Writing Ethnographic Fieldnotes

							Writing Ethnographic Fieldnotes


                    Robert M. Emerson
                        Rachel I. Fretz
                        Linda L. Shaw
What is “ethnographic field research”?
   The study of groups and people as they go
       about their everyday lives, involving:

1. Entering into a social setting to participate in
   the routines, develop relations with
   members, and observe what is happening
    “participant-observation”
2. Writing down in a systematic way your
   observations to produce a textual record of
   your experience
1. Participation
Immerse yourself in others’ social worlds

   Enables you to grasp what is meaningful to
    members
   Gives you access to people’s experiences as
    dynamic processes and interactions
   Allows you to experience for yourself events
    and the limitations/constraints of other’s lives
    that give rise to such experiences
1. Participation
Immersion precludes passive/detached
  observation, meaning:

       DO NOT BE A FLY ON THE WALL!
1. Participation
Immersion involves resocialization

   Becoming subject to their behavioral norms
    and matrix of meanings
   Learning what is required to become a
    member of their social world

e.g. joining a church or religious group and
   studying its beliefs
1. Participation
         The inside-outside distinction

   You cannot become a “natural” member
   Participation as an ethnographer is always
    transient, and never as committed or
    constrained as a natural member
   The act of researching and writing is
    marginalizing, ensuring that you will
    certainly remain an outsider in some small
    way
2. Creating a written account
   Transforming and reducing a passing
    event that exists at a certain point in time
    into a permanent record, this involves
    selection!
   There is no single or accurate way to write
    one’s observations of an event because of
    differences in perception and interpretation
   3 accounts of a supermarket express lines,
    each begins with a different perspective that
    compels them to make different choices on
    what to emphasize, marginalize, omit
2. Creating a written account
     Ethnographers take a stance in writing
                    fieldnotes

   A stance is an orientation towards that topic
    of study
   One’s stance can be a theoretical discipline,
    or a system of personal/moral beliefs, or
    political orientation
   One’s stance will influence which interactions
    draw your attention, and the way you frame
    them
2. Creating a written account
     Social interactions in natural settings are
       multichanneled while writing is linear

   It is impossible for one observer to record or
    notice everything in a scene
   Must chose which dimensions of an event you
    would like to record
   an ethnographer who does not know the
    language of a social setting can still benefit
    from his/her understanding of non-verbal
    cues
2. Creating a written account
    Methods and Findings are inextricably linked

   An ethnographer’s data is a product of the
    methods used, it is not just “objective data”
   Any single situation consists of multiple
    realities, one method will lead to one aspect
    of this reality
   Fieldnotes should account for this limitation
2. Creating a written account
      Indigenous vs. preconceived meanings

   Understand what an experience means to
    those experiencing it, and preserve these
    indigenous meanings
   Personal reactions or preconceived concepts
    should be marginalized, as they hinder your
    understanding of indigenous meanings
   Do not entirely deny personal reactions but
    compare and contrast them to indigenous
    responses
2. Creating a written account
              Ethical Considerations

   Immersion may involve intimate relationships
    with people, is it a betrayal of trust or
    invasion of privacy to record their
    experiences textually
   Does full disclosure of research intentions
    relieve the ethnographer from ethical
    concerns?
2. Creating a written account
            An alternative perspective

   Ethnographers have no obligation to disclose
    research intentions to subjects
   Social life involves one’s consent to be
    observed, by either by-standers or social
    researchers
   All social beings dissemble their lives,
    maintaining separate public and privates
    spheres
2. Creating a written account
            Ethical Considerations

  Some may see ethnographic research as an
     invasion of one’s intimate and private
                  experiences.


   ? Is this justified by the claim that this
       research serves the greater good?
Participating in order to write
   Record initial impressions
    - environment: tastes, smells, sounds,
    sights, spatial details, colors
    -people: gender, class, race, appearance,
    dress, interactions with one another, tone,
    mannerisms
   Record dialogue verbatim rather than as
    summarized dialogue
Participating in order to write


   Pay attention to what members react to as
    meaningful or interesting

   Account for the fact that indigenous
    meanings are not static, they are inextricable
    from when, where, and from whom they
    were discovered
Participating in order to write


   Keep your range of interests broad: if you
    observe a single situation, be open to
    observing others of a similar type

   Keep in mind that exceptions to a pattern
    that you’ve observed can buttress your
    argument, try to discover what conditions led
    to such an exception
Participating in order to write


   Avoid making unqualified generalizations
    e.g. “She wasn’t a talker” as opposed to
        “She didn’t say very much”
   Avoid making inferences about a person’s
    motivations or internal thoughts
   Make note of what someone says, and how
    they say it, but not why
Participating in order to write means….


        Orienting yourself to see events and
       interactions as potential written records
The process of jotting notes
   Concentrate on a remembered scene more
    than on single words which can narrow your
    attention to the entire scene after the fact
   Record as much detail as quickly as possible
   Save evaluation and editing of the scene until
    you have written all the details you can
    remember, your notes should be as
    spontaneous as the interactions you are
    observing