This week I like the discussion in Luker and Stebbins about "fitting in" and the pitfalls of both "going native" to the point wy to gat abilithen you are so involved as participant that you lose sight of your research focus, or facing exclusion and ostracism which impedes your ability to gather the necessary data for the study. Can "outsiders" effectively enter field sites and glean the rationality of the social and cultural phenomena they observe? If social science has any value at all, that would be it! I think that ethics have a lot to do with ethnography, because researchers have to be reflexive about the reasons why they have chosen this domain and what types of claims they want to make. Trust is a key component of fitting in also, and I like the way that Stebbins expects researchers to be held accountable for their narrative by the study participants.
Humility, genuine interest, and an open mind are prerequisites that are discussed when venturing into an unknown domain where you are seeking permission to enter and cooperation from the community.
Hey guys, first of all thanks for joining up with us (previously quasi-experimental)!
This week Luker and Stebbins got me thinking of the benefits/drawbacks of participant-as-observer member vs. nonmember and the difficulties involved with accessing/observing the group. Luker outlines the initial stages of ethnographic study of member vs. non-member. The issue of access is fairly straightforward, a member gains access easily and a nonmember needs to plan out a method of acceptance. Luker uses the male baboon example to illustrate one method, another being to wait patiently on the outskirts until brought in by a group member. In terms of the issue of access, it is more beneficial to be a member thereby allowing wider access to the group without the stigma of being an observer of the group from the onset. ---My question is, do we have to introduce ourselves as observers if we are already group members? Obviously more of an ethical decision than anything else… more specifically when do we tell group members that we are studying the group? Secondly, the two texts discuss the observation taking place. Luker points out that a member runs the risk of overlooking some aspects of the group because it appears usual and therefore don’t notice it as ‘rules of the group’ as she puts it. A non-member conversely is overwhelmed with documenting everything that is weird/exotic, thereby generating a lot of data about a group. Stebbin brings up a good point when he says, “Field researchers… are expected to discover and bring to light aspects of the life-style heretofore unknown or hidden.” In this sense it would be more beneficial to be a non-member observer thereby brightening aspects of the group which runs the risk of being overlooked by the member-observer. ---Ultimately, I don’t believe it is so cut and dry but it was interesting to examine the advantages and drawbacks of the two types of observers at different stages in observation.
Personally, for the sake of my research project (on the office of the American First Lady) I am the definition of a non-member: Canadian citizen who’s only political aspirations is to have a clean bill of voting in every election. Let the overzealous note-taking begin! Any have friends of friends of Michelle Obama?
Adding just the right amount of the 'personal' touch (experiences, understandings, assumptions):
Shaffir demonstrates how to turn bias into an advantage- by having an awareness of one's own personal cultural assumptions, one can come closer to understanding how they might shape your research and perhaps create awareness of how not to shape your research.
I wonder about the role playing and acting. I am worried that I do not share enough common attributes with my demographic group to fit in... however I could work with the technological barriers I have faced and apply my experiences to the study and how I might shape my questions in light of the frustrations or the ease I felt with certain technologies.
How will I throw myself in there? lol. How can I be a part of it and remain removed at the same time? I think I might spend some time trying to get into what Stebbins refers to as 'routine.' I already have my volunteer and work experiences with seniors to draw from. I definitely feel as though I need to spend time with seniors in the study's context to get some ideas about their experiences with technology. I am thinking of maybe doing a little participant observation (PO) even before my focus group now! eep, I keep adding layers and get the impression that is what this course is about. So many things to consider!!!
I read this section while constantly keeping Vine Deloria Jr in mind. He wrote a book titled “Custer Died for Your Sins: A Indian Manifesto” and one of his chapters refers directly to anthropologists and infield observers (“Anthropologists and Other Friends”.) The way he frames it is that the researcher comes to take something from the community, leave with it and then draw a benefit from it. In this criticism he suggests that the relationship is never equal in the encounter and that the researcher and the ‘source’ should be able to find a manner to have mutual satisfaction in the encounter. This positions the scholar as in service to the source community, returning something of equal value to the community that they are expecting to take something from. This is what I was taught was often the fault of infield observation and these readings did not sway me from it. Playing a part to gain trust and only offering enough help to get the objective strikes me as remarkably eurocentric and colonial. Is there a way to do this type of research that is further from that?
I really liked the question regarding ethics, and when (or even if) we introduce ourselves as an observer/researcher. I am torn between my understanding of groups, and the notion that people will act differently if they know they are being observed, and my empathy for those who may be taken advantage of by being observed, recorded, and studied without their knowing. As researchers, we want to uncover some spicy details of a group that have yet to be discovered, of course! This is the entire point of ethnographic research. Who cares about discussing aspects of a group if we (society) already know these! But, in order to uncover these details, we must deceive, interpret, and study the group, collecting segments of information that we then aggregate and call 'evidence'. We are now left with the question of how much deception, manipulation, and interpretation are we allowed? If we deceive just a little bit (don't tell the group our real name or profession) is this okay? What if we pretend to be a member (i.e. take on the attributes of that group), is this okay? Where should we draw the line?
In one of the articles (can't remember which one off the top of my head), the author purported that one must maintain a "scientifically proper distance" between themselves and the observed group. This point was particularly humorous because who would dare define such a boundary! If we are already members of a group, this distance would be minimized dramatically, versus if we were non-members edging our way in. This ties in nicely with the abovementioned discussion, as members needn't deceive as much as non-members. Perhaps in order to remain ethical in our ethnographic research we should become members first, then observe.... just a though.
I just had a moment at ImagineNative film festival that nicely line up with this. I was watching a documentary called "Up Heartbreak Hill" by Erica Scharf, that follows the life of three teenagers in Navajo, New Mexico. She was asked about her ethics, how she say her impact on the 'performance' of the teenagers lives, and how they viewed the video. It was interesting watching how she structured herself within the piece and at the same time a bit frustrating. Definitely an example of how infield observation happens currently and a highlight of what the draw backs are.
Desiree, I so share your experience of feeling like your research is turning into a layer cake. I figure at this point that I am suffering from some sort of ‘research method envy’ – every new method I read or hear about (Glen Farrelly’s contextual inquiry is just the latest) I want. Rather than a salsa-dancing social scientist, I fear I’m turning into merely a ‘salsa’ social scientist, with a mishmash of methods all chopped up and dumped into my proposed study and mixed about. On a positive note, I have the good sense to recognize the wisdom in Shaffir’s story about the man lost in the woods. I am now engaged in a process of whittling down my options and trying to discern which ones are best suited to my subject, and which paths are proven not to lead out of my particular branch of the woods. I was pretty sure I would use a focus group to raise questions about the problems encountered by multicultural users of library websites – but like some fickle salsa dance partner, I’ve now switched mid-song to cozy up to Contextual Inquiry for that aspect. I know people are tiring of the dance motif (me included) but at this particular moment, I feel as unstructured as someone winging it to some strange and unfamiliar rhythm. However I am discovering that research and its methods are anything but dry and boring.
Dear Lmcphie (I would address you by your first name, but I don’t know it) – I admire your concern for cultures being studied, and your fear or suspicion that the researcher leaves having taken something from them without necessarily giving something back. And yet…. There is a very strong belief in me that just because the researcher gains something, it doesn’t necessarily follow that the cultural group has ‘lost’ anything. In fact, on the model of that old saw “the unexamined life is not worth living”, I might even go as far as saying “the unstudied culture has not fully joined the community of human cultures”, or something like that. I agree that we cannot abrogate the right of members of a culture to tell their own story, in their own way, with their own understandings. And our stories about them should never preclude or negate theirs. Still, doesn’t everyone benefit from getting a window in? Doesn’t the self-reflection that might come from being studied have the potential to enrich a people’s understanding of themselves? Where there have been huge wrongs perpetrated in the past (and one might argue are still going on) one must tread with the utmost care, respect and humility. I think we can all agree on that… but tread we must.
Hi all ... I realize I'm a little late to the Week 6 party, but reading all your posts I couldn't help but come back to the question of 'truth' (yet again). In the case of ethnography I suppose the truth we as researchers would be seeking would be an understanding of the 'other' (or capital 'O' or however it's supposed to be spelled). How knowable is this kind of truth? I don't know. By embedding ourselves in an other culture in order to study it we could probably go a long way to understanding it (more so at least than we could as observers peeking in from the outside), but we could probably never fully understand that culture, with its unique language and worldview, unless it were fundamentally similar to our own. I think all of our academic research methods, whether they be canonical or more the salsa dancing kind, are constituted by a way of observing and knowing the world that is very 'us' (Western, I guess you could say). Which is fair enough -- everyone's got their own way of knowing the world, as long as we understand that our act of observation is helping to shape the world we're observing. But our kind of knowing may be entirely incompatible with other human cultures that may see and know in ways that we with our Western academic methods and all their attendant assumptions couldn’t possibly understand.
I agree and disagree Leslie. It is a very difficult line to straddle. Maybe a lost friendship, that the researcher leaves and leaves a gap in the community. Or in the case of the movie that I watched, I think that the researcher actually caused a dramatic change in behaviour and they now can not go back and relive it to see if the year would have been the same.
Trend we must is perhaps a very Western thought - That we have a right and a need to seek out information. I blame it on the Greeks actually and it has taken years of people smacking me on the head to deconstruct it. I was once taught that I was greedy because I wanted all the answers and I didn't deserve all the answers. It was not ment as a insult, just a elder telling me that I needed to earn some information and other information I didn't ever have a right to know. I tie that to ceremonies and some secrete-sacred object/events that some cultures still practice. There are a few Indigenous tribes that are actually considered "untouched" and it is illegal to approach them. I don't think we are able to deprive them of the ability to have a defined culture just because we haven't yet investigated it, rather I think that it might be a culture that performs outside of our understanding of the 'global community'.
Laura (:P The internet scares me so sometimes I don't put my last name and first together in a log in)
Desiree – you mentioned in your posting earlier whether you “share enough common attributes” with those you are researching and I completely agree that it is a concern. Although my father is a Newfoundlander and I have family there, the resettled communities I am interested in researching are not familiar to me, I am still technically a stranger. However on the flip side there is also the risk of sharing too many attributes which can then taint the research process. The balance I can see is going to be tricky...
1) Luker stresses that ethnography involves gaining acceptance into the group being studied and that to do this the researcher must develop ties and gain trust. This bring up the thorny issue of informed consent. Building relationships involves quite a bit of give and take in which information is exchanged, but what are the limits to openness? Clearly, the ethical guidelines by which the ethnographer navigates suggest that subjects should know enough to be able to give consent, but how much of the research purpose should be shared if it could jeopardize the study? Say an awareness of the purpose could result in the subjects changing their natural behavior either consciously or unconsciously, or close off the researcher's access to the group, what are the limits to openness then? Shaffir says some deception is inevitable, but I'm wondering where is the line is ultimately drawn.
2) It's interesting that Knight dismisses focus groups so completely when he mentions them. I agree with Luker when she says they still have their uses. Certainly problems can undercut their usefulness -- for instance participants deferring to the group consensus or a reluctance to share personal information or feelings – but advantages still exist. The effect of participants reacting to each others' ideas, comments and opinions can map phenomena more expansively and dynamically than is possible with individual interviews, and despite its limited potential to delve deeply the focus group can reveal things worth exploring further.
Re: Leslie's comment: "Rather than a salsa-dancing social scientist, I fear I’m turning into merely a ‘salsa’ social scientist, with a mishmash of methods all chopped up and dumped into my proposed study and mixed about." I knew this class would turn some of you into fellow methods nerds like me :)
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThis week I like the discussion in Luker and Stebbins about "fitting in" and the pitfalls of both "going native" to the point wy to gat abilithen you are so involved as participant that you lose sight of your research focus, or facing exclusion and ostracism which impedes your ability to gather the necessary data for the study. Can "outsiders" effectively enter field sites and glean the rationality of the social and cultural phenomena they observe? If social science has any value at all, that would be it! I think that ethics have a lot to do with ethnography, because researchers have to be reflexive about the reasons why they have chosen this domain and what types of claims they want to make. Trust is a key component of fitting in also, and I like the way that Stebbins expects researchers to be held accountable for their narrative by the study participants.
ReplyDeleteHumility, genuine interest, and an open mind are prerequisites that are discussed when venturing into an unknown domain where you are seeking permission to enter and cooperation from the community.
Hey guys, first of all thanks for joining up with us (previously quasi-experimental)!
ReplyDeleteThis week Luker and Stebbins got me thinking of the benefits/drawbacks of participant-as-observer member vs. nonmember and the difficulties involved with accessing/observing the group.
Luker outlines the initial stages of ethnographic study of member vs. non-member. The issue of access is fairly straightforward, a member gains access easily and a nonmember needs to plan out a method of acceptance. Luker uses the male baboon example to illustrate one method, another being to wait patiently on the outskirts until brought in by a group member. In terms of the issue of access, it is more beneficial to be a member thereby allowing wider access to the group without the stigma of being an observer of the group from the onset.
---My question is, do we have to introduce ourselves as observers if we are already group members? Obviously more of an ethical decision than anything else… more specifically when do we tell group members that we are studying the group?
Secondly, the two texts discuss the observation taking place. Luker points out that a member runs the risk of overlooking some aspects of the group because it appears usual and therefore don’t notice it as ‘rules of the group’ as she puts it. A non-member conversely is overwhelmed with documenting everything that is weird/exotic, thereby generating a lot of data about a group. Stebbin brings up a good point when he says, “Field researchers… are expected to discover and bring to light aspects of the life-style heretofore unknown or hidden.” In this sense it would be more beneficial to be a non-member observer thereby brightening aspects of the group which runs the risk of being overlooked by the member-observer.
---Ultimately, I don’t believe it is so cut and dry but it was interesting to examine the advantages and drawbacks of the two types of observers at different stages in observation.
Personally, for the sake of my research project (on the office of the American First Lady) I am the definition of a non-member: Canadian citizen who’s only political aspirations is to have a clean bill of voting in every election. Let the overzealous note-taking begin! Any have friends of friends of Michelle Obama?
Adding just the right amount of the 'personal' touch (experiences, understandings, assumptions):
ReplyDeleteShaffir demonstrates how to turn bias into an advantage- by having an awareness of one's own personal cultural assumptions, one can come closer to understanding how they might shape your research and perhaps create awareness of how not to shape your research.
I wonder about the role playing and acting. I am worried that I do not share enough common attributes with my demographic group to fit in... however I could work with the technological barriers I have faced and apply my experiences to the study and how I might shape my questions in light of the frustrations or the ease I felt with certain technologies.
How will I throw myself in there? lol. How can I be a part of it and remain removed at the same time? I think I might spend some time trying to get into what Stebbins refers to as 'routine.' I already have my volunteer and work experiences with seniors to draw from. I definitely feel as though I need to spend time with seniors in the study's context to get some ideas about their experiences with technology. I am thinking of maybe doing a little participant observation (PO) even before my focus group now! eep, I keep adding layers and get the impression that is what this course is about. So many things to consider!!!
I read this section while constantly keeping Vine Deloria Jr in mind. He wrote a book titled “Custer Died for Your Sins: A Indian Manifesto” and one of his chapters refers directly to anthropologists and infield observers (“Anthropologists and Other Friends”.) The way he frames it is that the researcher comes to take something from the community, leave with it and then draw a benefit from it. In this criticism he suggests that the relationship is never equal in the encounter and that the researcher and the ‘source’ should be able to find a manner to have mutual satisfaction in the encounter. This positions the scholar as in service to the source community, returning something of equal value to the community that they are expecting to take something from. This is what I was taught was often the fault of infield observation and these readings did not sway me from it. Playing a part to gain trust and only offering enough help to get the objective strikes me as remarkably eurocentric and colonial. Is there a way to do this type of research that is further from that?
ReplyDeleteI really liked the question regarding ethics, and when (or even if) we introduce ourselves as an observer/researcher. I am torn between my understanding of groups, and the notion that people will act differently if they know they are being observed, and my empathy for those who may be taken advantage of by being observed, recorded, and studied without their knowing. As researchers, we want to uncover some spicy details of a group that have yet to be discovered, of course! This is the entire point of ethnographic research. Who cares about discussing aspects of a group if we (society) already know these! But, in order to uncover these details, we must deceive, interpret, and study the group, collecting segments of information that we then aggregate and call 'evidence'. We are now left with the question of how much deception, manipulation, and interpretation are we allowed? If we deceive just a little bit (don't tell the group our real name or profession) is this okay? What if we pretend to be a member (i.e. take on the attributes of that group), is this okay? Where should we draw the line?
ReplyDeleteIn one of the articles (can't remember which one off the top of my head), the author purported that one must maintain a "scientifically proper distance" between themselves and the observed group. This point was particularly humorous because who would dare define such a boundary! If we are already members of a group, this distance would be minimized dramatically, versus if we were non-members edging our way in. This ties in nicely with the abovementioned discussion, as members needn't deceive as much as non-members. Perhaps in order to remain ethical in our ethnographic research we should become members first, then observe.... just a though.
I just had a moment at ImagineNative film festival that nicely line up with this. I was watching a documentary called "Up Heartbreak Hill" by Erica Scharf, that follows the life of three teenagers in Navajo, New Mexico. She was asked about her ethics, how she say her impact on the 'performance' of the teenagers lives, and how they viewed the video. It was interesting watching how she structured herself within the piece and at the same time a bit frustrating. Definitely an example of how infield observation happens currently and a highlight of what the draw backs are.
ReplyDeleteDesiree, I so share your experience of feeling like your research is turning into a layer cake. I figure at this point that I am suffering from some sort of ‘research method envy’ – every new method I read or hear about (Glen Farrelly’s contextual inquiry is just the latest) I want. Rather than a salsa-dancing social scientist, I fear I’m turning into merely a ‘salsa’ social scientist, with a mishmash of methods all chopped up and dumped into my proposed study and mixed about.
ReplyDeleteOn a positive note, I have the good sense to recognize the wisdom in Shaffir’s story about the man lost in the woods. I am now engaged in a process of whittling down my options and trying to discern which ones are best suited to my subject, and which paths are proven not to lead out of my particular branch of the woods. I was pretty sure I would use a focus group to raise questions about the problems encountered by multicultural users of library websites – but like some fickle salsa dance partner, I’ve now switched mid-song to cozy up to Contextual Inquiry for that aspect. I know people are tiring of the dance motif (me included) but at this particular moment, I feel as unstructured as someone winging it to some strange and unfamiliar rhythm. However I am discovering that research and its methods are anything but dry and boring.
Dear Lmcphie (I would address you by your first name, but I don’t know it) – I admire your concern for cultures being studied, and your fear or suspicion that the researcher leaves having taken something from them without necessarily giving something back. And yet…. There is a very strong belief in me that just because the researcher gains something, it doesn’t necessarily follow that the cultural group has ‘lost’ anything. In fact, on the model of that old saw “the unexamined life is not worth living”, I might even go as far as saying “the unstudied culture has not fully joined the community of human cultures”, or something like that. I agree that we cannot abrogate the right of members of a culture to tell their own story, in their own way, with their own understandings. And our stories about them should never preclude or negate theirs. Still, doesn’t everyone benefit from getting a window in? Doesn’t the self-reflection that might come from being studied have the potential to enrich a people’s understanding of themselves? Where there have been huge wrongs perpetrated in the past (and one might argue are still going on) one must tread with the utmost care, respect and humility. I think we can all agree on that… but tread we must.
ReplyDeleteHi all ... I realize I'm a little late to the Week 6 party, but reading all your posts I couldn't help but come back to the question of 'truth' (yet again). In the case of ethnography I suppose the truth we as researchers would be seeking would be an understanding of the 'other' (or capital 'O' or however it's supposed to be spelled). How knowable is this kind of truth? I don't know. By embedding ourselves in an other culture in order to study it we could probably go a long way to understanding it (more so at least than we could as observers peeking in from the outside), but we could probably never fully understand that culture, with its unique language and worldview, unless it were fundamentally similar to our own. I think all of our academic research methods, whether they be canonical or more the salsa dancing kind, are constituted by a way of observing and knowing the world that is very 'us' (Western, I guess you could say). Which is fair enough -- everyone's got their own way of knowing the world, as long as we understand that our act of observation is helping to shape the world we're observing. But our kind of knowing may be entirely incompatible with other human cultures that may see and know in ways that we with our Western academic methods and all their attendant assumptions couldn’t possibly understand.
ReplyDeleteI agree and disagree Leslie. It is a very difficult line to straddle. Maybe a lost friendship, that the researcher leaves and leaves a gap in the community. Or in the case of the movie that I watched, I think that the researcher actually caused a dramatic change in behaviour and they now can not go back and relive it to see if the year would have been the same.
ReplyDeleteTrend we must is perhaps a very Western thought - That we have a right and a need to seek out information. I blame it on the Greeks actually and it has taken years of people smacking me on the head to deconstruct it. I was once taught that I was greedy because I wanted all the answers and I didn't deserve all the answers. It was not ment as a insult, just a elder telling me that I needed to earn some information and other information I didn't ever have a right to know. I tie that to ceremonies and some secrete-sacred object/events that some cultures still practice. There are a few Indigenous tribes that are actually considered "untouched" and it is illegal to approach them. I don't think we are able to deprive them of the ability to have a defined culture just because we haven't yet investigated it, rather I think that it might be a culture that performs outside of our understanding of the 'global community'.
Laura (:P The internet scares me so sometimes I don't put my last name and first together in a log in)
Desiree – you mentioned in your posting earlier whether you “share enough common attributes” with those you are researching and I completely agree that it is a concern. Although my father is a Newfoundlander and I have family there, the resettled communities I am interested in researching are not familiar to me, I am still technically a stranger. However on the flip side there is also the risk of sharing too many attributes which can then taint the research process. The balance I can see is going to be tricky...
ReplyDeleteCatherine Richards
Two things stood out for me this week:
ReplyDelete1) Luker stresses that ethnography involves gaining acceptance into the group being studied and that to do this the researcher must develop ties and gain trust. This bring up the thorny issue of informed consent. Building relationships involves quite a bit of give and take in which information is exchanged, but what are the limits to openness? Clearly, the ethical guidelines by which the ethnographer navigates suggest that subjects should know enough to be able to give consent, but how much of the research purpose should be shared if it could jeopardize the study? Say an awareness of the purpose could result in the subjects changing their natural behavior either consciously or unconsciously, or close off the researcher's access to the group, what are the limits to openness then? Shaffir says some deception is inevitable, but I'm wondering where is the line is ultimately drawn.
2) It's interesting that Knight dismisses focus groups so completely when he mentions them. I agree with Luker when she says they still have their uses. Certainly problems can undercut their usefulness -- for instance participants deferring to the group consensus or a reluctance to share personal information or feelings – but advantages still exist. The effect of participants reacting to each others' ideas, comments and opinions can map phenomena more expansively and dynamically than is possible with individual interviews, and despite its limited potential to delve deeply the focus group can reveal things worth exploring further.
Re: Leslie's comment: "Rather than a salsa-dancing social scientist, I fear I’m turning into merely a ‘salsa’ social scientist, with a mishmash of methods all chopped up and dumped into my proposed study and mixed about." I knew this class would turn some of you into fellow methods nerds like me :)
ReplyDelete