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Ethnographic Techniques
Recording data and modes of analysis
Fieldnotes
Fieldnotes are cumulative!
Write
Frequently
Regularly
Systematically
Record
In calendar format
Time
Place
When
How
What
Some practicalities
Materials
Notebook
Dictaphone
Mobile phone
Any other ideas?
(full notes) Computer or hand written?
Head notes
Jottings
Full notes
What to record
First impressions
Sweeping observations
Facts, facts, facts, memory triggers
Pictures, diagrams, charts
Insider sensitivities
Emerging analyses (flashes of insight)
What to record and how
Issues of reflexivity
Significant events
Interviews and groups discussions
And collect data
Intellectual diary
Personal diary
Fieldnotes as audit trailhttp://www.ukassignment.org/daixieEssay/daixieaozhouessay/
Session 4 contd
Beginning analysis
From writing down to writing up
Iterative-Inductive Research and Analysis
Beginning analysis
Flashes of insight
the interplay between a receptive and curious mind and a world explored over time and with diligence
Asking the participants
Keep the key question in sight
SORTING AND ANALYSIS: making some sense of it all
Shuffling data from chronological order into themes, categories, areas
Sorting = dividing, moving classifying
Can be done by hand or computer
Computers can help you sort but not analyse the data
Documents, tapes, diaries, memory etc. are unlikely to be computerised
Sorting
Data can be assigned to categories but should also remain within the rest of the data. Be fully inclusive but not mutually exclusive
Categorise to meet your own demands - and be prepared to change - institutions, people, themes, groups, concepts all count as categories or classifications
Data can be coded within the whole text or can be split up - but avoid divorcing from context.
Use databases, physical segmentation, or both
Beware reification
Analysis
Hypothesis formulation, theory construction, coding, interpretation, (even data collection) are inextricably bound up with one another
Analysis begins ‘in the field’
Coding begins as you write field notes
Indexing and card files (or databases) are useful supplementary tools - in the field as well as later
Bear in mind the needs/demands of analysis as you record - take photos, film, audio tapes, in directed ways, and to enable you to sort and contextualise
WRITING UP
FROM WHAT YOU ‘KNOW’ TO WHAT YOU COMMUNICATE
Do not attempt to communicate everything
Go back to the beginning
Description
The first step may be to describe#p#分页标题#e#
History
Background\setting
Some facts and figures
(from general gathering)
Some findings
Concepts
find concepts which help you make sense of what is going on
Sometimes the analytical concepts will arise from the field
Sometimes you need to develop whole new concepts
Theories
explain, or offer abstract propositions about, an entire society or limited aspects of social life
Theories are adopted and adapted
They summarise and make sense of disparate observations
Don’t get it right get it written!
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