subject: Ethnography is the Study of a Particular Human Society or the Process of Making [print this page] Ethnography is the Study of a Particular Human Society or the Process of Making
Ethnography is the study of a particular human society or the process of making such a study. Contemporary ethnography is based almost entirely on fieldwork and requires the complete immersion of the anthropologist in the culture and everyday life of the people who are the subject of his study. Ethnography, by virtue of its inter subjective nature, Cartier Replica is necessarily comparative. Given that the anthropologist in the field necessarily retains certain cultural biases, his observations and descriptions must, to a certain decree. be comparative. I Luis the formulating of generalizations about culture and the drawing of comparisons inevitably become components of ethnography.
Modern anthropologists usually identify the establishment of ethnography as a professional field with the pioneering work of the Polish-born British anthropologist Hronislaw Ma linowski in the Trobriand Islands of Melanesia. Ethnographic fieldwork has since become a sort of rite of passage into the profession of cultural anthropology Manx ethnographer; reside in the field for a year or more, learning the local language or dialect and, to the greatest extent possible, participating in everyday life while at the same lime maintaining an observer's objective detachment.
This method, called participant-observation, while necessary and useful for gaining a thorough understanding of a foreign culture, is in practice quite difficult. Just as the anthropologist brings to the situation certain inherent, it unconscious, cultural biases, so also is he influenced by the subject of his study. While there are cases of ethnographers who felt alienated or even repelled by the culture they entered, many perhaps most - have come to identify closely with "their people", a factor that affects their objectivity. In addition to the technique of participant-observation, the contemporary ethnographer usually selects and cultivates close relationships with individuals, known as informants, who can provide specific information on ritual, kinship, or other significant aspects or cultural late. In this process also the anthropologist risks the danger of biased viewpoints, as those who most willingly act as informants frequently are individuals who are marginal to the group and who may provide other than objective explanations of cultural and social phenomena. A final hazard inherent in ethnographic fieldwork is the ever-presentBreitling Replica possibility of cultural change produced by or resulting from the ethnographer's presence in the group.
Contemporary ethnographies usually adhere to a community, rather than individual, focus and concentrate on the description of current circumstances rather than historical events. Traditionally, commonalities among members of the group have been emphasized, though recent ethnography has begun to reflect an interest in the importance of variation within cultural systems. Ethnographic studies are no longer restricted to small primitive societies but may also focus on such social units as urban ghettos. The tools ot the ethnographer have changed radically since Malinowski's time. While detailed nous are still a mainstay of field-work, ethnographers have taken full advantage of technological developments such as motion pictures and tape recorders to augment their written accounts.
