Learning to Look and Listen

 Learning How To Look: "Deep Observation" and "Thick Description":

THE ETICS

• Beginner's Mind (assume you know nothing and look at everything with fresh eyes)
• Take your time (hang out at your site at different times so your images are representative of the site)
• Look for the unusual in the usual
• Describe everything in as much detail as possible, you never know what will be important later.
• look everywhere: up, down, sideways.

Click here for a great article on looking by a photographer and writer.

What to Jot about:

                                                                 Notes

• observations
• impressions
• personal feelings
• tentative explanations
• behaviors
• body language
• sketches of places
• words (vocabulary)
• scents, sounds

Students need to make a distinction between what they OBSERVE and how they INTERPRET what they observe (keep them separate---the whats and the whys)

                                                                       Updated Notes

How to do it:

• be flexible, what you planned on taking notes on may be less interesting than what is in front of you
• be sensitive to people 
• include informants in jottings/interact
• frame what you are doing in a positive and non intrusive way 
• be selective about when to take notes
• Ethics
• ensure confidentiality (pseudonym or coding) and omit sensitive information
• be upfront about what you are doing

What to write

• terse, evocative phrases
• short quotes or phrases hat seem important (note time on recording)
• maps and sketches
• gestures, flavors, shouts, whispers, and all first impressions
• distinguish between WHAT you saw and tasted and heard (objective) and HOW you interpreted these things (subjective).
• do not impute MOTIVE (describe what you see and hear instead)
• do not make guesses or judgments
• describe observed behavior in as much detail as possible (don't use vague descriptions of mental states or attitudes).

                                                          More Notes

Writing Up Your Fieldnotes

• write up your notes ASAP so you do not forget things
• headnotes (fill in the jottings)
• keep a separate journal of your emotional responses (optional)

Doing Ethnographic Interviews:

THE EMIC...

• Session 1: get comfortable with each other and establish rapport
• get comfortable
• no right answers
• answer questions and explain project
• demonstrate a non-judgmental attitude and establish trust
• Sessions which follow: subsequent sessions give informant a chance to reflect
• do not read off a list of questions
• avoid directed questions, let informant speak until they are finished
• remember it is your interviewee's story (not the projects)
• ethics:
•  ensure anonymity that is important to informant
• be prepared to leave out information which is damaging
• Neutral Topic
• start interviews with neutral (easy) topics
• avoid ASSUMPTIONS and EXPECTATIONS
• Cultural differences and miscommunication
• Do not take the meaning of words, phrases or gestures for granted-even if you know them!
• Process
• develop rapport
• apprehension (emphasize the importance of THEIR story)
• explanation (restate what the informant says for confirmation)
• cooperation (equal partners)
• participation (interviewee as teacher)
• Breaks in Interview
• avoid leading questions

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Steps to Creating a Research Design

• usually begin with abroad research question, but this question must be clearly articulated and carefully linked to the methodology of the research itself.
• Research question usually emerges from observations gathered from informal visits to the fieldsite
• linked to the process of exploration/modified in the field
• good question centers around interests of the larger research community if possible
• research NARROWLY and think BROADLY
• read and think deeply about prior work
• think historically
• do a thorough literature review
• something you are DEEPLY CURIOUS ABOUT
• requires lengthly period of engagement, based on participant observation,  entailing a significant commitment of time, emotion and energy.

Selecting a Group or Activity or Topic to Study

• must always explain what you mean by "community"
• group size depends on the community or activity you are studying
• ethnography or ethnology?
• traditional or autoethnography?

Scope of the Fieldsite

• single site (traditional)
• focused
• multi-sited ethnography (more illustrative of the post globalization world). 
• sites trace linkages: people, artifact, behaviors across national boundaries.
• online and offline
• follow the behavior rather than be constrained by a physical boundary

Ethnography is Embedded and Embodied

• Understanding how to behave within social groupings is the first and most important task of the ethnographer entering a fieldsite. 
• specialized knowledge: language, religion, food traditions, politeness rules, gender distinctions, etc. are all part of necessary knowledge. 
• in-person interaction is more productive (easier to get information).
• participant observation is the bedrock of ethnography