Mini-Ethnography Project:
Part 1: Designing your project
A) Choose a topic: This project is about using ethnographic research to discover the social and cultural factors at work in a group, setting, or event. Choose a group, place or event that is not too familiar to you. Your goal is to gain an emic understanding of your topic and combine this insiders perspective with an etic perspective in your analysis. Examples of questions that might be relevant to your project include:
How is behavior guided by cultural norms that are specific to this setting, event, or group?
Do issues such as gender, class, age, race & ethnicity affect the experiences of individuals in this group/setting/event?
Are there different social groups you observe in this setting, and are there differences in their behavior?
Do power dynamics play a role in this setting, how do they function, and is power determined formally or informally?
What is the physical location like? Does the way it is structured impact behavior?
Will your project require you to inform the people you are observing? If there are any concerns about anonymity you must have the consent of the people you are observing.
B) Do some background research: Find sources to familiarize yourself with your topic and to help formulate research questions. Your final paper must include three quality sources, one of which must be an academic journal, book, or book chapter.
C) Choose the method(s) for your study: Will you observe unobtrusively or participate in the group/activity you are studying? Your methods will depend on what you are studying and what you want to learn from your research. Not all methods are appropriate for every project. All students must conduct interviews. Think carefully about designing your interview questions and the number of people you will interview.
D) Write a proposal: Explain your topic and the methods you plan to use for your research. Proposals should be 150-350 words in length.
Part 2: Doing your research
A) Guidelines: Each student must spend a total of at least two hours doing interviews and making observations. If your project is mostly based on observation and is not focused on a one-time event, you must make at least three visits to your field site.
B) Observation: Take detailed notes as you observe. If you are participating in an activity and cannot take notes during the activity, record your observations as soon as possible. You may want to use video and/or audio recording or photography. Pay close attention to the way people behave and try to determine the rules that govern that behavior. These rules are quite likely not written or verbalized. You may want to describe the location, the weather, music that is playing, what people are wearing, or whatever you feel is relevant.
C) Interviews: Interviewing can be difficult. You will want to think about your questions ahead of time. Questions resulting in simple yes or no answers are not best-suited for ethnographic research. You will want to ask more open-ended questions that encourage and allow your informants to share their knowledge/beliefs about the subject with you. Try to conduct the interview like a conversation. Pay close attention and express interest in what your informant is saying. Ask questions about what they say, get them to expand further. Take notes and/or record your interviews.
D) Write a summary of your progress: This summary should contain a brief discussion of your observations/interviews so far. You do not need to include much interpretation of your data at this point. Your research does not have to be complete by this date, but you must have done some of it.
Your summary should be approximately one double-spaced page in length.
Part 3: Writing your project summary
Write a 1200-2000 word paper that summarizes your project. Your paper should include the following sections:
A background section that places your research in a broader context and includes citations of your sources (citations can be MLA or APA format). This section should constitute less than half of your paper.
A description of your methods
A discussion of your findings
A description of what you would have done differently or recommendations for further research on your topic