Ethnography Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2750 words

Ethnography - Essay Example Therefore, the degree to which there is a possibility of a researcher becoming a full participant within an experience is dependent partially on the features of the setting under observation. However, a number of ethnographers do not trust that understanding necessitates that they have to be full members of the group under study. In fact, the majority of them have the perception that this must not happen in instances where there is a need of producing a valid, as well as the useful report (Brewer 2000, p.119). These researchers suppose that the ethnographer must attempt being both outsider and insider, thereby remaining on the group's margins socially, as well as intellectually since there is a need for the view of both an outsider while also as an insider. Therefore, there is an emphasis that, apart from seeking to understand, the ethnographer should make an attempt at seeing familiar surrounding as anthropologically strange, the same way someone from another society would see it, t hereby adopting the Martian perspective.The initial yet most significant distinction amongst observational strategies is about the degree to which the observer happens to be a participant in the program activities under study. This is not an easy choice between participation, as well as nonparticipation. The degree of participation happens to be a continuum that varies from complete concentration in the program as a full participant to total separation from the activities under observation thereby assuming a role of a spectator.... of influential policymakers who are at the top, while generating latest analytic insights through the engagement of interactive, team study of often subtle grounds of human difference, along with similarity. Such findings give ethnographers the capability of informing other people of their findings while attempting to derive, for instance, policy decisions or instructional improvements from such a study (Brewer 2000, p.110). Variations within Observational Methods Observational research happens not to be a single thing; rather, the decision of employing field methods when gathering informational data happens to be the initial step within a decision process, which entails a vast number of options, as well as possibilities. When making a choice of employing field methods, this includes a commitment of getting close to the subject under observation with its natural setting, being factual and descriptive when reporting what gets observed, while, at the same time, finding out the viewpoin ts of participants within the domain observed. Once the researcher makes these basic commitments, it is essential to make more decisions concerning which specific observational approaches are suitable for the research setting at hand (Brewer 2000, p.114). Variation within Observer Involvement The initial yet most significant distinction amongst observational strategies is about the degree to which the observer happens to be a participant within the program activities under study. This is not an easy choice between participation, as well as nonparticipation. The degree of participation happens to be a continuum that varies from complete concentration in the program as a full participant to total separation from the activities under observation thereby assuming a role of a spectator. As a