Ethnography: roles and limitations

This week´s articles about ethnography helps us to understand what the roles of ethnographic studies are as well as the limitations of this type of research. 

As Athanases and Heath (1995) and Hammersley (2006) explain, the fact that the roots of ethnography are in Anthropology determines what ethnography is: ¨the understanding of people´s perspectives, perhaps complemented by the study of various sorts of documents" (Hammersley 2006: 4).  Canagarajah refers to this type of research as the "realistic understanding" of a particular situation (1993: 603). 

However, this understanding is, in my opinion never completed for several reasons. The main one relates to subjectivity. In my opinion, the only fact of selecting a methodology as well as the setting and the participants for the study is biased. What Athanases and Heath (1995) say about students they "are cultural members" (267), thus, their opinions and behaviours represent specific samples of a particular culture, can also be applied to researchers and teachers. 

Also, despite one of the stages of Athanases and Heath´s guidelines, namely building rapport, participants in an ethnographic study may feel under pressure or "observed" and "analyzed" by the researcher, so their perspectives and opinions may not be totally honest. This relates to the tension between the emic-epic tension. How could objectivity be measured in ethnographic studies? And how can we promote more objective approaches to ethnography? One possible answer could be to carry out a study between several people instead of just one researcher. 

In the case of Canagarajah, his translations into English from the Tamil language spoken by the students convey a certain degree of "manipulation" as well. These translations, although they may seem an almost imperceptible manipulation could have been revised or contrasted by another person, and so they could have been more objective or, in other words, less personal. 

So, in my opinion, despite these limitations (among others, see , ethnography is a necessary type of research that can support other studies. Ann Mills  (2007) and  Canagarajah (1993) provide examples of how ethnography is useful in education. Actually, although this type of ethnographic studies take a long time, teachers can carry out mini-ethnographic studies right before the class starts. One of my professors at ISU interviewed each of his students (25) before the class started. Students had to complete a very short written interview (or survey) about their study-habits and their previous knowledge as well as about their personal interests and difficulties. Next, we talked to him about it and he got to understand our personalities. The outcomes of that mini-ethnograpy have determined the way he is teaching his class and what he expects us to achieve by the end of the semester. 

As for the political implications of ethnography, as Hammersley says " understanding people does not require sharing their beliefs, or being obliged to offer them support"  (2006: 11) or, on the contrary, reject their ideologies.  So the aims of ethnographic research just relate to understand the context behind a particular situation and do not imply a political position on behalf of the researcher.