Essay - Advantages AND Disadvantages OF Ethnography PDF

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WHAT ARE THE ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF ETHNOGRAPHY AS A RESEARCH METHOD?

For understanding and using Ethnography as a research method, one must define, bifurcate and understand ‘Culture’ and ‘Society’ ! Culture, in it’s true essence and as defined by the MerriamWebster Dictionary, is the “customary beliefs, social forms, and material traits of a racial, religious or social group”. This can be interpreted as how culture varies greatly by looking into the accounts of region, religion, gender, ideologies, sexual orientation, generation, class structures, national formations and ethnicity. ‘Society’ can be understood as the “aggregate of people living together in a more or less ordered community.” They are both complex terms and cannot be defined through a single definition. All the definitions relating to it just gives a broad idea about what constitutes as culture and society.

Ethnographies, broadly stating, helps in identifying and understanding numerous cultures and societies across the world though there are multiple understandings of using it as an approach to research. It originated from the Greek words “ethno” meaning people or nation and “grapho” meaning I write. However, it can be properly defined as a qualitative social science practice that seeks to understand human groups (or societies, cultures, institutions) by having the researcher in the same social space as the participants in the study (Madden, 2010). It provides a holistic approach to the reader about the topic it addresses as it is not a description just for description’s sake, it is more of a detailed analysis of the topic studied to answer questions and form theories and opinions. Ethnography has its origins in the British social anthropology, American cultural anthropology and the qualitative sociology of the Chicago School (O’Reilly, 2009: 3). The key characteristic here is to find the relationship between ‘emic’ (insider’s) and ‘etic’ (outsider’s) perspective. It takes immense effort and planning while conducting a research about the way different people lead different lives. There are various different methods employed in the

conduction of ethnographic research, for instance, focused group interviews, surveys, interviews with participant observation remaining at the core of all these methods so as to understand and study people in their day-to-day socio-cultural environment. Just like everything else in life, nothing is perfect in its true essence and consists of cons with their pros. This essay attempts to understand the Advantages and Disadvantages of Ethnography as a research method with primarily employing the assistance of two ethnographies namely, “Daughters of Tunis” by Paula Holmes-Eber and “Unearthing Gender” by Smita Tewari Jassal. Both of these ethnographies use different methods of conducting research where Holmes-Eber employs surveys and semi-structured interviews with analysing the work through interactionist approach, Jassal does extensive fieldwork and understanding it by meta-ethnography. Both these ethnographies revolve around one common topic - “Representation of women” in relevant society and come under the genre of Feminist Anthropology. This essay attempts to highlight how conducting ethnographies is actually more advantageous with employing surveys and semi-structured interviews than fieldwork as fieldwork might give the idea of representation of a certain group of people but does not give any idea about the discrepancies present within the society and despite all this, how the disadvantages of conducting ethnographic research as a whole cannot be ignored!

The main advantage of employing ethnography as a research method is that it helps in the dissolution of bias and stereotype individuals form towards certain communities. “Never judge a book by its cover”- this statement cannot be truer anywhere other than first looking at the ethnography “Daughter of Tunis” by Paula Holmes-Eber. Tunisia, a country in north Africa and a constituent of the Arab world, one might think how women in this country must be repressed with their basic rights denied and their voices silenced even before they learn to talk, as can be explained by the general stereotype people cater to. But, this ethnography helps in distinguishing and changing overly simplistic, stereotypical views of Muslim women. This gives us an access into

learners' private worlds and provides rich data (Pavlenko, 2002, 2007). This ethnography, broadly, takes in account the lives of four women from different socio-economic backgrounds and assists in understanding how they maintain relationships and maintain their kin. The survey conducted also clears the stigma attached to their education wherein many women were university educated, taking jobs in the government and selecting their own mate. How urbanisation and the pro-western outlook of Bourguibian government became advantageous in promoting women’s agency. The ethnographer deliberately participated in seven distinct and unconnected neighbourhoods to get a cross-sample of women across various socio-economic backgrounds. It mainly highlights the different social strategies women employ in order to survive in different socio-economic societies. She conducted twenty formal taped interviews in French and Arabic with Tunisian women and their male relatives met through her social networks and took a survey of thirty six women across varying socioeconomic status to get in-depth knowledge about married women with unmarried children and their relation and formation of kin networks.

Whereas, looking through the second ethnography, “Unearthing Gender” by Smita Tewari Jassal, which explores the representation of women from the lowest socio-economic background of Indian society present in villages of North India primarily in Purabiya and Bhojpuri speaking countryside namely Eastern Uttar Pradesh and Western Bihar. This book highlights how women express their repressed emotions and desires through the medium of songs and how the urban and so-called upper class is now influenced by Bollywood songs. How the women ask for their basic human rights and hint on various socio-economic challenges faced by them through the lyrics of their songs. Jassal participates in their activities and primarily uses participant observation through her fieldwork. This is advantageous as the use of participant observation enables ethnographers to "immerse" themselves in a setting, thereby generating a rich understanding of social action and its subtleties in different contexts.

Through both these ethnographies, it can be seen how it provides a particular culture a voice which can be read and heard by a wider population. It opens the door to unlimited possibilities, opportunities and perspectives for each and everyone who reads or hears about it. Both the ethnographers strive to provide lucid details about the subjects studied with the accompaniment of pictures.

But, how are the subjects that are studied benefit from it? This can be considered disadvantageous that although it does provide educational value to readers and scholars, it does not necessarily assist the subjects in any way. The women in India are still fighting for their land rights, the way they are harassed in the workplace or mistreated at home. The women in Tunisia are still maintaining their kins and facing hardships in coping with a rapidly increasing global economy.

Another disadvantage or limitation can be the length of time required to conduct the ethnographic studies and social, economic and emotional distress faced by the ethnographer. Holmes-Eber spent one year in Tunisia from 1986-87 and again in 1993. She had to leave her home in the USA and shift to a less developed country. She even sometimes had to face hardships in conducting her surveys as women were not that comfortable in sharing intimate details about their lives to a complete stranger. The same situation was faced by Jassal as women were not at all comfortable in talking about the hardships they faced in everyday situations. The stereotype and hostility faced by the ethnographer can also not be ignored. Holmes-Eber faced bias as being outsider and most of the times, it took immense effort from her side to approach people to complete her survey whereas Jassal faced narrow mindedness of people as she married outside her faith and a lot of people considered the ethnography and research as a payment of her debt and reclamation of her ancestor’s language rather than her research work.

A criticism of ethnography is about the quality of the research conducted, effectiveness of its methodology and veracity of its data collected. Since both the ethnographers were females, they

could not collect males’ perspective in depth which hinders the efficacy of the data collected as male representation is equally important when defining the culture, particular society and the representation of women in it.

No entity exists in this world without its pros and cons, and the same is the situation with ethnography but its value cannot be deterred by it. In conclusion, it can be postulated through the help of these two brilliant works of research that despite having innumerable advantages, the disadvantages of Ethnography as a research method cannot be ignored and conducting surveys gives more variability and representation than conducting fieldwork and focus group interviews. Anthropology depends intensely on this strategy and it has been found to supply a profoundly practical result of the investigation. Had it not been ethnographies, people would never be able to comprehend the diverse cultures and societies that reside in this world.

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REFERENCES

Daughters Of Tunis. (2018). Taylor & Francis. Jassal, S. (2012). Unearthing Gender.

Méndez, M. (2013). Autoethnography as a research method: Advantages, limitations and criticisms. Colombian Applied Linguistics Journal, 15(2), 279–287.Reeves, S., Kuper, A., & Hodges, B. (2008). Qualitative research methodologies: ethnography.

Monica D. Edelstein Edelstein, & Monica D. (2013). A World Full of Women (6 ed.).

Madden, R. (2017). Being ethnographic : a guide to the theory and practice of ethnography (2nd edition.). London: SAGE Publications Ltd.

Huddle, J. (2018, June 25). Advantages & Disadvantages of Ethnographic Research. Retrieved from https://classroom.synonym.com/advantages-disadvantages-ethnographic-research-7603988.html

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