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European Journal of Business &

Social Sciences

Available at https://ejbss.org/

ISSN: 2235-767X

Volume 07 Issue 02

February 2019

Available online:https://ejbss.org/ P a g e | 649

Ethnography Research: An Overview

*Chiranjit Sarkar

**Deepak Kumar

*Research Scholar, Dept. of Education, Maharshi Dayanand University Rohtak, Haryana

mailme.chiranjitsarkar@gmail.com

** Research Scholar, Dept. of Education, Maharshi Dayanand University Rohtak, Haryana

deepaksharma2890@gmail.com

ABSTRACT

The one of the major approaches of the Qualitative Research is Ethnography, sometimes known as

Cultural Anthropology or sometimes called as Naturalistic Enquiry. Its disciplinary origin is

Anthropology. Ethnography deals with the discovery and description of culture of a group or group of

individual. As the concept of culture is the central theme of Ethnography Research; that’s why the

question raised from this point of view is that what the Cultural characteristics of a group of individuals

are? Here Culture means the system of norms and standards that a society develops over the courses of

many generations. Ethnography research helps to search very complicated or complex deign

challenges. A tremendous and effective researcher is needed when he or she is viewing or observing or

interacting with target population in their real-life situation. Ethnography Research is a one of the most

important qualitative research where researcher observe or interact with the target population and

researcher plays an important role to obtain useful cultural information that’s why Ethnography

research is known as cultural ethnography or cultural anthropology. This kind of research is a part of

social science research. We knows there are several forms of Ethnography research. As for example,

confessional Ethnography research, life history Ethnography research, feminist Ethnography research,

realist Ethnography research, critical Ethnography research etc. Out of the several form of Ethnography

research, the two most common and popular form of Ethnography research are “Realist Ethnography

Research” and “Critical Ethnography Research”. The “Realist Ethnography Research” is sometimes

known as traditional Ethnography research whereas the critical Ethnography research is concerned with

those group or group of individuals who are marginalized in society. The toughest activity of

Ethnography research is the researcher should play as a member of the target population and spent

several months even if several years with target population or group. Therefore, Ethnography research

not only a qualitative research but also it is a longitudinal research.

Introduction

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European Journal of Business &

Social Sciences

Available at https://ejbss.org/

ISSN: 2235-767X

Volume 07 Issue 02

February 2019

Available online:https://ejbss.org/ P a g e | 650

The one of the best major approaches of Qualitative Research is Ethnography, sometimes known as

Cultural Anthropology or sometimes called as Naturalistic Enquiry. Its disciplinary origin is

Anthropology. Ethnography deals with the discovery and description of culture of a group. As the

concept of culture is the central theme of Ethnography Research. That’s why the question raised from

this point of view is that what the Cultural characteristics of a group of individuals are? Here, Culture

means the system of norms and standards that a society develops over the courses of many generations.

Culture is as people do, a combination of various types of knowledge, believe, custom, art, moral ,laws,

habit, attitude of mind, the pattern of human activity, literature, language, religion, religious activity,

transmitted from person to person, transmitted from generation to generation, consist of everything we

think, consist of all efforts and adjustment, gratifying quality, continuous process, accumulative, inter

connected with each other, changing and dynamic, vary from one society to other society etc. That’s

why culture and society are one and same. Ethnography research helps to search very complicated or

complex deign challenges. A tremendous and effective researcher is needed when he or she is viewing

or observing or interacting with target population in their real-life situation. Ethnography Research is a

one of the most important qualitative research where researcher observe or interact with the target

population and researcher plays an important role to obtain useful cultural information that’s why

Ethnography research is known as cultural ethnography or cultural anthropology. This kind of research

is a part of social science research.We knows there are several forms of Ethnography research. As for

example confessional Ethnography research, life history Ethnography research, feminist Ethnography

research, realist Ethnography research, critical Ethnography research etc. Out of the several form of

Ethnography research, the two most common and popular form of Ethnography research are “Realist

Ethnography Research” and “Critical Ethnography Research”. The “Realist Ethnography Research” is

sometimes known as traditional Ethnography research whereas the “Critical Ethnography Research” is

concerned with those group or group of individuals who are marginalized in society. The toughest

activity of Ethnography research is the researcher should play as a member of the target population and

spent several months’ even if several years with target population or group. Therefore, Ethnography

research not only a qualitative research but also it is a longitudinal research. Ethnography research is

usually a systematic research or study of the group and their culture. The characteristics of

Ethnography research are to explain the “cultural phenomena” where the ethnographic researcher

accurately observes the society from the viewpoint of the subject. Its aim is to observe a situation

which is unique, which is original, and which is natural. The names of some eminent contributor of

Ethnography research are E. B. Tylor, Lewis H. Morgan, Franz Boas, Bronislaw Malinowski, Ruth

Benedict and Margaret Mead etc.

Forms of the Ethnography Research

There are several forms of Ethnography research. As for example confessional Ethnography research,

life history Ethnography research, feminist Ethnography research, realist Ethnography research, critical

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European Journal of Business &

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ISSN: 2235-767X

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February 2019

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Ethnography research and so one. Out of the several forms of Ethnography research, the two most

common and popular form of Ethnography research are- I. Realist Ethnography Research

II. Critical Ethnography Research.

I. The Realist Ethnography research is sometimes known as traditional Ethnography

research. It is used by cultural anthropologist. It is designed by VanMaamen. The main

consideration of this type of research is individual out of the group that’s why this kind

of research is known as objective cum traditional cultural Ethnography study.

II. Whereas the Critical Ethnography research is concerned with those group or group of

individuals who are marginalized in society. On the other side critical Ethnography

researcher is critical cum political because he takes a stand of opposition to

disadvantage section of our society with special reference to schedule cast and schedule

tribe. We know very well that according to national policy on education 1986 the

schedule cast and schedule tribe section are considered as one of the chief disadvantage

section in India. As the name suggests critical Ethnography research the researcher faces

lots of critical situation when researcher interacts with tribe and tribal community and

obtained useful information. Here researcher should have versatility of intellect to

formulate inductive hypothesis. It means inductive hypothesis is considering making a

relationship between observed situation and real situation. During the research the

researcher can modify or alter inductive hypothesis according to the situation or

according to the researcher’s opinion. The toughest activity of Ethnography research is

the researcher should play as a member of the target population and spent several

months even if several years with target population or group. Therefore, Ethnography

research is not only a qualitative research but also it is a longitudinal research.

Characteristics of the Ethnography Research

There are several characteristics of the Ethnography Research out of which some important

characteristics are described below- I. Ethnography researcher or ethnographer generally spent year or more in order to study about

cultural aspect of a group or a society.

II. The Ethnography research is considered as popular because it is a “fully immersive live and

work approach”.

III. We often argue that if “immersive live and work” Ethnography research is held on require

within the field of “User-Centered Design” (UCD) or “User Driven Development” (UDD) in

which researcher is given “intensive attention” at each stage of the design process.