Final Flashcards
1
Q
According to H&A what are the two major styles of ethnographic writing?
A
- thematic and chronological
2
Q
Emic thematic writing
A
- organizing work by theme
- example eating disorders on web (Hammersely & Treseder’s)
3
Q
Etic thematic writing
A
- focus on key analytic issues (use them as headings)
- helps link work with the broader field of literature
- ex: Strong’s work on clinical encounters
4
Q
Blended thematic writing
A
- using both emic and Eric categories to arrange text
- Ex: Agar’s work on heroin users; used emic categories to build etic types: events in progress (etic), coping, getting off, the busy, the rip- off (emic)
5
Q
Chronological writing
A
- organize sections according to a particular chronology or trajectory
- H&A say approach particularly appropriate studies focused on careers, key processes, and developmental cycles
- text and subject have the same trajectory
6
Q
Types and instances
A
- ethnographic writing moves from the case to the type: use vignettes to depict a larger social- cultural reality
- types are theoretical ideals, cases are actual occurrences
- we move from the concrete case to the abstract type in our writing
- writing reflects data collected and analysis (grounded theorizing and analytic indiction)
7
Q
Ethnography and rhetoric
A
- we draw on a # of accepted rhetorical devices to write ethnography
- certain figures of speech (tropes$ to plausibly reconstruct social actors, actions, and settings
- ex: ethos, pathos, logos or credibility, emotion logic, or trust, imagination, consistency
8
Q
Metaphor
A
- all that is is metaphor
- use metaphors judiciously
- test metaphors against data: does it help organization
- metaphor reveals something and conceals something about subject at same time
- master of trips
- Noblit and Hare: way to evaluate metaphors
9
Q
Noblit and Hare: ways to evaluate metaphors
A
Economy, cogency, range
10
Q
Economy
A
- simplicity with which the concept summarizes
11
Q
Cogency
A
Efficient of the metaphor without redundancy, ambiguity, and contradiction
12
Q
Range
A
- capacity of metaphor to draw together diverse domains
13
Q
Classic metaphors:
A
- organic analogy
- systems approach
- structures that function
- webs of significance
- actor network theory
14
Q
Organic analogy
A
- comparison to human body
15
Q
Systems approach
A
- stresses interactive nature and interdependence of external and internal factors in an organization
16
Q
Structures that function
A
?
17
Q
Wens of significance
A
- an individual is bound up in series of symbolic or mythic representations which serve to generate and maintain meaning
18
Q
Actor network theory
A
- everything that exists in the social and natural worlds exist in constantly shifting networks of relationship
19
Q
Synecdoche
A
- a form of representation where the part stands in for the whole
- in ethnographic writing our data are synecdoche of the larger subject
- we select particular features and instances and treat them as characterizing or representing persons, places, and settings
20
Q
Meta- narrative
A
- collect respondents narratives and merge them together
- take their stories and make them into characters in typical social situations
21
Q
Narrative mode
A
- appropriate for ethnographic inquiry
- furnishes meaning and reason to reported events through contextual and procedural representations
- because we are starting other people’s narratives we should become familiar with genres of storytelling
22
Q
Irony
A
ethnographic writing is intrinsically ironic
- we compare and contrast different cultures and world views
- we deal with the familiar and the strange
- use our subjects as a foil for established knowledge
- produce cases that contradict the general rule: hypothesis testing which is positivistic (more concerned with explaining and predicting things than about understanding things)
23
Q
Topos
A
Topoi= “commonplace” in classic rhetoric
- we try to get the reader to agree with us by referring to a widely shared opinion or well known instance (or citing certain papers)
- reference established common ground for our arguments: endorsement of conventional wisdom
- helps situation work on the theoretical comparative, and generic landscape (connect our study with larger issues)
24
Q
Audiences
A
- considering audience is paramount
- write for a variety of audiences (academic, general public, finding agencies, students, teachers)
- different audiences have different ways of reading and evaluating texts
- we have to pay attention to social context when we collect and analyze our data, and when we write our ethnography
25
H&A 3 types of styles
- realist
- confessionalist
- inpressionalist
26
Realist
- the ethnographic account is relatively impersonal and authoritative
27
Confessionalist
- a personal, "how I really did the research" sort of account
28
Impressionalist tale
- ethnographer employs more overt literary decides in evocation of scenes and actions
29
The 'crisis of representation'
- Mid 1980s - associated with a text called Writing Culture
- ethnographic writing privileges a particular vantage or perspective
- a single authorial voice: the privileged anthropological gaze
- led to a radical reappraisal of ethnography by some researchers
30
1983 Boon
- early critiques of ethnographic writing: ethnography reduces cultural diversity by treating all cultures with standardized methods (including writing style)
31
Mannen 1988
- critiques ethnographic writing
- realist, sociological ethnography silences the voices of "others"
- ethnographer only draw on respondents accounts as a means of strengthening their own arguments
- we reproduce the authority of the observer as a dominating form of surveillance and reportage
32
The crisis of the crisis
- got the advocacy of more open and messy texts: move away from single authorial voices, combine writing styles, shift viewpoint
- ironically the single authorial voice is less imposing than the response
- the postmodern turn requires a degree of authorial involvement than hinges on self absorption
33
Autoethnography
- focuses on the voice of the individual author: author is both the subject and the object of inquiry
- H&A advocate analytic autoethnography
34
Analytic autoethnography
- texts explore personal experience with the goal of shedding light on social action and organization
- self reflection as a means of analytic insights
35
Ethnographies in the digital age
- lets us combine data traditionally segmented and reconstituted in textual form
- simultaneously present photos, audio, documents, video, observation
- add commentary and analytic memos
- takes a lot of money and demand different sorts of expertise
36
What is the good life?
- the good is the true
37
A& H the truth
- goals is to produce true accounts of social phenomena
| - ethnography is about producing knowledge, not about politics, advancing causes, and creating policy
38
Research ethics
- rooted in responses to research in WWII
- Nuremberg codes
- medical research had major influence: research ethics codified in Helsinki declaration of 1974
- Hippocrates oath: 5Th century BC: first do no harm
- milgram experiments
39
A&H five issues of ethnographic research (ethics)
- informed consent
- privacy
- harm
- exploitation
- consequences for future research
40
Issues with informed consent
- covert research
- participants forget you're doing research
- rarely tell all people we might observe that we are doing research or tell participants everything about research
- disclosing too much info may make them change their behaviour
- we sometimes give participants the false impression we agree with the views they express
- sometimes disclose to some but not others
- free consent is problematic: ex social science building; if you ask to participate is it free consent
- chief of village?
41
Privacy
- lines between public and private not easy to draw
- once we write about it, what our informants told us in private becomes public
- the right of people to control info about themselves is a concern
- can we use what happened in public place?
42
Harm
- rarely physical, does have consequences which can be difficult to predict
- relationships we form potentially harmful
- ex Vidich and Bensmen on Springdale: able identify high profile community members
- ex Maurice Punch and Darington Hall - didn't like the way he portrayed the school
- participants may be upset of how analysis cheapens their world
- ex Condominas Sat Luk: u.s military use in military against Vietnam
- ex Wolf on the Rebels - member prosecuted expert witness used thesis as testimony
43
Exploitation
What do participants get?
- ex Cannon on women suffering from breast cancer
- flip side: participants found social and emotional support through participation in study
- people suggest pay people for efforts
- ex Howarth angry reactions when tried to pay
- ex Scheper- Hughes : asked $100, she offered $20 and he accepted
44
Consequences for future research
- we are obligated to our colleagues to not spoil the field
| - Becker argued any good study is likely to provoke a hostile reaction
45
4 different ethical orientations
- ethical absolutism
- ethical situationalism
- ethical relativism
- Machiavellianism
46
Ethical absolutism
- some forms of research or behaviours are illegitimate
- no deception, fully informed consent, no invasion of privacy
- ethical standards should be universally applied
47
Ethical situationalism
- what constitutes legitimate behaviour by researcher is a matter judgement of context
- researchers had to assess relative merits and negative aspects of research
- who defines costs and benefits open to judgement
- not a manner of anything goes: should avoid doing things cause harm
48
Ethical relativism
- there is no standard for determining what is and is not legitimate action on part of researcher
- good and bad aspects of value sets, no one value set is better than others
- researchers should fully inform participants and then should follow the value sets of participants
- researchers actions should not transgress the value set of participants
49
Machiavellianism
- ethic be damned
- certain sorts of research are not conductive to standard informed consent
/ conflict methodologys informed consent does not work in research on large economic or state organizations
- those in control manipulate research for own ends, therefore covert research may be essential
50
A & H and ethics
mostly ethical situationism :
- no intrinsically ethical procedures
- self censorship
- how social settings ought to be vs how social settings are
- indeterminacy of confidentiality
- the double edge of exploration
- risk balance against harm
51
Hammersley & Treseder
- eating disorders and the web with emic thematic categories
