the 1990s and 2000s with craft producers in Oaxaca. In Ulmer’s case, digital media became a critical tool during conflicts between gold miners and government actors—and they continued to use the tool in their remaining fieldwork. Cohen’s fieldwork took place during the rise of Web 2.0, e-mail communication, and linkages between the digital and physical realms. They demonstrate that while digital ethnography can help inform research, limitations including slow internet speeds, netspeak, differential adoption of digital technologies by informant groups, and the third-party-present effect must be taken into consideration. Even more critically, scholars in the digital ethnography space must ensure for the protection of informant data—especially given the growing commercialization of private data, prevalence of data breaches, and widespread surveillance. This is even more poignant in cases where ethnographic topics could put “vulnerable” or disenfranchised populations at risk.

James Leibold, “ Blogging Alone: China, the Internet, and the Democratic Illusion? ”  The Journal of Asian Studies  70, no. 4 (2011): 1023–1041.

This study of the Chinese blogosphere employs digital ethnography alongside survey data and comparative analysis to illuminate the behavioral trends of what Leibold defines as the largest cyber-community. Digital ethnography works to cut against the bifurcated narrative that had surrounded academic treatments of the internet in China—a debate Leibold argues was stuck between digital-activism and cyber-censorship. Through direct engagement with many less-studied corners of China’s digital community, this article employs digital ethnography that provides a more nuanced understanding of the blogosphere and its impacts on the netizens who use it. This includes Leibold’s exploration of Han supremacist communities, the partial anonymity of certain online forums, and online vigilantism. These are aspects of Chinese culture and politics that would be inaccessible to traditional forms of ethnography and demonstrate how digital ethnography is a critical contribution as the digital space continues to expand.

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• Knowledge Base
• Methodology
• What Is Ethnography? | Meaning, Guide & Examples

What Is Ethnography? | Meaning, Guide & Examples

Published on 6 May 2022 by Jack Caulfield . Revised on 6 April 2023.

Ethnography is a type of qualitative research that involves immersing yourself in a particular community or organisation to observe their behaviour and interactions up close. The word ‘ethnography’ also refers to the written report of the research that the ethnographer produces afterwards.

Ethnography is a flexible research method that allows you to gain a deep understanding of a group’s shared culture, conventions, and social dynamics. However, it also involves some practical and ethical challenges.

Table of contents

What is ethnography used for, different approaches to ethnographic research, gaining access to a community, working with informants, observing the group and taking field notes, writing up an ethnography.

Ethnographic research originated in the field of anthropology, and it often involved an anthropologist living with an isolated tribal community for an extended period of time in order to understand their culture.

This type of research could sometimes last for years. For example, Colin M. Turnbull lived with the Mbuti people for three years in order to write the classic ethnography The Forest People .

Today, ethnography is a common approach in various social science fields, not just anthropology. It is used not only to study distant or unfamiliar cultures, but also to study specific communities within the researcher’s own society.

For example, ethnographic research (sometimes called participant observation ) has been used to investigate football fans , call centre workers , and police officers .

Advantages of ethnography

The main advantage of ethnography is that it gives the researcher direct access to the culture and practices of a group. It is a useful approach for learning first-hand about the behavior and interactions of people within a particular context.

By becoming immersed in a social environment, you may have access to more authentic information and spontaneously observe dynamics that you could not have found out about simply by asking.

Ethnography is also an open and flexible method. Rather than aiming to verify a general theory or test a hypothesis , it aims to offer a rich narrative account of a specific culture, allowing you to explore many different aspects of the group and setting.

Disadvantages of ethnography

Ethnography is a time-consuming method. In order to embed yourself in the setting and gather enough observations to build up a representative picture, you can expect to spend at least a few weeks, but more likely several months. This long-term immersion can be challenging, and requires careful planning.

Ethnographic research can run the risk of observer bias . Writing an ethnography involves subjective interpretation, and it can be difficult to maintain the necessary distance to analyse a group that you are embedded in.

There are often also ethical considerations to take into account: for example, about how your role is disclosed to members of the group, or about observing and reporting sensitive information.

Should you use ethnography in your research?

If you’re a student who wants to use ethnographic research in your thesis or dissertation , it’s worth asking yourself whether it’s the right approach:

• Could the information you need be collected in another way (e.g., a survey , interviews)?
• How difficult will it be to gain access to the community you want to study?
• How exactly will you conduct your research, and over what timespan?
• What ethical issues might arise?

If you do decide to do ethnography, it’s generally best to choose a relatively small and easily accessible group, to ensure that the research is feasible within a limited time frame.

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There are a few key distinctions in ethnography which help to inform the researcher’s approach: open vs closed settings, overt vs covert ethnography, and active vs passive observation. Each approach has its own advantages and disadvantages.

Open vs closed settings

The setting of your ethnography – the environment in which you will observe your chosen community in action – may be open or closed.

An open or public setting is one with no formal barriers to entry. For example, you might consider a community of people living in a certain neighbourhood, or the fans of a particular football team.

• Gaining initial access to open groups is not too difficult …
• … but it may be harder to become immersed in a less clearly defined group.

A closed or private setting is harder to access. This may be for example a business, a school, or a cult.

• A closed group’s boundaries are clearly defined and the ethnographer can become fully immersed in the setting …
• … but gaining access is tougher; the ethnographer may have to negotiate their way in or acquire some role in the organisation.

Overt vs covert ethnography

Most ethnography is overt . In an overt approach, the ethnographer openly states their intentions and acknowledges their role as a researcher to the members of the group being studied.

• Overt ethnography is typically preferred for ethical reasons, as participants can provide informed consent …
• … but people may behave differently with the awareness that they are being studied.

Sometimes ethnography can be covert . This means that the researcher does not tell participants about their research, and comes up with some other pretence for being there.

• Covert ethnography allows access to environments where the group would not welcome a researcher …
• … but hiding the researcher’s role can be considered deceptive and thus unethical.

Active vs passive observation

Different levels of immersion in the community may be appropriate in different contexts. The ethnographer may be a more active or passive participant depending on the demands of their research and the nature of the setting.

An active role involves trying to fully integrate, carrying out tasks and participating in activities like any other member of the community.

• Active participation may encourage the group to feel more comfortable with the ethnographer’s presence …
• … but runs the risk of disrupting the regular functioning of the community.

A passive role is one in which the ethnographer stands back from the activities of others, behaving as a more distant observer and not involving themselves in the community’s activities.

• Passive observation allows more space for careful observation and note-taking …
• … but group members may behave unnaturally due to feeling they are being observed by an outsider.

While ethnographers usually have a preference, they also have to be flexible about their level of participation. For example, access to the community might depend upon engaging in certain activities, or there might be certain practices in which outsiders cannot participate.

An important consideration for ethnographers is the question of access. The difficulty of gaining access to the setting of a particular ethnography varies greatly:

• To gain access to the fans of a particular sports team, you might start by simply attending the team’s games and speaking with the fans.
• To access the employees of a particular business, you might contact the management and ask for permission to perform a study there.
• Alternatively, you might perform a covert ethnography of a community or organisation you are already personally involved in or employed by.

Flexibility is important here too: where it’s impossible to access the desired setting, the ethnographer must consider alternatives that could provide comparable information.

For example, if you had the idea of observing the staff within a particular finance company but could not get permission, you might look into other companies of the same kind as alternatives. Ethnography is a sensitive research method, and it may take multiple attempts to find a feasible approach.

All ethnographies involve the use of informants . These are people involved in the group in question who function as the researcher’s primary points of contact, facilitating access and assisting their understanding of the group.

This might be someone in a high position at an organisation allowing you access to their employees, or a member of a community sponsoring your entry into that community and giving advice on how to fit in.

However,  i f you come to rely too much on a single informant, you may be influenced by their perspective on the community, which might be unrepresentative of the group as a whole.

In addition, an informant may not provide the kind of spontaneous information which is most useful to ethnographers, instead trying to show what they believe you want to see. For this reason, it’s good to have a variety of contacts within the group.

The core of ethnography is observation of the group from the inside. Field notes are taken to record these observations while immersed in the setting; they form the basis of the final written ethnography. They are usually written by hand, but other solutions such as voice recordings can be useful alternatives.

Field notes record any and all important data: phenomena observed, conversations had, preliminary analysis. For example, if you’re researching how service staff interact with customers, you should write down anything you notice about these interactions – body language, phrases used repeatedly, differences and similarities between staff, customer reactions.

Don’t be afraid to also note down things you notice that fall outside the pre-formulated scope of your research; anything may prove relevant, and it’s better to have extra notes you might discard later than to end up with missing data.

Field notes should be as detailed and clear as possible. It’s important to take time to go over your notes, expand on them with further detail, and keep them organised (including information such as dates and locations).

After observations are concluded, there’s still the task of writing them up into an ethnography. This entails going through the field notes and formulating a convincing account of the behaviours and dynamics observed.

The structure of an ethnography

An ethnography can take many different forms: It may be an article, a thesis, or an entire book, for example.

Ethnographies often do not follow the standard structure of a scientific paper, though like most academic texts, they should have an introduction and conclusion. For example, this paper begins by describing the historical background of the research, then focuses on various themes in turn before concluding.

An ethnography may still use a more traditional structure, however, especially when used in combination with other research methods. For example, this paper follows the standard structure for empirical research: introduction, methods, results, discussion, and conclusion.

The content of an ethnography

The goal of a written ethnography is to provide a rich, authoritative account of the social setting in which you were embedded – to convince the reader that your observations and interpretations are representative of reality.

Ethnography tends to take a less impersonal approach than other research methods. Due to the embedded nature of the work, an ethnography often necessarily involves discussion of your personal experiences and feelings during the research.

Ethnography is not limited to making observations; it also attempts to explain the phenomena observed in a structured, narrative way. For this, you may draw on theory, but also on your direct experience and intuitions, which may well contradict the assumptions that you brought into the research.

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THE BASICS OF ETHNOGRAPHY: AN OVERVIEW OF DESIGNING AN ETHNOGRAPHIC RESEARCH IN ANTHROPOLOGY AND BEYOND

As a discipline concerned with cultural and social life, Anthropology has a unique scope in compare to other social sciences and humanities that addresses a thorough methodological scrutiny following the theoretical shifts over time and space. The current methodological trends in anthropology claim the role of the researcher as observer (to explore and examine a culture) to grasp the underlying meaning of the participants to interpret the action, perception and networks of the setting in contexts. In this juncture, it is necessary for the researcher to design his/her research methodology in such a way that clarifies the dimensions of the researcher, participants, selection of the research area, and/or problem and the very pros and cons that validates the research in its own essence. Ethnography as one of the major qualitative research approach in anthropology provides an opportunity to construct a specific kind of written observational manuscript about a particular culture. The present authors intend to address the different dimensions from historical genesis to gradual shifts into different theoretical perspectives and critiques as well, that arises from the discussions of ethnography to encircle the possibly significant ideas and issues in as simple and straightforward manner as possible.

Related Papers

Marian Crowley-Henry

In Chapter 3, Marian Crowley-Henry presents an aspect of the evolving research approach of ethnography and participant observation, delineating the complexities involved in classifying research as ethnographic, given underlying discrepancies in how the approach is applied and the respective philosophy behind its use.

Cogito. Multidisciplinary Research Journal

Sergiu Bălan

As a very often repeated observation says, in order to find out what anthropology is, one must see what anthropologists do, and what they do is mainly ethnography. Ethnography can be understood both as a process and as a product. As a process, it is for the anthropologist the same thing laboratory research is for the scientist and survey for the sociologist, the method par excellence. It has to meet three main requirements: long time residence among the members of the studied culture, linguistic proficiency and must be conducted in the form of participant observation. Understood as a product, ethnographic monograph must be holistic and to adopt the emic perspective, as opposed to the etic one.

An Ethnography of Global Landscapes and Corridors

Loshini Naidoo

Marshall University Digital Scholar

Brian A Hoey

Tribhuvan University Journal

Ganga Gautam

This article is an attempt to present the concept of ethnography as a qualitative inquiry process in social science research. The paper begins with the introduction to ethnography followed by the discussion of ethnography both as an approach and a research method. It then illustrates how ethnographic research is carried out using various ethnographic methods that include participant observation, interviewing and collection of the documents and artifacts. Highlighting the different ways of organizing, analyzing and writing ethnographic data, the article suggests ways of writing the ethnographic research.

Challenges and Solutions in Ethnographic Research

Eerika Koskinen-Koivisto

José Gerardo Alvarado

This article reviews references of ethnography as a method in the social sciences gathered by using GoogleTM, EBSCO, ProQuest, REDALYC, PSICODOC, Dialnet and LATINDEX. Anthropologists’ postmodern self-critique has influenced social scientists and ethnography has increasingly become a way to explore our forms of life. This translates into a perspective that responds to ethical, political, cultural, and social concerns about the production of knowledge. It seeks to excise the distance between researchers, often by collaborating with consultants in research projects. The ensuing reflections evoke possibilities generated from interactions in the field and an appreciation of a complexity that poses methodological challenges for researchers who see the field as a space from which they cannot be extricated.

Sultana Tania

Christopher A Howard

European Journal of Sociology

Histories and critiques of anthropology usually deal mainly with what anthropologists say, including what they say they do. However, like their informants, anthropologists are accustomed to saying one thing and doing another. The emphasis in this paper is on the nature of anthropological data and methods, and thus on what anthropologists really do. The argument is that what anthropologists do is often productive and sensible, but that it has very little relationship to what many anthropologists say they should be doing. Indeed those anthropologists who take such theoretical directives seriously labour under a considerable, self-inflicted handicap.

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4 Writing Up Research Findings

• Published: May 2018
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Chapter 4 considers the different sensibilities that inform current conventions of ethnographic authorship. The author juxtaposes the “renegade practices” of contemporary ethnographic writing with the more disciplined traditions of standard research reporting. The rest of the chapter elaborates on the ethnographic writing process through two orienting frameworks. The first, organizational approach, emphasizes a need to communicate research results with a measure of empirical precision. This includes discussions of how to develop and organize themes, select useful illustrations, and decide on requisite background and theoretical information. The second, evocative approach, prioritizes the authorial role in communicating meaning and sentiment through effective use of voice, rhythms, textures, and imagination. The author argues that good ethnographic writing must find a productive balance between these competing dispositions. Ultimately ethnography is presented as an adverbial mode of writing that animates social life by describing not only what takes place but also how it occurs.

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Digital Commons @ IWU

Home > Sociology and Anthropology > Selected Anthropology 380 Photo Essays

Outstanding Ethnographic Research Projects

Submissions from 2022 2022.

People, Not Symptoms: A Visual Ethnography of Ayurvedic Doctor Ashlesha Raut , Elizabeth Baranski

Submissions from 2019 2019

Laurie Bergner: A Bloomington-Normal Community Educator Shaped by Her Values , Jessica Bugayong

Community Lawyering and the Immigration Project: An Ethnographic Study of Charlotte Alvarez , Kathryn Jefferson

It’s about more than reproduction: a visual ethnography about Jennifer Sedbrook , Sommer Martin

Nine Months in One Day: A Visual Ethnography with Caroline and Elizabeth Fox-Anvick , Kayla Ranta

Submissions from 2018 2018

Colleen Connelly: Taking the First Step towards Improving Food Accessibility , Michelle Rekowski '19

Submissions from 2016 2016

“Don’t Cross Momma!” A Visual Representation of LGBTQI Woman Leader Jan Lancaster , Lucy Bullock '17

Sacred Partnership: A Visual Ethnographic Study of Rabbi Rebecca L. Dubowe , Anna Kerr-Carpenter '17

Women Leaders as Change Agents: Mary Campbell’s Story of Academic and Community Leadership , Raelynn Parmely '17

Submissions from 2013 2013

American by Citizenship or American at Heart? An analysis of becoming an “American” as seen through the eyes of an Indian-American immigrant , Helen Brandt '14

Pierogies to Hamburgers: An immigration story , Madeline Cross '13

The Long Road to Becoming American: One Kenyan’s Immigration Journey Filled with Perseverance, Discrimination, and Student Visa Restrictions , Katelyn Eichinger '14

Bicultural Living: Maria Luisa Mainou’s Experience with Immigration and Cultural Change , Alicia Gummess '13

Russian-Jewish Immigration and the Life Experiences of Dr. Marina Balina: A Photo Essay , Lauren Henry '14

Snapped into Focus: Addressing the Challenges Faced by Undocumented Mexican Immigrants in the United States , Nora Peterson '14

An American who Emigrated from Poland: The Significance of Education and Family Support in the Acculturation Process , Stephanie Pierson '13

Submissions from 2012 2012

Smile and Style: An Ethnographic Analysis of ISU's Gamma Phi Circus , Sarah Carlson '13

Building Christ-based Relationships, Disciples, and Sharing the Gospel of Jesus Christ at Illinois State University , Cassandra Jordan '12

When Words Fail, Music Speaks , Hannah Williams '12

Submissions from 2011 2011

Exploring Acupuncture in the American Midwest , Shuting Zhong '11

Submissions from 2010 2010

Luck Be A Lady: An Exploration of the Bloomington Bingo Community Through Visual Ethnographic Methods , Monica Simonin 11

Getting High: An Inside Look into College Students' Lives with Type 1 Diabetes , Amber Spiewak 11

Twin City Chess Club: a Visual Ethnographic Examination of Chess , Morgan Tarbutton 11

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